Military Gender Analysis

On Feb. 2 2016, several of the head officers from the Army and Marine Corps argued at a Senate committee hearing for requiring women to register for the all military drafts in the future. While this idea has been circulating around Senate since the 20th century, this idea has already been put into effect on a much smaller scale. As the Revolutionary War and World Wars prove, a reliance on women during times of war has taken place on all other aspects besides combats. Although the opposition cites the destruction of traditional gender roles as propaganda, the idea of a military draft inclusive of all sexes would already be following the growing example that has been set by the women who have worked along soldiers since the inception of America.

While the women who served as patriots were thrust into cities torn between patriot and tory identity, most women in the military took the roles of the “so-called camp follower” (109), where the wives of officers would work as cooks, nurses, prostitutes, and maids that would follow around the Continental Army and provide aid. These camp followers lived in the same conditions as men, yet were expected to uphold the same feminine role. Meanwhile, other women formed groups like the Daughters of Liberty that would organize public demonstrations and raise funds for the war effort. Esther DeBerdt Reed of the Ladies Association of Philadelphia would go on to describe the toil that women took as “the offering of the ladies” in which these women would sacrifice everyday amenities, such as tea and garments while preparing linen and support the fugitives of war. (Reed 111) While most of their lives revolved around the war, the wives of officers, like Abigail Adams and Martha Washington, would often serves as confidants to their husbands in which they would come to seeking for advice. As time passed, the women returned to their sphere of domesticity, until the Revolutionary war began. This time with more outspoken women on both sides, like Harriet Beecher Stowe, there was a growing sentiment of universal suffrage,

With a growing female labor force during the Progressive Era, it would make sense that the government became more reliant on the female work force. During World War I, the government used propaganda posters, containing images of working as a means to provide a united front and encourage emphasize the impact that women could have on the war. These forms of propaganda continued to become an important aspect as iconic images like “Rosie the Riveter” were placed in cities all over America in order to encourage women to participate in the workforce. After Pearl Harbor, most Americans joined in the wartime effort. For the first time, groups like Women’s Army Corps and the Marine Corps Women’s Reserve took in thousands of women who volunteered for the wartime effort alongside several of thousands of female nurses. In addition to this, women would continue to work past the gender barrier as jobs, such as mechanics and welder, began to take in more women. For the first time, the idea of women working in factories alongside men became socially accepted, primarily due the lack of male workers. Images of “Rosie the Riveter” had a sharp contradiction to those propaganda images used during World War 1 that often depicted a damsel in distress. While some women worked solely for economic growth,