27. 1930-1950 - Women and Global War
Between 1939 and 1950, the world was again at war. World War II transformed women's lives around the world and left their roles forever changed. Women were re-mobilized for war and their anti-war advocacy became even more entrenched. The post war world also saw more women in power, and greater emphasis on peace and universal human rights, compounding on the efforts of the generation before them.
How to cite this source?
Remedial Herstory Project Editors. "25. 1850-1950 - WOMEN AND GLOBAL WAR" The Remedial Herstory Project. November 1, 2025. www.remedialherstory.com.
Trigger Warning: This chapter references rape and sexual assault.
World War I was meant to be the war to “end all wars,” but obviously such was not the case. The moment the First World War ended, the Second was on the horizon. Women worked to prevent war through peace efforts, while others worked to rearm, rebuild, and prepare for revenge. When war finally reared its head, women again served their nations at unprecedented scales, building on the role they played in the first war. From Japan, to the US, to India, to Europe and North Africa, women everywhere were drawn into the conflict.
Women served in war as they had before, but this time in greater numbers and with even more access to the front. Women served behind the lines, worked in the resistance, fought as soldiers and pilots, and were - as ever - victims of war. Not only did women face death, injury, and destruction of their homes and towns, but everywhere the war touched, women were also victims and survivors of sexual assault and rape. While it is hard to talk about, it is important to understand the particularly vulnerable positions civilians are in during war to understand it on a human level in hope that history doesn't repeat itself.
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Pacifism
In Europe, World War II was building the moment World War I ended. A major cause of the war was the resolution to the first, in which the Allied governments sought to punish Germany by placing heaving payments, seizing German colonies, and pushing back German boundaries. The Treaty of Versailles forced German people into poverty while the abdicated Kaiser Wilhelm - the German decision-maker of the war - and his family lived in relative luxury. It installed a weak democratic government and built resentment in the German people who looked at this new government and their wartime enemies as the source of all their new ills.
As part of the work that had begun in and around World War I, Pacifist women worked tirelessly in the two decades between the wars to prevent the next. In 1919, the International Committee of Women for Permanent Peace changed its name to the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and relocated its central office to Geneva, near the League of Nations. Between the wars, American Emily Greene Balch, a former Welsley Professor of Economics, became the leader and worked without pay to the organization's ends. She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946 for her work to promote peace and reconciliation.
Another major figure was Gabrielle Duchêne, the French founder of the World Committee of Women against War and Fascism, created in 1934. She, among others, was convinced that only a single union of feminists, united by a sense of internationalism, could wage the war against war. Duchêne continued her work during and after the war. When Nazis later invaded France, she was hunted as a political adversary and sought refuge with friends where she helped people escape Europe. After the war, she left a momentous archive of documents related to women’s peace and labor union work.
In the years between the wars, French pacifist Jeanne Mélin, who had been highly active in World War I, remained central to the discussions of peace and feminism in the build-up to World War II. Moving toward a more radical pacifism, her goal was to prevent war and increase international cooperation in order to democratically resolve issues, long before war ever emerged as a solution. Mélin became active in international relations, exchanging almost 1,000 letters with like-minded women from around the world including Gabrielle Duchêne, Louise Bodin, Jane Addams, Chrystal MacMillan, and even German leaders Gertrud Baer and Lida Gustava Heymann.
Mélin also refused to accept the Treaty of Versailles, particularly the theory of German culpability, and increased her symbolic and media-related activities in support of Franco-German reconciliation. At a peace conference in Zurich in 1919, she is remembered for shaking the hand of the German delegate Lida Gustava Heymann. In her speech, she refused to condone France humiliating Germany by way of the peace treaties. She proclaimed herself a sister of these women who, like herself, had fought so strongly against imperialism and militarism. Mélin even sent a manifesto to the German people proposing a European economic federation, an idea that would not be realized for decades in the formation of the European Union in 1993.
Mélin traveled widely in Europe on behalf of the peace organization Ligue International des Femmes pour la Paix et la Liberté (LIFPL). However this group was seen by people at the time as a distraction from the hard issues of the time - or worse - the product of the weaker sex. Still, their efforts would have lasting impacts beyond the war, laying the groundwork for the international cooperation that followed.
Women peace activists were widely engaged during this period, but were often operating outside positions of power and many of their countries were taking the position of neutrality and isolationism rather than actions that could potentially avoid future war, which made peace initiatives difficult, if not impossible. In fairness, many of these countries had been so devastated and rocked by World War I, that they focused on their own personal rebuilding rather than prioritizing future hypothetical (though likely) wars. Others, who had been spared some of the horrors of World War I, wanted to ensure that they never became entangled in such an apocalyptic event. It was not that they did not want peace, but more that they couldn’t bring themselves to think about war. Nonetheless, this mindset and stance had consequences. For example, in 1922, a delegation from the Messagères de la Paix, comprising Jane Addams, Catherine Marshall, and Jeanne Mélin, won the support of the Scandinavian countries against French occupation of former German territories. Unfortunately, because those countries had declared neutrality, they were unable to take any steps that would put pressure on France.
