Women in the world wars
[1] On the other hand, the two wars also victimized women and subjected them to numerous incidences of sexual violence, abuse, and death.
Women's participation in WWI fostered the support and development of the suffrage movement, including in the United States.
[10] Women's involvement in these wartime efforts exposed their commitment to serving their country and preserving national security and identity.
[13] Many women worked as volunteers serving at the Red Cross, encouraged the sale of war bonds, or planted "victory gardens.
"[citation needed] The First World War allowed women in Great Britain to participate in the workforce, including assembly lines.
[16] British historians no longer emphasize the granting of woman suffrage as a reward for women's participation in war work.
[18] More generally, G. R. Searle(2004) argues that the British debate was essentially over by the 1890s and that granting suffrage in 1918 was primarily a byproduct of voting for male soldiers.
[24] Women living in present-day Slovakia, under the rule of the Habsburg monarchy at the time of the First World War, only sometimes upheld the pro-war attitude that dominated central Europe.
Thousands of women in the United States formed and/or joined organizations that worked to bring relief to the war-torn countries in Europe, even before official American entry into the war in April 1917.
Upper-class women were the primary founders and members of voluntary wartime organizations, mainly because they could afford to devote much of their time and money to these efforts.
They assigned duties that would help out the soldiers that were overseas, such as organizing bloods drives, giving vaccinations, and packaging food.
Women worked locally within their state by aiding traveling soldiers and raising money to support the war efforts.
[29] European powers relied on a male labor force in winning the war, thus leaving families divided at home.
[6] Their working conditions were poor, as the female employees were subjected to malnutrition and serious illnesses such as tuberculosis while living together in unsanitary dormitories.
[30] Women were given paramilitary training in small arms, drill, first aid and vehicle maintenance in case they were needed as home guards.
World War II involved global conflict on an unprecedented scale; the absolute urgency of mobilizing the entire population made the expansion of the role of women inevitable.
According to historian D’Ann Campbell, “Between 1942 and 1945, 140,000 women served in the WACs, 100,000 in the WAVES, 23,000 in the Marines, 13,000 in the SPARS, and 74,000 in the Army and Navy Nurse Corps”.
[37] A person's race was heavily divided, and in the year 1943, there were a documented 242 violent events against African Americans regardless of whether they served in the war effort or not.
[39] Nearing the end of the war, black females working in industrial occupations were the first to be fired from their jobs; as a result, they then turned to professions such as maids or laundry pressers.
[39] Several hundred thousand women in European countries served in combat roles, especially in anti-aircraft units.
[42] The French Forces of the Interior (FFI) began to see the importance of using women during the war and thus many gender roles and standards were dropped to accompany these new demands for participants in the resistance.
[42] United States groups supplied many of these resources such as small pistols known as the "liberator" which was pocketable and easy to conceal in a purse or coat.
Germany had presented an ideal female role at home, but the urgent need for war production led to the hiring of millions of German women for factory and office work.
[44] Even so, the Nazi regime declared the role of women in German society to strictly fall along the lines of motherhood.
[47] In other words, the comfort women were a part of a systematic rape used by Japan, especially among the armed forces in the Second World War.
[47] Aging from eleven to twenty years old, the comfort women were kidnapped from their homes in order to serve the Japanese army.
Canadian women also went out of their way to buy things with money they raised like a scarf or a tooth brush that they could send to troops to help them while they were overseas.
[54] It is important to note that many women who came from high schools gave up their summer vacations to work the agricultural fields due to a rising shortage of male labor workers.
