In 1939 World War II broke out and all men were called to action. However, it was not until 1941 when America joined the war that women joined in the war effort. In 1941, the American industry began to initiate contracts with the government to produce war machinery (Yellin 41). There were already 11.5 million women in the workforce before the war, and 6.5 million more women joined during the war (Yellin 47). The Red Cross was very important in the war effort, and many of its 41 million workers were women (Janda). Women also provided for the needs of soldiers by creating 3,000 clubs as a part of the United Service Organizations (USO) (Janda). When the U.S. Naval Reserve decided to include women in 1942, an organization called WAVES was formed …show more content…
The Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) were formed in 1943 to serve as a separate part of the US Air Force (Janda). WASPs were forced to demobilize in 1944 because their male counterparts thought their own jobs were in jeopardy (Janda). Both female doctors and nurses faced extreme inequality in the war. Nurses were never considered part of the military, and though doctors were high in need, there were less than 100 female doctors allowed in the war (Nathan 43). When the war ended in 1945, all women were encouraged to go home, and all organizations were disbanded (Janda). Everyone wanted to forget about the war and the lives lost, and go back to how life was before, with typical gender roles (Nathan 47). And so came the era of the housewives in the early 1950’s. There was no demand for women in the workplace anymore so women became housewives and took care of their families (Nathan 47). The government provided incentive to male breadwinner families with a tax break (Coontz 60). “Marynia Farnham and Ferdinand Lundberg (famous anti feminists) insisted that pursuing a “career,” which they defined at workplace prestige, was antifeminine to its core and an assault on men’s self-respect” (Coontz