Women in the world wars

thumb|David McLellan - Interior of a ward on a British Ambulance Train in France during World War I

During both world wars, women were required to undertake new roles in their respective national war efforts. Women across the world experienced severe setbacks as well as considerable societal progress during this timeframe. The two world wars hinged as much on industrial production as they did on battlefield clashes. While some women managed to enter the traditionally male career paths, women, for the most part, were expected to be primarily involved in "duties at home" and "women's work," especially after the wars were over. Nursing became one of the most popular professions in military employment during these years. In Asia, women's labor in the cotton and silk industries became essential for the economy. Before 1914, few countries, including New Zealand, Australia, and several Scandinavian nations, had given women the right to vote (see Women's suffrage). Still, otherwise, women were minimally involved in the political process. Women's participation in WWI fostered the support and development of the suffrage movement, including in the United States.

During the Second World War, women's contributions to industrial labor in factories located on the home front kept society and the military running while the world was in chaos. At the same time, women faced a significant amount of abuse during this time; the Japanese military systematically raped women across Asia, and Jewish women were physically abused, raped, and murdered in German concentration camps across Europe.

The participation of women in the world wars catalyzed the later recruitment of women in many countries' armed forces. Women's involvement in these wartime efforts exposed their commitment to serving their country and preserving national security and identity.

The war years opened new job categories and promoted some mobility for Black women. For example, many migrated from the rural South to urban areas to work in factories. Between 1940 and 1944, the proportion of Black women in domestic service and farm work decreased significantly as they moved into industrial jobs, with the number of Black women in industrial occupations rising from 6.5% to 18%. By 1914 nearly. 5.09 million out of the 23.8 million women in Britain were working. Thousands worked in munitions factories (see Canary Girl, Gretna Girls), offices, and large hangars to build aircraft. Many women worked as volunteers serving at the Red Cross, encouraged the sale of war bonds, or planted "victory gardens."

The First World War allowed women in Great Britain to participate in the workforce, including assembly lines. In Great Britain, this was known as a process of "Dilution" and was strongly contested by the trade unions, particularly in the engineering and shipbuilding industries. However, the extent of this change is open to historical debate. In part because of female participation in the war effort, Canada, the United States, Great Britain, and several European countries extended suffrage to women in the years after the First World War.

British historians no longer emphasize the granting of woman suffrage as a reward for women's participation in war work. Historian Martin D. Pugh argues that senior politicians primarily determined women's suffrage. The suffragettes had been weakened, Pugh argues, by repeated failures before 1914 and by the disorganizing effects of war mobilization; therefore, they quietly accepted these age-related restrictions, which were approved in 1918 by a majority of the War Ministry and each political party in Parliament. More generally, G. R. Searle (2004) argues that the British debate was essentially over by the 1890s and that granting suffrage in 1918 was primarily a byproduct of voting for male soldiers. Women in Britain finally achieved suffrage on the same terms as men in 1928.

thumb|Nurses and wounded soldiers in an Austro-Hungarian military hospital, 1918

Nursing became almost the only area of female contribution that involved being at the front and experiencing the war. In Britain, Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps, First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, and Voluntary Aid Detachment started before World War I. The VADs were not allowed in the front line until 1915.

`In other European countries, such as in the 1918 Finnish Civil War, more than 2,000 women fought in the paramilitary Women's Red Guards. The only belligerent to deploy female combat troops in substantial numbers was the Russian Provisional Government in 1917. Its few "Women's Battalions" fought well but failed to provide the expected propaganda value and were disbanded before the end of the year.

Women living in present-day Slovakia, under the rule of the Habsburg monarchy at the time of the First World War, only sometimes upheld the pro-war attitude that dominated central Europe. Furthermore, their dissenting attitudes towards war heightened, especially when members of their own families, such as their husbands, were conscripted into the army. Without the efforts of women, tens of thousands of men needed at the front would have been tied to jobs in agriculture, industry, and home-front military and not available for wartime service, and the success of America's military effort may have been in the balance. Every housewife in the U.S. was asked to sign a pledge card that had to food and assignments completed.

Thousands of women in the United States formed and/or joined organizations that worked to bring relief to the war-torn countries in Europe, even before official American entry into the war in April 1917. Everyone contributed to the efforts of the war regardless of their social class. Upper-class women were the primary founders and members of voluntary wartime organizations, mainly because they could afford to devote much of their time and money to these efforts. Middle- and lower-class women also participated in these organizations and drives, although they were more likely to serve as nurses in the military or replace men in their jobs on the home front as the men went off to war. For the first time in American history, women from every part of the class spectrum were serving in the war in some capacity.

right|thumb|The [[United States Navy began accepting women for enlisted service during World War I]]

There were many tasks and jobs that the women did that went unaccounted for in history because they mainly focused on the contribution of the men in the war. Women in World War I revealed the vast jobs that they did, such as enlisting in the navy, army, and factory jobs. They became members of the social welfare program entitled the American Red Cross. They assigned duties that would help out the soldiers that were overseas, such as organizing bloods drives, giving vaccinations, and packaging food. Women worked locally within their state by aiding traveling soldiers and raising money to support the war efforts. Furthermore, women serving for the American Red Cross also had the opportunity to serve in Europe, where the war was mostly taking place. Abroad, these women worked as nurses, recreational volunteers, chemists, and more.Over 12,000 women were enlisted in auxiliary roles in the United States Navy and Marine Corps during the First World War.

