Work In The Factories example essay topic

455 words
The film titled "The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter" discusses the role that women in the United States took on during World War II. In the film one Caucasian and three African Americans share their experience of what life was like for women during this time. During this time, according to the four women, many men were being were being shipped off to war and many important jobs were being left behind that needed to be filled. Many factories and still mills desperately needed labors to construct military machinery and the only possible solution at that time was to have women enter into the workforce. The media posted ads and ran commercials on televisions as a means to recruit women into the workforce. The ads and commercials conveyed the message that women can do their part in the war by taking on the jobs that the men have left behind and that America needs their help.

The factories were also made to look attractive to the women, which was done by putting their own showers and lockers inside the factories. The four women also talk of how African American women were treated differently than Caucasian women in the workforce. For example, African American women were prohibited to use the showers and were given more strenuous jobs than Caucasian women, such as welding. Also, African American women were being paid less than the Caucasian women. The four women also point out that women had to take care of their homes and children as well as work in the factories in which the only chance women had to do this was at night when they left the factories. Some factories, as an aid in helping the women, had childcare in which mothers could bring their children to work with them.

The four women in the film then point out that by the end of the war, felling they were not needed anymore, some women quite their jobs and went back to being housewives. The media blamed it on how they were not accustomed to long hours and basically could not hack it. When the war ended and the soldiers came back home, women were laid off and sent back home to be housewives and mothers. However, some women still wanted to work in the factories and be part of the workforce but were denied the opportunity.

The media posted ads and commercials conveying the message that children who do not have their mothers attention and affection will have psychological problems, which was a way of deterring mothers or rather women in general from wanting to work outside the home.