World War II had a huge impact on European societies. How was feminine identity in particular affected by the war?
Penny Summerfield, in her essay Heroes and Stoics: War work and Feminine Identity she discuses the point that there has been no equivalent lauding of women's work since World War Two. She writes “The wars in which Britain was involved in from the 1950's to 1990's have not impugned on the domestic economy.” That much is true, because the woman has not been asked to fill that role which they occupied years earlier. Summerfield goes on to write “The postwar wars have been represented as almost entirely male enterprises; the images associated with them are of male aggressors.” Summerfield has a profound point when she makes her point; the representations of war espoused after 1945 have been that of only the male and the female role and identity has been, in her words, "obliterated". The fact remains that women could not just go back to the kitchen, as some men wanted.
Sonya Rose, in chapter 4 of her book “Which People's War?” discusses feminine identity. She says “…in practice they [women] were politically disadvantaged relative to men”. Furthermore, women's identity changed, at least in France. For example, Paula Schwartz, in her essay Partisans and Gender Politics in Vichy France, discusses women's appearance in the resistance movement that prevailed after 1940. She goes on to explain that women's roles were understood in two modes, either they were on equal footing with men which meant they lead resistance movements and/or networks. The second theory to gain prominence was the theory that "ordinary" women were participating in the movement and that should be understood. This appearance in resistance movements would undoubtedly shift the way that women were perceived and handled. The resistance movement was somewhere that women could be on equal footing with men.
Women, although the point was consistently made that their work was to be temporary, had already had a taste of work and were not going to give it up. Harry Truman, future American President, said “This war [World War Two] has put women into factories. Let no one imagine that women will be shunned out of these jobs which they have demonstrated so well their capacity to do.” His quote would prove to be prophetic, as women would not and should not simply recede when the men came home. In the end, women's identities were redefined and renegotiated after the Second World War and women have not simply receded from the workforce.
