Femininity and the Armed Forces
Femininity as a Recruitment Tool
"Nearly 350,000 American women served in uniform, both at home and abroad, volunteering for the newly formed Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAACs, later renamed the Women’s Army Corps), the Navy Women’s Reserve (WAVES), the Marine Corps Women’s Reserve, the Coast Guard Women’s Reserve (SPARS), the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPS), the Army Nurses Corps, and the Navy Nurse Corps" (National WWII Museum).
Recruitment literature emphasized femininity often stating, “Women in uniform are no less feminine than before they enlisted” (McEuen).
In this video for WACS, the Army emphasizes women can still wear hosiery, make-up, and their hair fashonable. Notice the women in the WAC Beauty Shop (00:04:18).
This recruitment video for the Coast Guard SPARS is sure to point out that women won't get to be Admirals, but if they're lucky, they may be his secretary.
The first six and a half minutes of the video below is a recruitment video for WASPs (Women's Air Force Service Pilots). The women are continuously referred to as girls. Girls who have 'pretty arms' and need the help of men to jump up to a bar to complete a chin up. The women are seen applying make-up while in the cockpits of their planes and referred to as the "softer, fairer sex worried to death that she's going to get her hair wet" (00:04:22).
"It is worth noting that Leonora Anderson (Lonnie Anderson “the little blond”) went on to become a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Air Force. She and several WASP members fought to have their contributions recognized as military service. Because of them, former WASP’s are now allowed to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery" (National Archives).
While these recruitment videos ensure women will not lose their femininity if they join the armed forces, the overriding narrative is that women should join so men can fight. Every job described is to the benefit of men, not the women.
Femininity as a Weapon Against Women
During WWII, pin-up girls and "an unprecedented display of American women's bodies" were produced and used to sell "everything from laundry detergent to soda pop to troop morale" (McEuen). Feminity in this respect was used for the benefit of soldiers.
Pin-up photos were given to enlisted men, posters were hung all over cities and in camps, and pin-up girls were painted on planes as a way to help morale. This was done so the men "could focus on fighting to protect what was back at home (namely, women, and the promise of having a family) instead of the brutality of battle...One of the main propaganda techniques during World War II was to make men believe that if they went to war, women would love them and fall all over them" (Quinn).
"Folklore needs no facts"
For women in the military, however, feminity was used as a way to subjugate them.
In 1943, when the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) dropped "auxiliary" from its name, there was "an outpouring of criticism, concern, and derision. Male GIs carried out a smear campaign against the organization. They spread rumors that WAC volunteers served as prostitutes for male soldiers, reinforcing a notion that army life encouraged promiscuity" (McEuen).
Women were expected to follow the "four pillars of true womanhood;" piety, chastity, domesticity, and subservience (Santana). So, when uniformed women became visible in 1943, "many people were ready to believe the worst about them" (De Pauw, 252). For many men, the stories about "wild, lecherous 'Waccies'" were harmless fun. An Alabama congressman said the stories were a "way this country keeps its sense of humor" (De Pauw, 252).
Rumors of widespread pregnancy persisted despite only one woman becoming pregnant who was married to an Army officer, and she became pregnant while he was on leave. "At Hampton Roads, Virginia, it was 'common knowledge' that 90 percent of the WAACs were prostitutes and 40 percent were pregnant" (De Pauw, 253)
On June 8, 1943, "a nationally syndicated column called Capitol Stuff made teh following revelation: 'Contraceptive and prophylactic equipment will be furnished to members of the WAAC, according to a supersecret agreement reached by high-ranking officers of the War Department" (De Pauw, 253). There was no evidence to support the story, and the effect on the women and their families "was devestating."
One enlisted woman wrote:
"I went home on leave to tell my family it wasn't true. When I went through the streets, I help up my head because I imagined everybody was talking about me, but when I was at last safe inside our front door, I couldn't say a word to them. I was so humiliated I just burst out crying, and my people ran and put their arms around me and cried with me. I couldn't understand how my eagerness to serve our country could have brought such shame on all of us" (De Pauw, 254).
Women of Color
Respectability in military service was especially difficult for women of color who faced both gender discrimination and racism. "Excluded from the WAVES and SPAR until November 1944, and excluded from the wartime marines or WASP, sixty-five hundred African Americans joined a segregated women’s army" (McEuen).
The assumption that Black women served only one function in the military resulted in the forbidding of Black WACs "in uncontrolled small field units near Black male soldiers" (De Pauw, 257). Pressure from the NAACP and others, forced the War Department to relent, however, and the 6888th Central Postal Battalion arrived in Europe under the command of Maj. (later Lt. Col.) Charity Adams. Adams, one of the first Black woman Army officers, experienced horrible racism. She "spent many hours at Ft. Des Moines tending to “extra” duties that fellow soldiers expected of her because she was black; one of those tasks was cultivating the small Victory Garden at their barracks. Other women of color in uniform were assaulted at southern railway stations, denied access to facilities and dining cars on trains, and treated with disdain in towns near their bases and well beyond" (McEuen).
WAVES did not allow Japanese American women to join. After initially being barred from WAC, they were allowed to join in November 1943. WAC officials did not want it publicized, however. U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestory were eager to "prove their loyalty" against the wide-spread racism they faced.
"Lesbian threat"
Women's sexual autonomy aligned them too closely with men in uniform which blurred gender lines. This "worry" about women's sexual independence started rumors of a "lesbian threat" within the military.
Mary Meigs wrote about her experience as a WAVE.
"With our eyes reverently fixed on Old Glory hanging beside theinterrogating officer, each of us said, 'No,' to his perfuctory question, 'Are you a homosexual?'...For me in 1943, 'No' was not quite an outright lie...I did not yet think of myself as a lesbian, yet I knew perfectly well that saying 'No' was the only way you could become a WAVE...The spy system in the service got underway when the mother of an enlisted WAAC surprised her daughter in bed with her lesbian lover and sounded the alarm. Enlisted lesbians who took the risk of sleeping together in the barracks were likely to be denounced by informers" (Klein, 158-9).
Medical and public opinion in the 1940s tied women's sexual 'deviance' to her appearance. Appearing 'manly' "could mark a woman as suspect since she challenged the rules of femininity that grounded heterosexuality and secured a traditional social order" (McEuen).
As a result, military women were ordered to attend lectures about how to "properly dress for work" (McEuen). They were warned to not roll up sleeves or the legs of their coveralls “to avoid rough or masculine appearance which would cause unfavorable public comment” (McEuen).
Advertisers and illustrators were instructed to show women soldiers in their "complete G.I. uniform" and to never show them "smoking or drinking alcoholic beverages."
These rules illustrate the role clothing and appearance played in gender and sexual identities for military women during the war. "Even the appearance of impropriety could be grounds for dismissal and a dishonorable discharge" (McEuen).