Further, as the women of these organizations operated outside of power, the almost entirely male Allied governments refused to receive them. When the women proposed reasonable changes to the League of Nation’s constitution, which would improve cooperation over coercion, they were similarly ignored. Other women’s peace groups wanted the League of Nations to be replaced by an international society of nations advocating gender equality, the economic independence of women, the equal sharing of wealth, and respect for minorities. This initiative would not take root.
The international feminist pacifist movement was really active in the mid-1920s, with several organizations hosting conferences to dispel myths propagated by national governments. 19 different peace organizations and societies took part in a parade for peace on Armistice Day (the day peace was established in World War I) in 1931. The parade crossed Paris by bus, and was marked by two symbolic arrests, one at the Etoile on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and another at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.
While the ideas they put forth still showed the advanced nature of their thinking regarding peace and world affairs, as things heated up and tensions were mounting in Europe, the women of these organizations would not be successful in preventing World War II. In her 1957 memoirs, Jeanne Mélin bears witness to the desperation and isolation she felt when tackling the subject of the declaration of war. She wrote, “Well at this point, I find it impossible to describe my greatest disappointment [...] having worked so hard and relentlessly for harmony between nations, for peace and human fraternity, all I could do was stand by impotently as such a worthy ideal collapsed around me.”
Abdicate (v.), (of a monarch) renounce one's throne.
Delegation from the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom after meeting with President Roosevelt at the White House in 1936
A World War I era protestor
Impotently (adv.), in a way that lacks the power or ability to change or improve a situation.
Rising Facism: Italy
When people think of World War II and fascism, they are typically immediately drawn to Germany, but many forget that Italy had paved the path that Adolf Hitler would follow. The Kingdom of Italy was overtaken by the National Fascist Party and its leader, Benito Mussolini, in 1922. In a political arrangement of supposed shared power, Mussolini ruled alongside the sitting monarch, but the power was ultimately in Mussolini’s hands as dictator.
Facism was a political ideology wrapped around ultranationalism and totalitarian rule. Fascist ideology was similar to socialism at the time in that it promoted a breakdown of class distinctions, but could not align with socialism’s negative view of nationalism. Further, the notion of breaking down class distinctions was primarily meant to alleviate issues of workers and the wealthy, and did not intend to build equality across races, religions, or genders; these hierarchies were intended to remain firm with Italian, Catholic men at the top of the proverbial food chain.
Mussolini preached of a return to Italy’s prominence in the world, modernization, and conquest. Specifically - just as Hitler’s Nazi Party would later proclaim the need for expansion in the name of Aryan lebensraum (living space) - Mussolini focused on creating spazio vitale (living space) for the Italian people. Between 1920 and 1939, the year WWII began, Italian forces attacked, annexed, occupied, and invaded Libya, Ethiopia, Albania, and territories of Greece and Yugoslavia. While he was soon to be overshadowed by the horrors of fascist Germany, Mussolini’s brash actions and seeming ability to sidestep any international clamor not only inspired Hitler, but helped to prove to the world at large that international organizations like the League of Nations were incapable of actually preventing regional conflict.
Italian soldiers marched into Ethiopia in 1936 before the Western world was ready to consider the start of World War II, and thereby offered only weak sanctions as a response. As the Italian men marched, they sang songs about the sexual things they would do to Ethiopian women when they arrived. Seeing the rape of women as a right of war, indeed perhaps as a male military “rite of passage,” has been pervasive in many wars, and this was bolstered by the fact that Italian fascism supported gender hierarchy with women subordinate to men.
The war brought about widespread violence, and Ethiopian women were not spared from its effects. There were documented cases of sexual assault and rape committed by Italian forces, and these acts of violence had a traumatic and long-lasting impact on the survivors, leaving deep scars on both individual and collective levels.
Ethiopian leaders asked Britain and France for support, but they were denied. They warned that the war that was happening in North Africa would soon be in Europe, but leaders were so fearful of another global war they still refused to intervene. The delayed involvement of both the Americans and the British had a profound impact on the lives of women around the world. Whenever an army is invading, there is great risk to the civilian population who are often left behind when the trained men head off to distant front lines.
The assault of Ethiopian women would not be unique in this war. World War Two saw extensive use of rape both as a tactic of war and as a casual expression of misogyny. Examples include the Rape of Nanjing mentioned above, the Rape of Berlin, in which the Russian army raped virtually every woman left in Berlin at the end of the war, rapes and sexual torture in the Holocaust, the sexual slavery of the Comfort Woman system, and rapes by Allied soldiers across Europe.
