Womens Progression In The Workforce History Essay

Womens Progression In The Workforce History EssayAs our country entered WWII, the workforce consisted primarily of men. Women make up only twenty-six percent of the workforce during this time. During World War II, the percentage of women in the workforce nearly doub take as a offspring of men being drafted into the war.1Immediately following the war many women were fired from their jobs, but this did non stop s reddenty-five percent of women from wanting to work alfresco(a) of the home.2Women progressed in the workforce drastically during WWII, and the years that followed as a result of the war, economic challenges, congressional legislation, and changes in the dynamics of the workforce.World War II unnatural the workforce in many different ways. The major way that WWII altered the workforce is that men were drafted into the military. This drafting left women to step into the jobs vacated by the men. Women soon prepare themselves being homemakers as well as doing things such as working long hours in factories. Women were able to demonstrate that they could perform at the same aim as men in industrial roles.3They did non always receive equal relent and benefits as their male counterparts may have had, but the qualification to do the work at hand was equal. Women also found themselves becoming atoms of the military. One example of this is Betty Budde, of Concord, who, during WWII was able to see the world as a member of the Womens Air Force Service Pilots.4These jobs outside of the home caused women to gain a since of independence from the typical roles of the time of a working husband, and a stay at home wife. The media also encouraged women to be a part of the war effort through magazine and advertisements such as Rosie the Riveter. In some ways, the internal circumstances of the war fostered the roots of the womens rights movement that built on it.5Toward the end of the war, the advertisements started to change, reminding women that they would soon return to their homemaking.6The response from women was different though. Surveys showed that women wanted to continue working outside of the home after the war ended.In 1945, many of the men that had been off in the war returned home, and many women were fired and forced out of their jobs. Some women even voluntarily left their jobs. One woman, Mrs. Neffe, stated that she left her job at a naval depot in Tacoma because her husband wanted a wife, not a career woman.7The number of women in the work force dropped from 20.3 million down to 15.9 million between 1945 and 1947.8Even though women were forced out of the industrial line of work, many sought the clerical and service jobs that were becoming available that men returning from the war did not want to take.After the war ended, the States expected women to go back to the same roles they were in onward the war started. While the country attempted to create a new and exciting future, womens roles changed, stellar(a) to feelings of isolation and worthlessness.9There was also a baby boom that followed the mens return.10This baby boom caused women to stay at home and tend to their children and the domestic duties of life. The same media before that had encouraged women to join the war effort and work outside the home was now showing the proper gender roles of men and women by showing the grand family being a stay at home mom, and a father who went to work. Also, mens wages were higher than ever before, making it possible for the first time in U.S. history for a substantial number of middle class families to live comfortably on the income of one breadwinner .11With all these factors working against them, the setbacks did not keep cardinal five percent of those women from continuing to want to work outside of the home.12As time passed, these determined women did not let go of hope of one twenty-four hour period working outside of the home once again. The economy was changing so much that it was becoming almost impossible to live off of one sensation income. Social and economic pressures were causing families to spend to a greater extent money and come to realize that they needed more income for the family. Living off of one income to create a heightened lifestyle was a struggle so it left it up to women to pick up a job outside of the home to help support the family, and its wants and needs. Yet, women soothe felt the social pressure to stay at home.13Industries were making it easier for women to do their typical duties at home, such as invention of the microwavable television dinner. Housewives became more and more dissatisfied with staying home as the skills for being a housewife decreased.14At the same time, many women were obtaining a higher command compared to earlier years. This higher education was preparing women for better jobs in the workplace than the clerical and service jobs that few were working after the war. Many women were starting to wonder if their higher education would benefit them, and not just their husbands career.By the 1960s, the previous social pressures of being a stay at home wife were overcome. The number of married women in the workforce at the beginning of the sixties was higher than at any previous time in American history.15During this time, cultural changes led many women to fight for equal pay for equal work done in the workplace.16Gradually, Americans came to accept some of the basic goals of the Sixties feminists equal pay for equal work, an end to domestic violence, curtailment of repelling limits on women in managerial jobs, an end to sexual harassment, and sharing of responsibility for housework and child rearing.17This was a major change in the roles of women in analogy to earlier in the century. Women were starting to move up the in the working world, even though Americans were still attempting to stop them. Some historians believe womens entry into industrial jobs during World War II hastened societal and economic ch anges already occurring in the American landscape and that it may have lit a fuse that contributed to the womens rights movements that were occurring.18These movements led to the acceptance of many women in jobs that would not have been imagined to be obtained before.The 1970s also led to an influx of women into the workforce. This influx happened because (page 4 of RAND)By 1980, forty tierce percent of the workforce consisted of women.19Many women who lived through World War II came to want different lives for theirdaughters.20