United States Propaganda towards Women during WW2
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United States Propaganda towards Women during WW2
Americans’ beliefs from the colonial times indicated women as domestic figures whose environment and nature revolved around family and home. Wartime interrupted this notion, and the mindset view of women’s place had to change. During World War II, the government utilized propaganda for communicating the call for change in women’s roles during the war period. Propaganda is the expression of information to influence public action or opinion. This paper explores how the US government used propaganda during WW2, the messages they pushed for, how and where they used propaganda and women’s entry into the workforce.
The United States Government Use of Propaganda and Messages
The government used extensive campaigns to change the public attitude on women’s roles. The movements acted as tools of information to the public but, in due course, changed to unified propaganda. President Franklin Roosevelt formed the Office of War Information (OWI) agency, which joined other wartime agencies such as war and state units in the war information communication and propaganda. These agencies commutated the dire need for women to put aside their domestic roles and join the nation’s workforce in businesses and factories. The tools of propaganda included magazine articles, advertisements, radio programs, and posters.
theTo utilize the women’s untapped labor resources, the government propaganda needed to mobilize these women through a central theme’s communication. The OWI agency concentrated on emotional and personal patriotism appeals as the central theme. Patriotism consisted of positive and negative aspects. The positive element reminded women to diligently do their part while the negative factor served as a warning that if one woman failed to do her part could lead to another person’s death. The campaign slogan encouraged women human resources, which implicated that women’s contribution to the war could promptly yield success.
The government emphasized campaigns that promoted women and geared toward developing departments that strived to empower them, such as the War Advertising Council and Office War Information. This period’s propaganda focused on information that represented women’s ability to maintain their femininity during factory work and perform work and home tasks. The idea that women could keep home and work task performance was the encouraging factor for American women that their participation in the war would not affect their womanliness.
Phrases such as women are the nation, and home keepers paved the way for propaganda to intertwine women’s new expected responsibilities and the traditional gender roles in the war. This integration of functions symbolized that women were no longer viewed as housewives but as individuals who can protect the nation through their acquired valuable skills. The woman power campaign primarily worked towards encouraging women to apply for war jobs. Also, the campaign persuaded the public to refrain from traditional prejudices and judgment of working women.
How and Where the Government Used Propaganda and its success
The War Council and OWI organizations supported women in the workforce during the war. They formulated advertisements that strategically highlighted positive qualities such as reliability, efficacy, and strength that women possessed, which necessitated a smooth functioning society in men’s absence. Also, the advertisements highlighted women’s capability to handle labor-intensive work under high pressure in the same way men have performed in the past. For instance, the government representation of “Rosie the Riveter” in women’s promotion. This representation shows a woman covering her hair in a red bandana and flexed bicep in blue coveralls, her mouth covered with a text reading “We Can Do I.” The image presents the female viewer with the idea that they are equally efficient and robust, like Rosie, on the home front duties. Also, government messages that transitioning from traditional female roles do not affect femininity portrayed women as essential assets to the nation and functioning society.
Federal organizations, such as the public health, war workforce commission, office of war information organizations, produced posters for the national government propaganda. The posters messages aimed at addressing the nations pressing issues like soldiers experiencing shortages in food and other supplies needing more people to work in factories for better supplies. Many posters stressed the American’s need to practice food rationing, promote individuals to take up jobs that aided the war effort, and buy war bonds. Through the poster propaganda, the government seems to advertise the need for women to take up the jobs in the factories and other occupations related to the war. The posters intended to motivate and organize women in joining the war effort, emphasizing women’s importance to the nation in wartime.
The government embraced movies and radio programs to improve the presentation of messages concerning war efforts. The utilization of film industries encompassed using moving pictures that portrayed emotional stories, which triggered patriotism among the viewers. On the other hand, the radio programs’ utilization provided loyal listeners with necessary information on home front war needs. The organizations that directed both mediums ensured that presentation varied story ideas that the producers could discuss and teach the audience the American culture and how to handle situations as a home front in the war effort. The Office War Information managed the quality of films produced and availed to the public. It ensured that the movie’s stories and dialogues contained propaganda that clarified issues arising from the war, contribution to the war effort, and how the film portrayed American’s war effort.
