Men were not the only one who were presented awards or honors. Prestigious awards were given to many women who fought during WWII too. These women deserved their awards for what they did. 90 percent of the women who fought were given the award the Gold Star of Hero of the Soviet Union. This award was one of the highest medals for courage in the Soviet Union. Most awards were awarded after death to the women who fought in the battles. The women who had presented these awards there were thirty pilots who flew hundreds of combat missions, like Lydia Litvyak being one of the top scoring female pilots in history also know for having the nickname “ White Rose of Stalingrad”.(Thompson)(Reese) Other heroic women were sixteen medics who died during a mission to rescue men in combat, three machine gunners, two tankers, and snipers. Other awards that were given was the Florence Nightingale Medal by The International Committee of Red Cross to fifteen medical aids that were under fire while serving. (Reese).
There was a downside to the women serving in the army. There was a lot of discrimination and the sexism from the men towards women. The men did not have a good transition having the women in the war with them. They had a traditional view that women were not supposed to be in war, or that they were below them
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As one had said, “Historians have always said there are two things the German 's didn 't expect going into the Soviet Union: the weather and the women.” That historian was correct, it surprised many people, especially men of other countries. The successfulness for the Red Army had deprived of the great patriotism of the country, the volunteering of many people, and the difficult overpower of the men 's sexist attitudes. Women had great power defying the traditional standards of a woman, in the eye of the Soviets, and had brought so much more to offer