Women's Roles During Times of War

In desperate times there are inevitably going to be temporary changes in how people think. This was evident in WWI, where women were encouraged to do the work usually given to men in order to help the war effort. A similar thing happened in WWII, only to a slightly greater extent. In WWI, women took the jobs vacated by men who left for war; they primarily stayed on the home front. In WWII, gender roles were partially disregarded, and women were allowed to fly. WASP were the Women Airforce Service Pilots. These women recognized the opportunity total war provided them with--a chance to back away from the traditional role of a women (to stay at home and tend to the family) and take advantage of their once-in-a-lifetime chance to follow their passion: flying. In both the cases of WWI and WWII, women's roles were dramatically broadened from their traditional boundaries. Also in both cases, unfortunately, this broadening was temporary, lasting only as long as the war. Women did gain some respect from these instances. They proved that they were capable of "men's work" and this undoubtedly helped to start to get away from the super traditional women-at-home mentality. However, it was still a very long way from upturning gender roles in society.

This is obvious in today's society, where--although women soldiers are much more common--it is thought of largely as a man's job (or in some cases--depending on the propaganda being used--a man's duty). Also, certain jobs haven't lost their traditional gender associations. Secretatries and nurses, for example, are thought of as jobs more common for a woman than a man. And vice versa, men are thought to frequent more physically demanding jobs (firefighters, construction workers, etc.) with women being few and rare in such fields. While women continually prove female stereotypes wrong, gender discrimination still thrives, possibly because large groups of women have never been allowed to hold their higher statuses (or "more difficult" jobs) for long periods of time (as it was with their temporary jobs in WWI and WWII).