“The Soldier Speaks”: Yank Coverage of Women and Wartime Work

Abstract

During World War II, the U.S. government undertook a massive propaganda effort to alter public perceptions of working women, as critics charged their employment was a threat to the social fabric of American society, and an obstacle to job-seeking veterans. Mass media was the arbiter of public opinion, and while much of the commentary was offered on behalf of enlisted men, soldiers′ opinions were rarely represented. This study considers the ways that Yank, a World War II-era armed services weekly, depicted women's wartime employment at a time when public sentiment was strongly opposed to it. How did Yank convey soldiers′ attitudes on the subject, and how might its content have fit into a larger propaganda effort aimed at recruiting women for industrial work while instructing them to maintain their femininity? The study finds that while women figured significantly in the pages of the journal, Yank made women's work a “non-issue” for soldiers. The topic was given short shrift in nearly every part of the journal: letters to the editor, news from the home front and feature articles, for example. When it did broach the subject, Yank suggested a return to pre-war gender roles was inevitable.