With War Comes Social Change!

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We were all taught about World War II in history class, where the majority of the attention was placed on events such as Pearl Harbor, Hitler and the Nazis, and the Allies verse the Axis.  While all of this is immensely important in human history, something else was lost, shadowed by these great tragedies.  Women, for the first time, were rising above and beyond their perceived potential.  Before the 1940's, a man was expected to be the "breadwinner" for his family.  If his wife, for any reason, needed to leave the home to contribute to the financial needs of their family, that man was seen, by society, to be inadequate.  This belief, that a woman should stay at home and tend to the needs of her family, became the social norm after the Industrial Revolution, and wasn't tested until World War II.  At this time, some 10-million working-aged men set off to fight the war, leaving our country with a severe labor shortage.  With no one else to turn to, our nation finally decided to give a chance to the able-bodied women who inhabited it. 


Much to our nations surprise, not only did millions of women leave their aprons and house chores for overalls and power tools, but they excelled in whatever trade they belonged to.  "All responsible people connected with industry today agree that women are equal to men as far as being able to do almost any industrial job," said The New York Times, 1942.  Although our nations primary objective of flooding newspapers, magazines, and other media outlets with positive images of female workers was strictly to fill factories with able-bodied workers while the men were off at war, a byproduct of this objective occurred, unbeknownst to everyone.  For when the men came home from war, the women weren't too eager to give up their new found purpose in life outside the home.  By the wars end, more than 1 million more women had joined the workforce, even though many women were forced to quit there jobs for or by men.  Social norms work on a continuum, and from this point forward, it seemed women would play an active role in the workforce.

"Media Images of women were expansive, widening the range of acceptable behavior, providing positive examples of unconventional women, and blurring traditional gender distinctions."~ Susan M. Hartmann

So how is it that we can progress so drastically within 5-6 years of our nations history, but than come to a screeching halt, where it seems we've, at the very most, been crawling ever since.  It is now the year 2012, and women are still lucky to make 70% of what our equal male counterparts make for the same position.  It is also, unfortunately, not against the law to discriminate against a person based on marital status.  A single mother is less likely to be given a job then a woman without children; a woman without children is less likely to be given that same job than a man of any marital status!  The average 25 year-old woman who works until the age of 65 will make half a million dollars less than the average working man. (Women's eNews)  The truth is we are still far from equal, but what has caused this stop in the drive to progress?  I believe it has something to do with the way our media perceives women.

In the 1940's, the popular ideal was for women to join the workforce out of necessity to help provide for our countries war efforts.  Today, while women might get an equal amount of attention from the public eye, it is not for the same reasons.  The media has learned to dehumanize women, like in the Advertisement above, making their worth equal to the amount of youth and beauty they possess.  Women are still expected not only to hold a full-time job, but to run a household and take care of her children, all while maintaining her sexuality and beauty.  It seems the demands on women have increased, but our rights have yet to do the same.  While the same thing was happening in the 1940's, where Hollywood-essque models were being used to portray what the "working woman" looked like, today it has only become worse.  the "beauty" standard was at least feasible for more than a fraction of the population to achieve.  Today, women are expected to look a way only 5% of women can naturally look like.  Women have become an overly sexualized being.  We have become a play thing for men in this newfound "rape culture."

Rosie the Riveter, a poster child for strength, feminism and power, was once the ideal held by most women.  This is what they wanted to be: independent, hard-working, and strong… Equal!  Today, Those role models are few and far apart.  Who knows, maybe it will take another tragedy to wake our nation up into realizing what we are allowing to be accepted as social norms in what is supposed to be "the land of the free."