World War II saw the government and its agencies work together to produce posters for the young American women, demonstrated youth femininity, and a sense of urgency in participation and patriotism. The government targeted young generations, such as those who recently completed high school or college, as they show fewer family commitments than their counterparts who are married mothers. The posters were placed in all town areas, indicating applications for war jobs across the nation. OWI successfully communicated its primary goal, which targets all individuals to access the posters.
Movies also proved to be useful propaganda sources that could target the young women generation because they were somehow recent in technology and the film industry’s explosion in entertainment. Many people now enjoyed film shows, which enhanced its exploitation use in propaganda. Posters significantly relied on youth and image appearance and messages that influenced the young women’s participation on the home front and the war through emotional appeal.
The government developed specific images and messages that could inspire the youth on the homefront, such as posters that explained how a young girl would assist her beau in fighting across the seas while waiting on the homefront. This encouraged young American’s that they could serve in the military and yield success in the nation.
The development of posters with the message of war-related jobs that could lead to long-life employment attracted many young women to apply for the position. The production of such posters implicates the government’s attempts and desire to incorporate youth women in the available jobs that could promote future career development. One poster produced by OWI titled “save a life and find your own” with the text “be a nurse,” and the image has a young lady in a white nurse uniform facing a male patient in a hospital bed covered with bandages on his head. The young lady’s head is covered with a nurse’s cap with a lovely hairstyle and soft facial features in the image. The message on the poster can be interpreted in different ways. The viewer may suggest that working as a nurse during wartime could establish a longtime career even beyond the war. Another interpretation could indicate that the young woman could find a lifelong soul mate in the hospital environment and select a marriage life. Whatever the understanding, the results show that participating in the war creates a positive future for young women.
The public health nursing of the United States produced a telling poster under the World War II propaganda organization of message dealing with future anticipation. The poster urges viewers to join an enlist profession working as United States nurse cadets. The poster further explains the offer of free lifetime education with the qualification of high school education. Interested women get the direction to apply through local hospitals. The poster contains a young lady’s image with a smooth facial appearance and wavy hair who seems to be focusing on something beyond her, probably a bright future. This poster’s message implies that the lady in the image is young and has to configure about her future life, though through enlisting as a cadet, she realized her future. Another indication is the poster targets youths based on the physical features in the image, and joining cadet provides a long term commitment to the nurses. The poster also shows positive attributes realized when one participates in nursing during the war and the end possibilities. Using signs with text messages enables respondents to analyze and understand the information’s targeted group.
During World War II, the films identified with the incorporation of war goals in the storylines per guidelines of the office of war information. For instance, the “since you went away” film promoted women propaganda during wartime. The film primarily focuses on two daughters and their mother as they struggle on the homefront and their war effort actions. Initially, as the husband leaves for abroad, the family decides to take a retired military officer to ant patriotic and earn extra money. Later the film shows Jane, the eldest daughter falling in love with the army officer’s grandson. Upon engagement, the grandson leaves for overseas but dies a few weeks later in a battle. Jane had secured herself a war job as a nurse Aide while her sister Brig, through scrap metal participation at school, developed her victory garden. Brig also complains to her mum and wishes she was older enough to work in factories to aid in the nation’s war.
On the other hand, the mother has never thought of seeking a job even after other people have criticized her for taking in a boarder rather than working in factories. This comedy demonstrates an important war message that encourages women on the homefront using. It also discourages the stereotyping mindset on approaches to war and how certain women’s actions towards war. The film depicts the industry’s ability to integrate powerful messages such as the Americans’ war goals on the homefront in the movie’s dialogue. The viewer of the film would, in no doubt, want to practice the gained knowledge by striving to participate in the war effort.
The film industry created an avenue for young people to interact with peers through engagement in the nation’s entertainment form, where the government’s homeland battle figured inconveniently. The films focused on the homefront life, which worked the war issues into storylines. A film centered on a homeland army who worked in the county military who had a wife and a child. The child inquired about wars and wanted to understand the nature and occurrences of conflicts and why his father was always out to war. The mother explained that the father could not quit fighting for the country as a military army officer until they won the battle. Hints from the film indicate that each individual has some obligations to meet in the nation. The film directs its message to the general public and specifically to women too. Through the son and mother dialogues in the movie, it denotes that as men partake in the nation’s war, women also get enthusiastic patriotism to participate in the realization of victory.
