It really puts in perspective how times have changed. Not only the social stereotype of young girls today, but work ethic in them all. Daughters back then had to practically run the house from the inside-out, and complaining was never an option; nor did they know another way to go along with these daily duties besides being hard working and determined. Social norm has changed more than a tad, but whether it’s changed for the better is the bigger question. Do girls have as good of work ethic now as they did when a woman’s role was to stay in and run the house?
Some women “felt they were needed at home to raise families, crops for food and to fill the jobs that the men had vacated in order to serve their country.”(Suite101) Women’s lives on the home front during World War II were a significant part of the war effort for all participants and had a major impact on the outcome of the war. Once the men went off to war and left their jobs, the women that were single had a great advantage because job opportunities were everywhere. In the other hand married women had a tough time, especially if they had children. Hundreds of women worked in machine shops, welding shops, manufacturing plants, and also worked in war industries to make equipment for the war. New industries, naval, and army bases were being built during the home front.
Depending on the lower or upper level of the middle class, women were able to be work as school mistresses, or not work at all and only take care of the house. As upper class and middle class women had little advantages to their life, lower class women often had none. They were married to poor farmers, with no education and often had to work just as hard as their husbands, maybe even harder as they had a responsibility of taking care of the house and children. In some parts of the Western Europe, lower class women had to work in textile mills or various workhouses parted away from their families, working many, many hours. Double burden was also common at the beginning of 1900’s as women worked to earn money but also had the responsibility for unpaid, domestic labor.
The role of women before war: Upper-class women did not work before the war and few worked after it. Working-class women, on the other hand, had to work to help keep their families. They worked before the war mostly in factories and in domestic services as maids. As many as 11% of all women worked as domestic servants before the war. The war gave them the chance to work in a greater variety of jobs but most of these new jobs were lost at the end of the war.
Women were once only seen in homes cleaning and cooking and the era of Rosie was the first step in women’s rights. Though at the end of the war men returned to their old factory jobs forcing women out of their maculating jobs, they showed women as a whole that they could do the same thing men could. While women did not end up reentering the work force until the 1970’s they were not in such high demand at this time either
Although before the Civil War, women rarely took a part in society, the war significantly changed women’s roles in many ways. Before the Civil War, women typically worked in and around their homes. The typical housewife would cook, clean and raise many children while the men worked. Many people typically did not promote women to branch out outside their homes, particularly stated by historian, Linda Miles Coppens that “Horace Man, president of Ohio’s new interracial and coeducational college publishes ‘A Few Thoughts on the Power and Duties of Women’ in New York. He warns women against vocations of preaching or politics, explaining that they can influence public opinion in their homes and communities.” They were strictly housewives and were destined to raise children.
Coming from all walks of life, there were those already working who switched to higher-paying defense jobs, those who had lost their jobs due to the Depression, and then there were the women who worked at home. Rosie the Riveter was the idol for these working women also she was known as the cover girl for the recruiting campaign. By 1944, 16 percent of all working women held jobs in war industries. While an estimated 18 million women worked during the war, there was growing concern among them that when the war was over, it would never be the same again. That new venture for American women would soon come to an end.
They wanted equality for women in the workplace, in society generally and at home. “After discovering that they could work in high-paying factory jobs, the majority of women did not want to give these jobs up after World War II.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Womenroles_in_the_WorldWarsUnitedStatesofAmerica
A widespread attitude was that women’s roles and men’s roles did not overlap. This idea of “separate spheres” held that women should concern themselves with home, children, and religion, while men took care of business and politics. A little before the 1920s women were strictly home ridden. They were to focus on the house. For instance they had to maintain dinner, cleaning, and maintaining of the children.
In most of the countries around the world years ago women had to stay at home, take care of kids and do the home chores (women were not allowed to work); while men were supposed to be working and earning money for the family, but this thinking have changed through the years. Nowadays women and men have more varied roles. In my country (Dominican Republic) the traditional roles of women are: to work, and when I say work it means women are able to work in areas that before were considered only for men like engineering, medicine, law, and political sciences. All this means that women have been inserted more in the workplace, a clear example of this is that the vice presidency of the Dominican Republic is occupied by a woman. Women also take care of children, do the home chores, do the cooking, drive a car, and much more.