Asia

Thousands of migrants came from Asia to Europe during WWI in order to assist with the war efforts in Great Britain, with approximately 92,000 war workers coming from China alone. European powers relied on a male labor force in winning the war, thus leaving families divided at home. Women were given paramilitary training in small arms, drill, first aid and vehicle maintenance in case they were needed as home guards.

World War II

thumb|In many nations women were encouraged to join female branches of the armed forces or participate in industrial or farm work.

The United States

thumb|A wing bulkhead being drilled at [[Consolidated Aircraft Corporation in Texas, October 1942]]

During WWII, 6 million women were added to the workforce, resulting in a major cultural shift. With the men fighting in the wars, women were needed to take on responsibilities that the men had to leave behind.

Women in World War II took on various roles from country to country. World War II involved global conflict on an unprecedented scale; the absolute urgency of mobilizing the entire population made the expansion of the role of women inevitable. Rosie the Riveter became an emblem of women's dedication to traditional male labor. By 1945, more than 2.2 million women worked in war industries, especially in munitions plants. According to historian D’Ann Campbell, “Between 1942 and 1945, 140,000 women served in the WACs, 100,000 in the WAVES, 23,000 in the Marines, 13,000 in the SPARS, and 74,000 in the Army and Navy Nurse Corps”. Women became officially recognized as a permanent part of the U.S. armed forces after the war with the passing of the Women's Armed Services Integration Act of 1948.

Out of one million African Americans serving in WWII, 600,000 of them were women. Four thousand women served in the Women's Army Corps, and 330 served as nurses. African-American women fought for African-American rights through media, social activism, etc.

The media representation of their efforts, such as the film The Six Triple Eight, highlights the bravery and dedication of the Black WACs, whose contributions were often overlooked in mainstream narratives. Their service during WWII not only shaped the course of the war but also paved the way for future generations of Black women in both military and civilian careers. Specifically, industrial labor became more common among black females, as black female employment in the industrial sector increased by 11.5% during this time. Many women served in the major government organizations such as the OSS. These operations were mainly used as counterintelligence and spying sorts of activity. Such is the case in Operation Sauerkraut, where women were used in Allied POW camps to convert German and Czech POWs into Allied propaganda machines and then would be sent back over the lines and into Germany.

Women were used quite frequently in many roles during and in the French Resistance towards Nazi oppression with roughly 12% of all resistance fighters being women.

The French Forces of the Interior (FFI) began to see the importance of using women during the war and thus many gender roles and standards were dropped to accompany these new demands for participants in the resistance.

Women in groups such as the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) also helped aid the resistance fighters by supplying firearms, ammunition, and other important resources to the cause and resistance. Even so, the Nazi regime declared the role of women in German society to strictly fall along the lines of motherhood. Yet, the role of motherhood was only offered to white, German blooded women because the Nazi regime promoted the sterilization of women for “reasons of racial hygiene”.

Asia

thumb|[[Javanese people|Javanese girls liberated by Australian troops from a Japanese brothel in Koepang, Timor, 2 October 1945]]

Women, called comfort women, were forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army before and during World War II. In other words, the comfort women were a part of a systematic rape used by Japan, especially among the armed forces in the Second World War. The Japanese Imperial Army based these women within “Comfort Stations” near the battlefields in order to have sex with them. Okamura Yasuji ordered Okabe Naosaburo, a senior member of the Japanese military, to create comfort stations with the idea that it would help prevent Japanese soldiers from raping civilians. In recent years, political elites in Japanese society have denied the systematic rape of the comfort women during the World War II period, including former Japanese Prime Minister Abe. Despite recent controversy over this topic in Japanese politics and education, numerous researchers have proven that Japanese Comfort Women were subjected to sexual slavery and should be recognized for their unjust treatment. A shortage of male recruits forced the military to establish female branches in 1941 and 1942.

Canada

thumb|Members of the [[Canadian Women's Army Corps in August 1944]]

Canadian women in the world wars became indispensable because these were total wars that required the maximum effort from the civilian population. Canadian women participated in many ways to contribute to the war efforts. There were also many Canadian Jewish women that had served in World War II. In fact, there were about 50,000 Canadian Jewish women that served in the Canadian military during World War II. Some Canadian Jewish women did office work in the military and others did medical work for the military to help the wounded.

References

External links

Grayzel, Susan R.: Women’s Mobilization for War, in: 1914–1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War.
Women of World War I The Women of World War I (from the book "War and Gender").
Railwaywomen in Wartime British women's work on the railways in both world wars – photos and text.
WWII US women's service organizations — History and uniforms in color (WAAC/WAC, WAVES, ANC, NNC, USMCWR, PHS, SPARS, ARC and WASP)
The U.S. Army Nurse Corps a publication of the United States Army Center of Military History
Women soldiers in Polish Home Army
Women in World War II Fact Sheet Statistics on the many roles of American women in World War II

Women in the world wars

Asia

World War II

The United States

Asia

Canada

See also

References

Further reading

Women on the homefront

Women in military service

External links