Thursday, March 26, 2009
WASPs: Women Airforce Service Pilots
W.A.S.P.s were the women pilots during WWII and played a key roll in establishing the United States as a major threat against Hitler's acquisition of Europe. The roll for women in the Airforce emerged when there was a lack of skilled male pilots to take the newly produced aircraft into battle. Most male pilots were overseas fighting, thus there was a need for skilled flyers. To make use of the new aircrafts, the United States government launched a program to train female flyers. The sad part about this story is that female flyers received no honor for flying for their country, and had nothing that commemorated their efforts in the war. Of course it was revolutionary, and in fact there were few female pilots in service during WWII (if not none.) Nevertheless, women continued to get the short end of the bargain, and as the war in Europe concluded, they were no longer needed and their inspiring story came to an end.
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ReplyDeleteGreat summary. This is yet another instance in which women do indeed get the short end of the stick. Their valor and service to their country is forgotten simply because their jobs were not thought of as glorious as men's. There was no difference between what each gender did, but the government chose to disregard this simply because the social norms at the time were to have a woman's place at home.
ReplyDeleteThis is a well-written summary. I think that it is a story that unfortunately is very common; people not getting recognition because of their status, gender, race, religion. This experience I think continues on today for many others and it shows that we need to work on as a country giving people credit where they deserve it.
ReplyDeletei completely agree with molly. we constantly see this reoccuring theme of a lack of recognition due to race, gender, and essentially power in society. it's interesting to read your post Jack about how after world war II, women still got the "short end of the bargain". The post I wrote on this same homework assignment focused on how there was an increase, however small it was, in responsibility and recognition given to women. It's interesting to see how women pilots differ from women working other jobs .
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