1. Section 3 – Women and the War

2.  Objectives  Explain why new kinds of jobs opened up for women in WWII.  Compare the benefits and problems that women workers experienced.  Describe what happened to women workers at the end of the war.  Main Idea  During WWII, more American women went to work in nontraditional, war-industry jobs, but they were discouraged from keeping those jobs after the war ended.

3.  Prior to WWII most women who worked were young and single.  Socially unacceptable for married women to work (polled people 82% said it was unacceptable)  WWII brought women into new high paying areas of work force; airplane plants, shipyards, riveters, steelworkers, welders

4.  OWI launched recruitment campaigns aimed at women who normally would not work (older and married)  Campaign said “patriotic duty” to work for war effort  Number of women working rose 1/3  Made up 35% of work force  Extremely successful with married/older women

5.  Most women were pleased to be employed  Benefits of employment for women  Money  Challenge  Sense of Accomplishment/Pride both for war and for themselves  African American women still faced many prejudices but improved their chances for employment during WWII (from 6.8 to 18 percent)

6.  Many obstacles in workplace for women  Hostile reactions from other workers, males especially  Leaving children at home without day-care centers  Women often were paid much less than men and had less seniority (typically advanced less overall)

7.  Assumed women would leave their wartime occupations after the war.  Pressures to return to the home were intense  New campaign by the government encouraged women to leave their jobs after the war  Twice as many women lost jobs overall