While their war began years before World War II erupted, Ethiopian women actively participated in the resistance against Italian occupation until they were driven out by Allied forces in 1941. They played crucial roles in supporting the Ethiopian resistance forces, providing food, shelter, and medical assistance to fighters. Women also acted as messengers, spies, and nurses during the war, making significant contributions to the resistance efforts.
Nationalism (n.), identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations.
Totalitarianism (n.), a system of government that is centralized and dictatorial and requires complete subservience to the state.
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Ethiopian woman being trained to use a rifle in 1935
Rising Fascism: Germany
The economic depression in Germany allowed for extremism to breed and gradually, the Nazi Party under the charismatic leadership of Adolf Hitler came to power, promising that they had solutions to all the problems facing real Germans. Their goal was the rise of the Third Reich, or the third great empire (after the Holy Roman Empire and the German Empire), but that process involved eradicating undesirable elements from society through policy and breeding to leave only the “master race”, the Aryans. Undesirable elements ranged from criminals and political opposition, to Jews, Marxists, Roma, and even those with mental and physical disabilities. All of these groups being among the many blamed for Germany’s suffering.
Women played a significant role in Hitler’s plan to create an ideal society, although this role was ultimately the submission of women in an ultra masculine society. Hitler praised German women as loyal and devoted supporters of the Nazi movement. He valued Aryan women for their activism and also recognized their biological ability to bear children who would contribute to the growth of the race. The Nazis believed that a larger population of pure Aryans would strengthen Germany militarily and provide settlers for conquered lands in Eastern Europe. To promote this goal, the Nazi regime encouraged "racially pure" women to have as many children as possible, as long as their choice in partner was selective - as only healthy, Aryan partners could produce children of his future “master race.” The regime sought to maintain "racial purity" by passing laws that prohibited marriage between Aryans and non-Aryans and preventing individuals with disabilities or certain diseases from marrying at all.
In 1936, the Nazis implemented a state-directed program called Lebensborn (Fount of Life), which aimed to increase the population. Under this program, every Schutzstaffel (SS) member was expected to father four children, whether they were married or not. Lebensborn homes were created that acted as state-endorsed brothels for SS to procreate with racially pure women. They provided support and assistance to these single mothers and their children, including financial aid and assistance in finding adoptive parents for the children.
The Lebensborn program was not aggressively promoted, instead, the Nazi population policy focused more on promoting family and marriage, expecting children to follow naturally. The state encouraged marriage through loans, provided financial support for each new child, publicly recognized families with many children, awarded the Cross of Honor of the German Mother to women with four or more children, and increased penalties for abortion of desired Aryan babies. The National Socialist Women's Union and the German Women's Agency also used Nazi propaganda to emphasize the roles of women as wives and mothers.
The Lebensborn program was not aggressively promoted, instead, the Nazi population policy focused more on promoting family and marriage, expecting children to follow naturally. The state encouraged marriage through loans, provided financial support for each new child, publicly recognized families with many children, awarded the Cross of Honor of the German Mother to women with four or more children, and increased penalties for abortion of desired Aryan babies. The National Socialist Women's Union and the German Women's Agency also used Nazi propaganda to emphasize the roles of women as wives and mothers.
While Aryan women were praised, it was entirely for their reproductive function. Outside of that, opportunities for women in the workplace were rapidly closing. Admissions into institutions of higher learning, licensure, and other measures of social value were similarly deteriorating. Instead, girls were taught starting at the age of ten to embrace their roles as mothers and obedient wives through schools and compulsory membership in the Nazi League of German Girls (Bund Deutscher Mädel). However, as the Nazis geared up for war, the need for labor forced them to alter their stance and encourage women to enter the workforce. Women were compelled to participate through programs like the Duty Year, which required all women to provide compulsory service, and many even joined the military.
Aryan (n.), (in Nazi ideology) a white, non-Jewish person, especially one of northern European origin or descent, regarded as belonging to a supposedly superior racial group.
Marxist (n.), a supporter of the political and economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
Roma (n.), a people originating in South Asia and traditionally traveling as way of life; known derogatorily as gypsies.
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Nazi propaganda photo idealizing motherhood
Schutzstaffel (n.), a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II.
The Cross of Honor of the German Mother
Members of the BDM
Members of the BDM performing agricultural work
Rising Fascism: Japan
Across the world, Japan - which had played a relatively small role in World War I as part of the Allies - continued its militarism and imperial ambitions. As in the Russo-Japanese War, their eyes were set on Manchuria as a start, but their goal, like that of the emerging Nazis across the ocean, was nothing short of Asian and Pacific domination. Some even mark Japan’s fateful invasion of Manchuria in 1931, and later invasion of China in 1937 as starting points of World War II, even though the general consensus marks the start as Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939. While Mussolini and Hitler were pressing the boundaries of the ineffective League of Nations and dreaming of their future empires, Emperor Hirohito was already pursuing expansion through force.
