When victory came, some women were more than ready to return to domestic life, but even those who wanted or needed to continue working found their options severely limited as men returned home and demands for war materials decreased. Moreover, despite her confident attitude and capabilities, she was only a temporary aberration, eager to give up her welding goggles and steel-toed boots for domestic bliss at the war’s end. “Rosie” might have taken on new roles riveting airplanes or producing munitions, countless posters, films, and newsreels, but she remained feminine with manicured nails, carefully applied lipstick, and styled hair. The federal government and industrial leaders attempted to reassure a skeptical public and limit the potentially radical gender changes that women’s work posed by casting them as patriotic and necessary and by portraying women workers as the epitome of femininity. Especially for white, middle-class families, these working women threatened to uproot the prevailing ideal of male providers and female homemakers and caretakers. Many Americans were also troubled by women who earned their own wages and spent time away from the supervision of family. Employers attempted to preserve a measure of the prewar gender order by separating male and female workers and paying women less wages. Male coworkers interpreted the completion of physically demanding and skilled tasks by women as encroachment on “their” work, and some men responded with harassment and resistance towards their female counterparts. Most women labored in the clerical and service sectors where women had worked for decades, but the wartime economy created job opportunities for women in heavy industry and wartime production plants that had traditionally belonged to men. The federal government and wartime industries insisted that these women were key to victory, but working women presented several challenges to most understandings Americans had of the proper roles of women and men. More married women than single women participated in the workforce during World War II many of them were mothers. For many Americans, Rosie is a strong and self-assured woman rolling up her denim shirtsleeve to reveal her right bicep as she confidently exclaims “We Can Do It!” She was one of 19 million women who worked for wages during the war, five million of them for the first time. Wartime gender changes for women are encapsulated by one of the most popular icons of the war, Rosie the Riveter. All of these changes led Americans to rethink their ideas about gender, about how women and men should behave and look, what qualities they should exhibit, and what roles they should assume in their families and communities. Wartime needs increased labor demands for both male and female workers, heightened domestic hardships and responsibilities, and intensified pressures for Americans to conform to social and cultural norms. World War II changed the lives of women and men in many ways on the Home Front. Top Image Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration.
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