Rosie The Riveter Propaganda

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The creation of "Rosie the Riveter” was a very complex form of propaganda, which involved the collusion between private media outlets and the increased oversight of the American government and the Magazine Bureau . These institutions regulated and promoted images of gender liberation for female workers through popular media outlets like True Story and The Saturday Evening Post. However, it was also apparent that the underlying “feminine” gender roles of the pre-war era were still being reinforced. Yellin (2004) and Campbell (1984) also reinforce these problems with female “liberation” from normative gender norms, since their data also confirms the continued popularity of the submissive or victimized women. This part of Honey’s work marks …show more content…
This is not too dissimilar from the magazines and newspapers that Honey (1985) analyzes in relation to the double-standard of WWII history tht promotes the “liberation” of women as empowered factory works, while, at the same, the very same victimized and submissive female roles are promoted in popular American culture. These historical perceptions of female gender roles end to de-legitimize the feminist role of female factory worker, since there were many more occupations that remained typical for women to embrace in a patriarchal society. The roles of nurses and secretaries was, by far, the most prominent to the “military” roles that women played during the war. However, the work of women as farmers, factory workers, airplane mechanics, etc. was certainly a corresponding reality in the daily workplace. More so, Yellin’s (2004) analysis of the female role in the family unit underscores the motives that many women undertook to support their husbands, brothers, and fathers that risked their lives in the theater of combat. These are important historiographical discourses that undermine the romantic image of the ‘feminist” liberation of the WWII factory worker, since there is countermanding evidence that the role of women in the workforce was primarily a temporary gender alteration to …show more content…
Yellin’s (2004) analysis of the “war’ that women fought on the American home front defines a period of history in which women were able to perform “wage work”, yet within the confines of a patriarchal government that did not allow them their own voice in the care of their children. This form of governmental control defines the limitations of female “liberation” from patriarchal government officials, which is also apparent tin the romantic notion of Rose the Riveter as defined in Honey’s (1985) evaluation of the contrived propaganda between the office of War Information, the magazine Bureau, and local magazines, such as The Saturday evening post and true Story, to encourage women to join the workforce. Certainly, these media outlets proved the falseness of the “feminine mystique”, yet it also defined the temporary work status of women tht were only meant to support their husbands, brothers, and fathers serving in the field of combat. Yellin (2004) supports these other forms of traditional female values that viewed their role in the workforce as part of a short-term ‘sacrifice’ that would help support their male counterparts during the war. These are the complex gender dynamics, which dilute the feminist myth of Rosie the Riveter as the primary form of identity for women during