Part of this Japanese drive for domination was fueled by a distorted view of the world and gender relations. Japanese conservatives were critical of the West and modernization, and worried about society becoming more feminine. Imperial Army soldiers were encouraged through government propaganda and education to be against the "new woman," the women's movement, women entering male jobs, and modern technology that made life easier for both men and women. Soldiers were expected to prioritize loyalty to the Emperor and the nation, not their families, which primary source evidence showed was not easy for them. Yet, this idea of military masculinity started to dominate mass culture too.
At the same time, the empire needed women in order to win wars of expansion. The ideals of a "good wife, wise mother" were transformed to include national service, as women became crucial in the war effort, providing comfort and support to soldiers. The Women's National Defense Association played a significant role in promoting defense knowledge and aiding families of soldiers. The association's activities included sending care packages and letters to soldiers, as well as visiting their homes, and membership became compulsory, or forced like the draft, so millions of women participated.
However, the way that women were idealized at home in Japan could not have been more different from how state agencies treated women in conquered Japanese territory. As part of their indoctrinated sense of ethnic superiority over surrounding peoples, their views of women’s subservience, and even as a military strategy of sexual terrorism, rape and sexual assault was rife wherever the Japanese Army went. One of the most horrific assaults on foreign Asian women came between 1937-1938 during an event known as the Rape of Nanjing.
As the Japanese moved through the Chinese countryside, civilians fled from their homes in hopes of finding safety. Many had fled to the city of Nanjing, but as the Chinese armies pulled back toward the center of the country to try to lure the Japanese after them, the city was left woefully underprotected. The massacre in Nanjing by the Japanese army resulted in the brutal killing of entire Chinese families, and the city was left strewn with bodies as the killing dragged on from mid-December into January 1938.
Alongside the mass killings, tens of thousands of women, including young girls and elderly women, endured horrifying acts of rape and torture. Survivor Xia Shu Qin recalls,
When the Japanese came in, they stabbed me three times, and I passed out. When I came to, I saw my mother without clothes lying dead at the side of the table. My baby sister lay dead in the courtyard. My teenage sister was naked. They didn’t even bother to cover her up. I went around and shook everyone. Not a living soul. [...] Seven out of nine people in my family died.
Eyewitness accounts and subsequent analyses indicate that between 20,000 and 80,000 women suffered brutal sexual assaults, with many of them being mutilated and killed after the attacks.
Minnie Vaughn was an American teacher among several international figures in Nanjing who worked to establish and hold a “safe zone” in the city for refugees that they urged the Japanese to not breach and potentially set off an international incident. Collectively, these teachers, missionaries, and doctors saved the lives of thousands, while also cataloging the horrors of the invasion to be shared around the world. Vaughn wrote in her diary from within that safe zone,
A mother brought in three young girls this afternoon and begged us to receive them. One is her daughter who went to the country in early December, the other two were country girls. They say it has been terrible in the country. Girls had to be hidden in covered holes in the earth. Soldiers would try to discover these hiding places by stamping on the earth to see if there were hollow places below. They said they had spent most of their days since December 12th in these holes. [...] At nine this morning two young girls came running to the campus from the street between the University and Ginling saying that soldiers were in their home and they had escaped. [...] This morning four girls came in from the country disguised as old women.They have been hiding in a fuel stack for weeks. [...] This afternoon a little boy came to see me whose father, mother and maternal grandmother and baby sister were all killed by Japanese soldiers. He saw them all killed.
The exact death toll of the Nanjing Massacre remains uncertain, with estimates ranging from 200,000 to 300,000 people. Following the war, both General Iwane Matsui and Lieutenant Tani Hisao were tried and convicted for war crimes by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East for their leadership role in this massacre, leading to their subsequent executions.
It should always be remembered when looking at periods of war that not all soldiers participated in such actions, and some even pushed back against them and protected civilians from such horrific crimes. However, in these extremes, those soldiers could tragically be the minority. Yet, especially as the war expanded, the rape and assault of local women by Japanese soldiers became a serious issue for the military and the colonial regime, showing how routine it had become. Military leadership was not overly concerned with the fate of the women who were victims of this pattern, but concerned that the increasing number of soldiers with venereal diseases tarnished their reputation and the careers of commanders. Sadly, this would inspire the creation of forced prostitution “comfort stations” in Japanese-held territory throughout the Pacific.
Members of the Women's Volunteer Corps (June, 1944)
A survivor of the massacre standing among the dead
Fascism and Feminism
As each of these nations that will inevitably form the Axis Powers explored fascism in their own way, a tenet of their shared fascist ideology - often underemphasized in history classes - is the promotion of the traditional roles of women. Specifically, valuing their roles as mothers who are believed to use their bodies to produce a particular kind of nation (in these cases, a nation of people from a specific ethnic group), and little else, reduced women living under these regimes as broodmares. Therefore, feminists who had come to support contraception, abortion, or women’s bodily autonomy and freedom were a particular target of these regimes.
