Changes in the Workforce for Women
The years of the 1940s were a great advancement in technology. It is obvious that means of transportation were created as well as machines that would change the way we use technology today. Despite the fact that The Great Depression and World War II were going on, the world was still seeing a continued advancement in gender roles and technology.
There were many changes in the 1940s vs the early 1920s but what was interesting to learn was that it wasn’t until after the Depression that traditional gender roles were changing. Women took on the chores and manly work when the men went off to WWII. With the men being gone, this gave women the opportunity to be given new training and become more skilled in areas that they may not have used before. Women were also given the opportunity to become better educated because they were needed to fill college seats in order to keep colleges open. When the war ended, men came back and basically demanded their jobs back. This in turn caused women to be fired and removed from their jobs which, of course, caused an uproar and much resentfulness. When women were working, it was seen and accepted as a national necessity and a patriotic duty which gave women a new perspective on self-esteem and self-respect. It was only right that they should feel frustrated that they were being stripped of their new working habits only to accommodate the men that were coming back after several years of being gone. (Radek)
IBM (International Business Machines) is the world’s largest information technology company in terms of revenue. It started in 1922 as a company that produced punch card machines. In 1953, it came out with it’s first computer. Then it came to dominate the field of mainframe and minicomputers. It was in 1981 that they launched their first personal computer. This company was interesting to research because in the 1940s, it showed some big milestones for women in technology. The first disabled blind female began working at IBM in 1942. Just a year after that, the company named Ruth Leach their vice president. This was the first female that was given a place among the CEOs. Women continued to accomplish a name for themselves within the company. In 1946, F.H. Finn became the first woman to qualify for IBM’s One Hundred Percent Club. This particular club was a top group of sales representatives who achieved or exceeded sale quotas annually. This is just one of many companies that is proof that women used their education in the 1940s to fight the cultural norms. (WIT Decade 1940)
