During the second world war, women were encouraged to work in factories, as the men who had previously held these jobs were now at war. A byproduct of this is the current feminist icon; Rosie The Riveter. Brooke explored her origin, and how her meaning has changed in her brilliant blog post; https://artsscholars.blogs.auckland.ac.nz/2020/04/03/revising-rosie-the-myth-that-encompasses-the-riveter/.
She also mentioned how women only held factory jobs temporarily. Upon the return of the male workforce, women’s work was restricted to domestic roles, and jobs such as secretaries or department store workers. Furthermore, there was increasing societal pressure around female domesticity, and a women’s role and “middle-class women felt the pressure of the culture telling them to stay home”. (Figure 1) 1 It became increasingly harder for women to earn money while fitting into ideas of female domesticity.
I was really disheartened by how women were empowered and encouraged into industrial factory jobs, or men’s office jobs during the war. Yet how swiftly women were suddenly limited to domestic duties post WW2. “Post-war Americans saw feminine, stay-at-home moms cleaning, cooking, and taking care of children while masculine dads left home early and returned late each weekday”. (Figure 1)
How did the happy housewife in her extravagant kitchen replace the strong image of Rosie The Riveter? Why were women suddenly less capable, upon the return of the male workforce? The sudden change in value of women’s work, cannot have been simply from an increase in available workers. On doing further research on the value of women’s work, I discovered Marilyn Waring.
Marilyn Waring, a former New Zealand member of parliament, expands on such ideas of the value of women’s work in her 1980 book If Women Counted. The book discusses how our GDP and economy are largely successful due to unpaid women’s work and the strain on the environment, yet both are mostly unaccounted for within economic measuring systems.
She draws attention to how domestic duties enable the workforce, yet have become invisible. “Why anybody thinks you can make good economic policy while sustaining the invisibility of the key contributor to wellbeing is really beyond me. And that’s why I’ve lost patience … It’s like 65 years of the old stranglehold of GDP.” 2 (Figure 2)
Marilyn Waring provides acknowledgement and recognition of domestic duties often dubbed as ‘women’s work’. She brings value and importance to tasks such as cleaning, cooking, transportation, and procuring of goods, which are otherwise reported under the GDP as ‘leisure time’.
Warings writings represent a further expansion of second wave feminism though and key concepts on women’s work. Second wave feminism challenged the way that society tends to forget the importance and burden of the work that primarily women do. She takes the concept of women’s work further, demanding that not only should it be acknowledged as valid and important, but also financially recorded. Although post WW2, when women were no longer an integral part of the workforce. Waring solidifies their contribution in showing how their factory jobs were reflected in a countries GDP, that their domestic roles and ‘womens work’ should also be reported under the GDP.
What do you have to say about Waring’s theories? Please feel free to comment 🙂
I think this is a very important note to touch on, especially considering how the wage gap is contested. The erasure of the labour and time taken to do “household chores” that are considered “women’s work” even today is downplayed. Even though we have childcare workers, cleaners, chefs, educators and other professions and professionals that are paid to do this work, within their own household somehow it is suddenly just “what a woman does” and not worthy of payment, breaks, respect and acknowledgement.
Love this post Laura! When I was researching my post I found it really interesting how depictions of women simultaneously changed during the war and yet also stayed the same. Women were depicted in labour-intensive jobs but always had a full face of makeup or were lovingly waiting for their husbands at home (similar to the 1950’s depictions that you mentioned). To expand on your point about women in the workforce I also found that some women were kept on at their jobs because they did the same work as men but could be paid much less! Waring makes such a great point about domestic duties enabling the workforce too.
I really enjoyed reading your post – it was so interesting! 🙂
Such an important discussion to be having. I read an article recently about how domestic work in the US, if paid, would equal something like $1.4 trillion. An astounding thing to think about, especially when you consider how even modern women’s work is valued less (re wage gap, maternity leave issues, etc). Odd how a lot of propaganda around that time was less about empowering women, and more about using women to support men. Interesting to see the American Dream as something in which women are more objects to be obtained than actual participants in their own right.