Fascist nations under Hitler, Hirohito, and Mussolini played a significant role in controlling women's bodily autonomy by implementing measures such as restricting access to reproductive healthcare and providing incentives for increased reproduction, including financial rewards for having lots of children. For example, in 1930, the Rocco Code was implemented in Italy, which banned abortion and limited women's access to birth control. This law also targeted midwives as a source of information on contraception and abortion services. Women's fertility was treated as a public good owned by the state, not by the woman herself. In Nazi Germany, the Nuremberg Laws imposed racist distinctions on when abortion was illegal. There were harsher punishments for abortions performed on women classified as Aryan, while abortions on Jewish and other minority groups were encouraged for eugenic reasons. When the Nazis later took over France, they imposed a puppet government known as the Vichy regime in Southern France, where abortion was declared a crime against the state in 1942. This law led to the imprisonment of Eugène Humbert and the execution by guillotine of Marie-Louise Giraud in 1943 for being abortion providers.
Women in these regimes found various ways to collectively push back against the political assault on their bodies. Some women concealed their pregnancies from employers to avoid restrictive work laws, while others shared recipes containing folk medicine and reproductive health information, expanding access to such knowledge. Rice weeders expressed their resistance through work songs, discussing their struggles and aspirations for personal rights in opposition to the state's agenda, while midwives even engaged in clandestine actions, stealing forbidden tools to perform deliveries of children who did not match the ethnic ideal as well as private abortions.
In all, using women’s bodies and reproductive potential for the good of the state supported the fascist ideas of hierarchies. They viewed their race as superior to other races and aimed to prove that through military might. Women, although part of that race, were subjected internally to the gender hierarchy which was male defined and dominated.
Broodmare (n.), a female horse used for breeding.
Eugenics (n.), the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable.
Clandestine (adj.), kept secret or done secretively, especially because illicit.
A lebensborn house in Germany
The USSR
While not undergoing a fascist takeover, the Soviet Union had been undergoing immense transformation since communism had taken hold in the wake of World War I. As Stalin consolidated power in the years after Lenin’s death, an even harsher version of communism was in place. Under Lenin, the Bolsheviks had sought to transform the family by giving men and women equal rights. Lenin stated, “[The woman] continues to be a domestic slave, because petty housework crushes, strangles, stultifies and degrades her, chains her to the kitchen and the nursery, and she wastes her labor on barbarously unproductive, petty, nerve-racking, stultifying and crushing drudgery.” Stalin continued some of the commitment to women’s rights. For example, the army contained all-female units, and the 1936 Constitution of the Soviet Union stated that “Women in the USSR are accorded equal rights with men in all spheres of economic, state, cultural, social, and political life.” However, in practice, Stalin’s Russia did not live up to those goals. Women continued to bear the burden of childcare and during the war, the ideology of women as “heroines of the home” was inculcated.
Interestingly, while Western powers ignored the hostile and expanding fascist states, they also appeared to be blind to Soviet behaviors. In the 1930s, Stalin began killing or imprisoning resisters to the communist regime and sending them to the gulags (work camps in Siberia), and also committed a mass murder of primarily Ukrainians (known as the Holodomor), through forced collectivization policies which caused the deaths of millions. The dislocation, disappearance, and often murder of men in Stalin’s “purges” left many towns within the Soviet Union with a female majority and families run by female matriarchs trying to pick up the pieces. Women, deprived of male partners by the Soviets, suffered immeasurable pain and suffering as they struggled to feed their families and save their children in the midst of mass hunger. The West either remained ignorant or turned a blind eye to their experiences, quite possibly because they were so focused on the threat posed by rising fascism elsewhere.
A 1930 stamp glorifying ordinary, female workers over traditional feminine appearance
Inculcate (v.), instill (an attitude, idea, or habit) by persistent instruction.
Ukrainian woman caring for starving people in the Holodomor
Outbreak of War
While historians pinpoint several moments as the official start of World War II like the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and later China, Western historians point to the Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939 as the start. Germany quickly overwhelmed much of Europe. After signing a nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union, Germany invaded Poland from one side, while the Soviets invaded from the other. Then, the Germans turned their eyes on Scandinavia, then back on their old foes of France and Britain in 1940, before they stabbed the Soviets in the back driving deep into Soviet territory the next year. Japan similarly tore through China, Vietnam, and after surprising the then-neutral Americans in December 1941, nearly all of the Pacific Islands. Meanwhile, Italy expanded their war into other parts of North Africa and then to other areas of the Mediterranean and Balkans. Each of these nations drew strength from their alliance which formed the Axis Powers in September 1940, while also capitalizing on their enemies’ reluctance to mobilize in the pre-war years.
