History 1C: Lecture 13

Mobilizing Women for War

I. World War II

A. Final shock to European dominated system

B. Fought throughout the world

C. Increased standard of living in core nations

1. technology

2. medicine

3. positive impact on groups that had been oppressed before the war

II. Mobilizing women for war

A. Germany and US

1. War directly related to social change

2. similarities of gender system and role of propaganda in both countries

B. During war unemployed find work

1. men drawn off to fight the war

2. women needed to maintain labor force

C. Society had to change concept of woman so they could move into heavy industry

D. German's Concept of "womanly work"

1. some occupations fit woman's nature

a. agriculture

b. medicine

c. dentists for women patients

2. Women could participate in all kinds of work

a. sacrifice for common good

3. Emphasized health, strength and physical fitness

4. Has room for non-traditional roles with this emphasis on sacrifice and strength

E. US was more successful getting women in labor force

F. Germans have POWs for slave labor to replace men

G. Neither felt that enough people had been mobilized

III. Germany failed to mobilize as many women

A. Thought they would win war quickly

B. Ambivilance in leadership about appropriateness of hiring women

C. Nazi women's orgs. in charge of prop. to mobilize women

1. have little power

2. low priority for propaganda

D. Material rewards for women working less than in US

E. Many sectors of pop. resist efforts to mobilize for work

F. Propaganda much the same as before war

1. emphasized agriculture and labor brigades

2. not many images of factory work

3. Nazis didn't make use of potetnial inherent in prewar propaganda to mobilize women

IV. US

A. Women encouraged to go to work

B. Especially middle class women

C. Persuade housewives to take up war work

D. Concerted national campaigns to get women to take up war work

E. Also organized advertising industry to sell war

F. Advertisers contributed space and copy to the effort

G. Women not always shown as feminine--shown as strong

H. Three groups of campaigns

1. Domestication of war work

a. compare war with to domestic chores

b. also done in Germany

2. Glamorization of war work

a. make it look glamorous not dirty

b. Germans didn't do it as well

3. personalized patriotism

a. support the war effor to bring men home sooner

b. help your husband, brother, son

V. Traditional roles

A. Used to get women involved in war effort

B. Also used to limit change brought on by war work

C. Potential for change in women's roles was great but not encouraged to develop

D. After WWII women moved out of these jobs

E. Demobilizational propaganda used to send women home

1. move back to traditional lives

2. anticipated by mobilizational propaganda

F. Responses to global economic changes were similar

G. Responses to social change similar as well

1. forces to limit change were as strong as forces for change

2. Managed to encourage temporary change

H. Changes in consciousness could not be so easily limited

J. Women discontented with old roles and some stay in work force

VI. Soviet Union

A. Women mobilized for war

B. Propaganda similar to that in west

1. strong women shown in factory work

2. appeal to helping men at front

C. Differences from west

1. war work not seen as temporary

2. not linked to domesticity

D. Women already moving into most areas of industry in the 1930s

E. Socialist ideology advocates women working--no domestic image to live up to

F. After war, women encouraged (forced) to go on working

1. propaganda campaign insists that women work

2. economic necessity to work to live

3. state needed women's labor to rebuild economy

4. 8 million men lost at front--women have to rebuild

G. Women also expected to be supermoms

H. State promises to help women work and be mothers

1. child care

2. communal services

3. protection of labor

I. State can't fulfill promises

1. not enough communal services

2. not enough consumer goods

3. no labor saving devices

4. men don't help at home

J. Daily lives

1. Live in communal housing

2. Work long hours

3. Long lines for goods and food

4. Housework on women's shoulders without help

K. Propaganda continues to be up-beat

L. Effect on families

1. very few men

2. many single mothers--encouraged by state

3. women end up head of families

4. men marginalized out of families

VII. Why different

A. Necessity

B. Socialist ideology

C. Imperative to excell and out-produce the west

D. West concerned with "return to normalcy"

E. Soviet Union--what is "normalcy?"