Woman+and+the+War

=**WOMEN AND THE WAR**=
 * **Rosie the Riveter-** She worked in a defense plant while her boyfriend Charlie served in the marines.
 * Rosie used propaganda flims of the 1940's to attract women to the work force.
 * The main motive for women taking a war job was Patriotism, although there were plenty of other reasons the women took jobs.
 * They wanted to do their part in the war while there husbands, boyfriends or siblings were at war.
 * The wartime economy made it essential for the American women of all ages and ethnic and economic backgrounds to work.
 * Before the war most women who worked for wages were single and young, even during the hard times of the depression, most people dissapproved of a married woman working outside the home to earn money.
 * In 1936, 82% of americans thought that a married women shouldnt work outside the house if her husband had a job, but by 1940 about 15.5% of all married women working outside the house.
 * Women often worked as sales clerks and household servents, in the jobs that the women had that men usually had they usually earned much less than the men did when they did the same work.
 * Like WWI, WWII brought many women into the work force.
 * News of these high paying jobs brought women who were already working in traditional jobs to take over the open positions.
 * Women made up 36% of the total civilian labor force.
 * Women worked in Airplane Plants, and Shipyards as steelworkers, riveters, and welders.
 * Employers believed that women could do certain welding jobs better than men, for example could squeez into smaller places.
 * They also made the assumption about women's mental abilites that they could do simple repetitious tasks more effectively than men.
 * AA women had long worked in greater proportion than married white women, but they had been largely restricted to domestic work.
 * AA women in industrial jobs increased from 6.8% to 18%, while the number working in domestic service dropped from 59.9% to 44.6%.
 * The women were happy to be employed to many the money they earned made a huge difference in their lives. Some women were able to pay off debts fromThe Great Depression.
 * Women also enjoyed these jobs to prove that they could do any jobs required.
 * For all the positive aspects of employment, working women experienced a number of problems. Some faced hostile reactions from other workers.
 * Many women worried about leaving their children. More than half a million women with children under ten worked during the war, and day-care centers were scarce.
 * Women also earned significantly less than men doing the same jobs. Although the National War Labor Board declared in the fall of 1942 that women who performed "work of the same quality and quantity" as men should receive equal pay, the policy often was ignored.
 * Women began at the bottom, with the lowest paying jobs.
 * Because they had less seniority, they frequently advanced more slowly. Their wages reflected these patterns.
 * In 1945, women earned a yearly average of $2,928, compared with $3,363 for men.
 * At the war's end, many women in fact wanted to continue working, but pressures to return home were very intense.
 * A new campaign by industrialists and government officals now encouraged women to leave their jobs, and return home to take care of their family.
 * The the demobilization, twice as many women asmen lost factory jobs, some women were tired of their defense jobs-which in many cases were not very fulfilling once the war's sense of urgency had ended and looked forward to their work at home.
 * Others, like Beatrice Clifton, would never again feel satisfied being full-time homemakers.
 * After the war, many women continued to work parttime to supplement their families' incomes.