When the war erupted, women again found themselves thrust into the fight as they had been in World War I. The sheer scale of this war meant that each country involved was throwing their full voluntary forces’ weight at one another, and most also had to draft men to ensure they could protect themselves from or overcome their enemies. As a result, women of both Axis and Allied countries were needed to step into traditional male roles in industry, agriculture, and even military service. Yet again, millions of women took on the monumental task of nursing the millions of wounded and ill soldiers in thousands of field and local hospitals. Nations scrambled to reinstate closed branches of women’s service and get the home front firing on all cylinders as women charged headfirst into the factories to fuel an insatiable industrial war. Even the future Queen Elizabeth II - an English teenager at the time - became a mechanic during the war.
Women also kept agricultural production in motion, to feed both civilians and soldiers - near and far. For example, the Women's Land Army (WLA) played a crucial role in increasing Britain's food production. Prior to the war, Britain relied heavily on imported food. However, the outbreak of war necessitated the cultivation of more land and the production of food domestically, as the German Navy used their submarine force to cut off most imports to Britain. As many male agricultural workers joined the military, women were called upon to form a new workforce in rural areas. At its highest point in 1944, the WLA comprised over 80,000 women, commonly referred to as "land girls." Land girls took on a wide range of tasks on the land, enduring various weather conditions and working in different parts of the country as directed. They played an essential role in supporting agricultural activities and boosting food production during the war.
As with World War I, women in most countries were meant to be far from the “action,” though many found themselves there anyway. They were formed into women’s divisions of various military branches, which often kept them largely segregated from the men. For example, the British had the Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS), the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) and the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), while the Americans had the Women’s Army Corps (WAC), the Navy’s Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES), the Marine Corps Women’s Reserve (BAM, for Be A Marine), the Coast Guard’s Semper Paratus, Always Ready (SPARS), and the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP). Other nations had variations on the same. In numbers that far surpassed World War I, women were allowed into divisions of the military to take on clerical roles, serve as drivers, mechanics, welders, pilots, plumbers, electricians, and more. While in most cases the military brass basically wrote this off as a necessary measure in order to free men up for the battlefield, it became another opportunity for women around the world to prove themselves in fields typically off-limits to them.
Home front workers in Europe and Japan also needed to try to keep up this flow of supply for both soldiers afar and their own civilian population, and had the added challenge of doing so in the midst of the world’s unleashing of true aerial warfare. While aircraft had played a substantial role in WWI, WWII saw extreme advancement in this field and the added strategic shift toward the bombing of not just the battlefield, but the enemies’ civilian centers.
Strategically this revolved around targeting war industries, but undeniably civilian employees, those living nearby such factories, and those in the path of errant bombs were victimized at a crushing rate. The emerging concept of terror through such bombing campaigns was viewed as a strategic bonus by both sides; the hope being that a nation that suffers greatly under bombing campaigns would call for that war’s end. Sadly, this was not the case in WWII, and hundreds of thousands lost their lives to aerial bombing campaigns on all fronts of the war. Further, strategic bombing of roads, bridges, and railways meant that the flow of food, medical supply, and other aid, compounded those casualties.
Two women in the ATS operating a search light
Women in the ATS, Queen Elizabeth II in the center
Indian Women's Auxiliary Corps at Dagshai
Women harvesting crops for the WLA
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British women working on a Churchill tank
Soviet Women in Combat
While some nations saw women at the front lines as an exception to the rule or a matter of extreme circumstance, others saw it as a necessity. It was Soviet women who had the biggest combat presence. In part, this may be due to the social equality aspects of the communist government, but another crucial factor in Soviet use of women in war was how devastating World War I, the Russian Revolution, Stalin’s purges, and World War II thus far had been to their population. Germany’s invasion had wreaked havoc on an already weakened nation, and Russia lost more people than any other nation combined in World War II. There simply weren’t enough people to fight a war of this magnitude without women.
An astonishing 800,000 Russian women would serve in the military during WWII. 200,000 would be decorated during the war, and 89 would win the Hero of the Soviet Union award, which is the equivalent of the American Medal of Honor or the French Legion of Honor. Not to mention that midway through the war every Russian nurse, half of their doctors and surgeons, and nearly half of their paramedics would be women. This doesn’t even include the women who served in resistance groups behind enemy lines!
Women served in infantry positions, as machine gunners, tank drivers, operated anti-aircraft batteries, and more. Some women showed a real proficiency for war that defied any gender lines, like Lyudmila Pavlichenko who was one of just over 2,000 female Soviet snipers. She earned the nickname “Lady Death” with 309 enemy kills in less than a year. The National WWII Museum writes, “The German Army knew of her well. They attempted to bribe her, sending messages over radio loudspeakers stating, ‘Lyudmila Pavlichenko, come over to us. We will give you plenty of chocolate and make you a German officer.’ Near the end of her time on the front line, the German bribes became threats. One message stated, ‘If we catch you, we will tear you into 309 pieces and scatter them to the winds!’ Hearing this threat, Pavlichenko said she was only happy to hear the enemy accurately knew her record.”
