Women in World War 2

Women in World War II

      When someone mentions World War II, do you groan and think, "I don't want to hear about World War II, that happened such a long time ago and it doesn't have any thing to do with me?" Did you know that swing dancing and swing music similar to that played by Big Daddy Little Daddy was popular in the 1940s? Even some recent movies such as Pearl Harbor are based on 1940s events. Since so many more movies are portraying the roles that men played during the war, I'm going to share with you the roles women played during World War II. There are three ways in which women helped the war efforts during World War II. They worked at home, worked outside of the home, and enlisted in the military.
      The first way in which women helped the war effort was by working at home. To help the soldiers, women rationed food and supplies. They cut back on their use of sugar, canned goods, soap, and gasoline. The canned goods and sugar went to feed soldiers. The soap was used to make parachutes. And the gasoline was used to fuel tanks and airplanes. When the military had a shortage of aluminum, women donated pots and pans so that the military could make tanks, planes, and artillery. Another way in which women helped at home was - they grew the Victory Gardens. Victory Gardens are just normal vegetables gardens, carrots, beans, cucumbers - that sort of thing.   But the reason that women planted these was they thought that if they grew their own food, they wouldn't buy so much food from the store, and the surplus could be used to feed the soldiers. Now that we've seen how women helped from their homes, let's see how they helped outside of their homes.
      A second way in which women helped the war effort was working outside of their homes. Before the war started, not very many women were employed. According to New York Census, less then 14 million women were employed in 1940 compared to 42 million men. When women worked during this time they were usually...