Annie get your gun
A friend overseas drew my attention to this article and (art) photograph, after hearing about the debate in Oz about women serving in the front line in the military. Their skills and records of the women are astounding to anyone in Oz who is unused to women serving in such demanding roles. However they are not unusual.
SrA Polly-Jan Bobseine
http://www.afa.org/aboutus12oabios06.asp
A1C Ashley-Ann Cady
http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/feminist_art_base/gallery/Nancy_Floyd.php?i=2551
Upon mentioning these to my mother who was a wartime nurse, she lent me a DVD of the wonderful social documentary series [i]Fighting the Blue[/i] about the RAF, which had a section on women who served in WW2. As well as performing most of the roles previously performed by the men who were at war, women were well represented in the military and as part of the ATA, flew every possible make of warplane as delivery pilots in England. As the documentary had it, it was the women of WW2 who changed the role of women.
One of the pilots commented that although she often delivered Spitfires and other fighters and the guns were loaded, unfortunately they were not cocked (and could not be fired) as a deliberate policy. which meant she could not have defended herself if attacked. The women pilots were told to fly low and depend on the anti-aircraft guns to defend them - unfortunately though those gunners often mistook the fully marked planes for enemy and shot at them. That was an amazing policy given that these women racked up many flying hours while the teenage male RAF pilots, who had few hours experience were being killed on their first flight.
Maybe there is something in the claims that society makes women into the likely victims of crime by making it 'unladylike' for a woman to defend herself. Assailants would recognise that too. Or is it an extension of a weird 'progressive' construct of a 'civil' society, where not having the will nor capacity to defend oneself is construed and promoted as a (false) virtue and that thinking applies in spades to women?
Yes.
Women also worked long hard and dirty days on farms, in munitions factories and all sorts of places but lost their jobs to the boys after the war, even though many were widows and separated with children to support.
Some men stationed interstate had made alliances with new partners and didn't go home.
As a consequence of this, many children ended up being taken by welfare agencies as neglected (they were left alone while the mother worked), and placed in Homes.