She became such a symbol of Soviet power that after an injury in the field in July 1942, she was forcefully retired because the Soviet leadership thought that she provided too much positive morale to lose her. The Russian soldiers - men and women - were proud of their “Lady Death.” Instead, she became a propaganda tool throughout Russia, and was shipped off to America, Canada, and Britain later that year to convince the powers that be to open up a second front in France. She became the first Soviet citizen officially received by the US President.
However, the American press was not too kind to the Russian combat veteran. In 1942 she stated to Time magazine, "I am amazed at the kind of questions put to me by the women press correspondents in Washington. Don't they know there is a war? They asked me silly questions such as do I use powder and rouge and nail polish, and do I curl my hair? One reporter even criticized the length of the skirt of my uniform, saying that in America women wear shorter skirts and besides my uniform made me look fat.” She didn’t take these questions lying down, however. When asked by an American reporter why and how she could do this job, she stated quite succinctly, “Every German who remains alive will kill women, children and old folks [...] Dead Germans are harmless. Therefore, if I kill a German, I am saving lives.” When continually pestered she struck back at the still-neutral Americans with, “Gentlemen, I am 25 years old and I have killed 309 fascist invaders by now. Don’t you think gentleman, that you have been hiding behind my back for too long?” She continued her tour through Canada and England, but in the end, her time of killing was over, but she returned to Russia to train the next generation of snipers and served as researcher for the Soviet Navy after the war.
Russia’s female pilots - though they were similarly given more direct combat roles than women in the service of most other nations - were not considered likely to have a major impact on the war, and thus were given inferior equipment and certainly given inferior respect. Nonetheless, Russia’s female fighter pilots had earned their stripes, claiming the only two female fighter aces. However, it was their night bombers of the 588th Regiment that claim the real fame. Known as the Night Witches, most were women in their late teens and twenties, including Nadezhda Vasiliyevna Popova who joined the war because her brother was killed in battle. She said, “I saw the German aircraft flying along our roads filled with people who were leaving their homes, firing at them with their machine guns [...] Seeing this gave me feelings inside that made me want to fight them.”
These women were more than willing to fight, but were given, quite literally, the bottom of the barrel for equipment. They got rickety crop dusters that were not considered likely to stand up to any anti-aircraft fire if challenged, had a top speed that was unbearably slow, and essentially no modern technology to speak of. These death machines just had a pilot and navigator, two small bombs, and just enough fuel to get to the target and back. Despite their limited equipment, this all-female regiment - from their commanders to their pilots, their navigators, and even their mechanics - flew nearly 25,000 combat sorties and damaged millions of dollars’ worth of supplies, transportation networks, communication systems, and fuel depots. They were exposed to the elements in the open plane, exposed to enemy fire that tore some planes to pieces, and saw 32 of their crew lost to the war, but they also claimed 23 of the total 89 Hero of the Soviet Union titles awarded to women.
While these women represent some of the most elite in the service of Russia, they are just the smallest fraction of Russia’s fighting women. Russian women were far and away the largest female fighting block, women from many warring nations saw combat, and exponentially more saw violence. Hundreds of thousands of women’s experiences in the war may have been lost to time, but proved crucial to war outcomes as part of their nation’s collective effort.
Lyudmila Pavlichenko, “Lady Death”
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Pavlichenko with US First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt Justice Robert Jackson in Washington, DC, in September 1942
Members of the Night Witches
Sorties (n.), attacks made by troops coming out from a position of defense.
Clandestine Work
While it is not often viewed with as much fanfare and reverence as combat, the work of the military intelligence services often prove to be just as critical when it comes to giving those forces in combat the information and advantages they need to be successful (and therefore survive). While each nation had their own intelligence operations, one of the most critical was Bletchley Park, a British codebreaking center during World War II, which owes its success to thousands of remarkable women. This remote manor served as the hub for breaking Axis military codes, such as the supposedly unbreakable Enigma ciphers used by German submarines among others.
Women from diverse backgrounds came to Bletchley Park to contribute to the codebreaking efforts, and by 1944, they outnumbered men three-to-one, holding a variety of roles. Mavis Lever and her team, "Dilly's Fillies," cracked the Italian Navy’s Enigma cipher, contributing to a major naval victory. Betty Gilbert, a Y-Station listener, played a vital role by recording Morse code ciphers for decryption. Joan Clarke, a mathematics genius and friend of Alan Turing, led a team breaking German naval ciphers. Ruth Bourne operated the noisy bombe machines that expedited codebreaking. Osla Benning, a translator, decoded messages from German to English, including crucial wartime information.
Bletchley Park provided an open-minded and moderately equal environment, especially for neurodivergent women. Though leadership opportunities were limited, women excelled in their roles, even if, despite their significant contributions, female achievements remain overshadowed by male codebreakers like Turing.