Radio programs allowed women at home to get propaganda messages as most homemakers stayed at home during the war. This form of message delivery seemed to be favorable to older women due to radio soaps’ popularity. During the battle, the United States programmed the radio to offer updates on war progress continually. Most homemakers listened to radio soaps which provided advertisements on companies that sponsored certain cleaning products to food items available in stores. Women did the soap and food advertisements, and the radio industry targeted older women as housewives responsible for detergent and grocery shopping.
In World War II, the propaganda organizations utilized radio programs like daytime soaps to promote the nation’s war goals. This radio program focused on changing women’s perspective on the war the advancement of goals and war jobs. Radio programs managed to change women’s perspective by producing programs with stories of accomplished and strong women participating in other activities apart from house chores. The program storylines also integrated women who had taken up roles initially held by men.
The essential propaganda characteristics of daytime radio soaps were empowering women demonstrated in varied radio programs. These programs portrayed women as powerful and robust in men’s world.
The radio soaps started promoting war jobs and the homefront goals during the war, and a show was created explicitly for this role. In the play, a husband and wife discuss the importance of work that the women ought to do during the war, such as maintaining order in the house and working all day outside the house. This discussion reinforced and encouraged the women working at home to felt recognized. The debate went on, and a third party comes in to propose that the military soldiers working overseas could be cheating on their wives. After a lengthy discussion, they conclude that women should have faith in their husbands as they serve the nation. It is in the same way that the military officers do trust their wives.
This message encouraged the women whose husbands had been away for several months without communication. It also reminds women to stay focused on the ways that can improve the war effort on the homefront. The women keep listening to radio soaps to get up to date war progress updates and continued encouragement. Incorporating war goals in radio programs have proven slow in goal realization and eventually led to significant accomplishment.
The United States government encouraged women to can food, which they were supposed to grow in victory gardens. The middle-class women who were housewives and displayed womanly qualities were the centerpiece of this food-related propaganda, making them act as patriots in food preservation. On the other hand, women’s femininity category appeared attractive, with makeup clean and put on nice clothes. A woman’s poster image with a little girl looking up to her mother both in nice clothes surrounded by may canned vegetables. This image also represents patriotism as the food would be preserved to avoid future shortages. The little girl dressed in the same way as the mother means that children’s parents raise and groom children to adopt their values and be exactly like them. From this, the notion “grow your own is evident.”
Effects of the Propaganda towards Women
The government used patriotism in the dissemination of propaganda, which led to changes both temporary and permanent. Also, The military service saw more women included in the service during the world war. The women took on the job testing and ferrying planes beyond. The women who joined the military service though few, were significant as they were the first ones. Many women were employed to add to the military service to handle cases of wounded soldiers. The nurses had proposed a nurse’s selective service act that the military favored and wanted to support the Act. Unfortunately, this did not last long as the war ended a month later.
Women who stayed at home in the cities and villages volunteered to participate in civilian defense activities, organized recreational activities for armed forces members, and worked in the red cross. Due to food shortages, women volunteered through the Woman’s Land Army (WLA) to work in the farms to increase food production. The government rationed items such as wool, beef, coffee, tea, and rubber towards women. These voluntary effort changes were temporary as they only served during the war.
In conclusion, propaganda during the Second World War in the United States sought to integrate women into the war. Organizations such as the office of war information came up under the leadership of the president to create, oversee, and offer guidelines on the war’s progression. The lack of enough men on the battlefield led to women’s need to join in the fight. The government initiated the use of propaganda to get women to enter the workforce voluntarily. It emphasized patriotism to one’s country. Patriotism enabled women to seek employment in factories to improve human resources. The governments used varied radio, posters, advertisements, and movies to pass propaganda messages to the targeted women. The slogan womanpower impacted positively on women. The methods that the government used were effective in giving statements to women. Call for women to join the workforce yielded fruits as women participated in the war effort.
Bibliography
Scott, Cord. “Written in red, white, and blue: A comparison of comic book propaganda from World War II and September 11.” The Journal of Popular Culture 40, no. Taylor, Philip M. Munitions of the mind: A history of propaganda from the ancient world to the present era.