America's Roles During Ww2

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Essay What roles did the United States of America’s government expect women to play during World War Two and what impact did these roles have on women in society at the time? Introduction Before World War Two (WW2) in the United States of America (U.S.A.) women were mostly expected to take care of the home and raise their children while the men worked to earn a living; in fact the amount of women being paid in the workforce only “increased from 25% to 30%” (Source I) during WW2. This increase occurred because men had to leave their jobs in order to fight in the war for the U.S.A. which left these jobs open and if they were not filled the economy would suffer, even more so than it was because of the expense of the diversion of any possible…show more content…
This opening of former male only sports to women was another impact that the U.S.A.’s government’s new roles for women had and many other significant impacts followed. It is widely believed that the war would not have been won “without the help of millions of women on the home front” (Source J). As another consequence these new roles meant that women now had confidence that they could do the same work that men did and this therefore inspired the start of the fight for the “acceptance of equal rights” (Source…show more content…
government expected women to be a part of. A significant amount of women remained housewives and filled the roles that the government expected them to by supporting their country in other ways. Women were “encouraged to buy War Savings Bonds and Stamps in order to provide the government with funds for the war” (Source D) and had to use stamps to buy groceries and supplies. They were also encouraged to “step on the cans” (Source D) they used for food and “recycle them” (Source D). Propaganda also encouraged people at the home front to “practise frugality” (Source G) and because of the war “the rationing and shortage of domestic resources fell more heavily on women to accommodate” (Source G). This meant that women now to had to come up with ways to both save money and support the war effort as well us take care of their houses and children as part of the roles that the government expected housewives to partake in. Many of these women had to also fill the role in the workplace and “added jobs in the defence industry to their traditional responsibilities of cooking, cleaning and taking care of the children” (Source J) in order to survive and “those who were mothers had to deal with issues like childcare” (Source I) while they were at work because of the “long, arduous hours” (Source J) that they had to
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