Detroit women working in war industries (WWII) Research Paper

Detroit women working in war industries (WWII) - Research Paper Example This caused a huge need for work force in the city. During 1940 s’ there were great discrimination based on sex. Women were not deemed fit to do men’s work. Hence most of the women of that period were housewives. Their main work was to take care of the house and the children. Further during the great depression there was a huge population of men who lost their jobs and was against employing women. The people during that time considered that by employing women, eligible unemployed men were being deprived of jobs. But due to the ongoing war most of the men were enrolled in the army and were not available for work. This resulted in a large scale need for workforce (Milkman, 1987). Another main reason for shortage of work force was the sudden increase in the need for Tanks, Planes, trucks and other equipment required for war fare. Due to the huge increase in need for those articles the major automobile companies in Detroit stopped the production of Automobiles and started c oncentrating more on producing war machines. This lead to development of new factory units and these Factories were involved in the production of war machines and other related equipments. It also created new vacancies and since majority of the men were either fighting for the country or wounded only few men were available to fill up these huge vacancies. This was also the main reason for the sudden shortage of workforce. Due to shortage of workforce, the production was greatly affected. As national interest was involved, the government started showing more concern towards this issue. As a result, the Government decided to involve the women folks of that area to work in the place of men. At the beginning response from the women was very less. Though few women came forward to work, they were only willing to do the traditional female jobs such as clerical or administrative works. They were not willing to do the so called traditional male jobs and they were not willing to work in the f actories. But as there was huge vacancy in these types of jobs the government wanted to employ women in these types of jobs. The call for to work in the factories by the Government was responded mostly by women belonging to minority and lower class who were already employed in some other work. They just shifted from the low paid desk work to a better paid job. This did not help to reduce the need for work force in any way. Hence girls graduating from high schools were also recruited. This also did not suffice the need for the work force. So, the government turned its attention towards house wives. As the majority of the women were housewives, the government started targeting house wives for these kinds of jobs. The male population of the city was totally against this. They thought that by employing housewives the future of the children will be spoiled. In the beginning housewives, especially, with children were prevented from going to work. The government really had a very hard time in bring those women to work. United States of America being a democratic country was not able to force these people to work. Hence, it started to use various other means to do this (Babson, 1986). The government thought of luring the women to work through various propagandas. Through propagandas patriotic feeling was greatly increased. Further economic