Women During World War 2 Essay

Perhaps my expectations were poorly formed, but I found the chapter which dealt with the aftermath of World War II, “War and Peace: Fanning the Home Fires,” to be somewhat uneven. May quite thoroughly lays out the occupational and economic changes for women workers both during and after the war. Her insight on the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAACS) and the Women Appointed for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) is equally pertinent to a discussion of the contribution women made to the war effort. In fact, this treatment in particular could have been expanded to examine some of the very particular non-traditional roles women performed in military service at the time - for example, women serving as test pilots - which truly stretched the boundaries

Mention is made of male notions of the quintessential young woman waiting “back home” as a sustaining ideal during service abroad, with important attention allocated to the response of American women to this pressure placed upon them. This point deserved expansion, as the readjustment of returning veterans to post-war America was linked to the reception they received by the women they had idolized during the war. At the same time, wounds, whether physical or mental, sustained during the war would not only follow the veteran for many years after the cessation of hostilities, but would in fact influence family life, sometimes through drug and alcohol abuse, emotional distance, or anger and abuse problems. Finally, the generation of men which fought World War II became the baseline for American masculinity by which their sons, who faced the crucible of Vietnam twenty years later, were judged by themselves, their fathers, and American society. May leaves this particular facet of American family life sadly and critically