Changing Roles for Women

  • World War II signified an important watershed in the changing status of women.
  • Millions of American men went off to war and the demand for women to contribute helped to break down old prejudices about sex roles in the work place and military.
  • The two main military organizations for women to join were the WAC, or Women’s Army Corps, or the navy’s equivalent, WAVES, Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service.
  • The army and navy actively recruited women through posters, banners and advertisements in magazines and newspapers.
  • Women of different races were forced to work together in either the military or industries. This became important because it helped to break own old racial and gender stereotypes.
  • World War II helped to improve the status of all women.

African Americans in World War II

  • From the beginning of the war, African American leaders demanded that African Americans receive full equality in the military.
  • Almost 1 million African Americans served in World War II. However, they generally were separated into segregated units.
  • Every army camp also had segregated facilities and racial “incidents” were common. The Tuskegee Air Force flight school was one of the last training facilities to be desegregated. The school trained the African American pilots for combat.
  • The fight for African American equal rights increased after the war. African American veterans felt more empowered to return to American and fight for their rights after surviving the horrors of war abroad.
  • Many African American women volunteered as nurses. The joined either WAVES or WAC. Many also worked in the defense industries or on military posts.

Native Americans in the Military

  • Native Americans supported the war more than any other group in America.
  • One third of eligible Native American men, 25,000 people, served in the armed forces.
  • Another one fourth of the Native population also worked in industries related to national defense.
  • Thousands of Native American women volunteered as nurses and joined WAVES.
  • Through the war experience, many Native Americans gained new skills and learned how to live in mainstream America.
  • Many Native Americans felt very threatened by the Germans and Japanese. They felt it was their duty to protect their homeland.
  • Native servicemen were placed into integrated units.
  • Many Natives were “code talkers”, they worked with communications and radios. They were responsible for breaking many of the German and Japanese secret codes.
  • Every military branch used Native Americans to encode and decipher messaged using different Native languages.