AUSTRALIAN WOMEN AT WAR

This blog is not only for trekkers but also for old soldiers,
wives, their families and modern students.

In the last week, this blog spot has featured a story about the

Americans servicemen in Australia and the response of

Australian soldiers. It was not intended to cause problems.

The emancipating role of women in the first and second world

wars is part of history and been read by high school children
for 50 years.

But the issue will be featured on ABC 1 TV as reported in The

National newspaper in Papua New Guinea 18 April 2011.

This feature is to report that a key experience for Australian girls

particularly in the towns near the American camps was to meet

Americans.

Girls’ Own war stories are the personal recollections of a small

group of Australian women and how the Second World war

changed their lives.

Each woman experienced opportunities and new challenges as
the result of the war. In doing so, they learned to stand on their
own two feet.

In 1939, the expectations of most young women were limited to

spending life looking after their men and children.

They accepted they got less pay than men if they worked. They

accepted that men were more important. They believed in a life

of duty, responsibility and care.

But the war and the women’s war changed all that. Some took

up a challenge to help the country – as cipher operators, factory

workers, code breakers or search light girls, Others struggled at

home to support their families.

For everyone, the war became increasingly frightening as the enemy

drew closer and all breathed a sigh of relief when Americans arrived.

However, Yanks were a mixed blessing – bringing not only fighting

power and a huge consumer demand but causing social and sexual

upheaval.

This new morality caused personal dilemmas for women of all ages
and backgrounds.

As the war began to wind down and men began to come home, they

expected a return to the old ways where women were compliant and

dutiful.

But women had changed, a sense of working for the good of country

and helping each other had given them a new vision for their lives and

they were not giving that up.

The Second World War became the greatest social catalyst ever for

Australian women.

Fathers and grandfathers who went to war in 1939-40 were good

men. They were family men and saw themselves head of the house.

They loved their wives and cared for home and family. They had

modeled their lives on their fathers and grandfathers born in the

Victorian era.

Many went to war and sacrificed their lives for their country and their

family. Those who returned to Australia spent the rest of their lives in

support of family.

Advertisements in the late 40s and early 50s saw the happy wife as

having a washing machine, clothes dryer and refrigerator. There was

no hire purchase and men paid cash. A man might buy his wife an

electric iron for her birthday. But that was the sign of the times. In

later generations, the women took electric appliances for granted.

Men did not want wives to work as this was seen as the shameful

sign of a husband unable to look after family. Many men did not
support their girl friends and wives to join up in women’s corps
during the war.

Actress Betty White one of the Golden Girls recently celebrated
her 89^th birthday and said she was married but had no children. If
she had children she would have stayed at home rather than work.
But women have the right to choose.