Codebreaking was not the only intelligence work at play, as someone was also needed to gather direct information on the ground, help transmit that information, and even sow misinformation when the opportunity presented itself. For British forces, those tasks fell to the new Special Operations Executive (SOE). The official mission of the SOE during World War II was to deploy Allied special agents on the ground to coordinate, inspire, control, and assist oppressed nations' nationals. The SOE adopted irregular warfare tactics employed by the Irish Republican Army, training their agents, known as the "Baker Street Irregulars," in sabotage, small arms, communication, and combat skills. Fluency in the local language was essential for seamless integration into the society, as arousing suspicion could jeopardize their missions. The agents underwent extensive training to resist interrogation and evade capture, aware of the imminent danger posed by the Gestapo. Irregular missions demanded specialized equipment, and the SOE's Operations and Research section developed innovative devices for sabotage and close-range combat, such as exploding pens and concealed weapons. Similar organizations from other nations included that of the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) or the Soviet Union’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU).
Vera Atkins was a British intelligence officer who played a significant role in the SOE during World War II. Born on June 16, 1908, in Romania, she later moved to England and became a naturalized British citizen. Known for her exceptional organizational skills and dedication, Atkins became the intelligence officer in charge of the SOE's French Section. Atkins was responsible for recruiting, training, and deploying agents, mostly women, into occupied France.
She personally interviewed and selected candidates, assessing their suitability for covert operations and resistance work. She maintained contact with agents in the field, providing support, guidance, and intelligence. She also played a crucial role in coordinating and overseeing sabotage activities, subversion, and intelligence gathering in France.
Communication devices were crucial to maintain contact with the French resistance and the outside world, with radio operators carrying their equipment on their backs while staying mobile. Women played a vital role in the SOE as couriers, spies, saboteurs, and radio operators. Despite initial reluctance, they proved indispensable due to their advantages in travel freedom and the protection of gender stereotypes; Nazi agents were far more likely to assume men were performing such dangerous work than women.
The stories of these women transcend gender, representing tales of bravery, courage, and sacrifice. The SOE agents, despite not officially being part of the Armed Forces, dedicated their lives to protect freedom and help Europe defeat Nazism. Notable female agents included Nancy Grace August Wake, known as "the white mouse" for her remarkable ability to evade capture, and Odette Hallowes, who survived two years in prison at Ravensbrück. Unfortunately, other agents faced tragic fates, such as Noor Inayat Khan, betrayed and executed in Dachau, and Violette Szabo, who met a similar end in Ravensbrück. Szabo and Khan were both posthumously awarded the George Cross, Britain's highest civilian bravery award.
Violette Szabo’s (née Bushell) story is particularly striking. She grew up in London, but lived with her maternal aunt in France during the Great Depression. She had a tomboyish character, and was fluent in both English and French. Initially during WWII, she joined the Women's Land Army and later the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS). However, soon after the start of the war, Szabo’s husband, Etienne, died in North Africa. She then left her infant daughter with relatives to go after the Nazis whom she blamed for killing her husband.
Her first mission involved a role as a courier and wireless operator in occupied France. She successfully gathered intelligence, and after a brief return to England, she was sent on her second mission. On the second mission, she was captured by German forces while coordinating resistance activities. She was raped and tortured by Nazis while in prison and eventually sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp. Despite harsh conditions and forced labor, she maintained her spirit, known for aiding fellow detainees and even planning escape attempts.
Despite the reality that war was all but lost for the Germans, around February 5, 1945, she was executed at Ravensbrück, marking the tragic end to her valiant efforts as an SOE agent. After the war, on January 28, 1947, Tania, her four-year-old daughter, was presented with Violette's George Cross by King George VI, personally. Violette and Étienne Szabo are considered the most highly decorated married couple during WWII.
Florence Finch was a Filipino-American who worked as a stenographer in Manila when the Japanese seized the island nation. Using her heritage to her advantage, she claimed to be solely Filipino and got a job working for the Japanese, where she diverted fuel supplies to resistance forces. She was ultimately caught when smuggling food to captured American forces and tortured with electric shocks for information, but didn’t break, and was sentenced to hard labor. She survived the war and was later awarded the Medal of Freedom.
Her fellow American, Virginia Hall, served in France under the British SOE, using her prosthetic leg against her enemies by making herself appear unthreatening. She posed first as an American journalist covering the war, and later as a critical radio operator. In 1942, she was discovered and she eluded the Nazis by hiking over the Pyrenees mountains for three days in the snow, going on to become the war’s most decorated female civilian.
Florence Finch was a Filipino-American who worked as a stenographer in Manila when the Japanese seized the island nation. Using her heritage to her advantage, she claimed to be solely Filipino and got a job working for the Japanese, where she diverted fuel supplies to resistance forces. She was ultimately caught when smuggling food to captured American forces and tortured with electric shocks for information, but didn’t break, and was sentenced to hard labor. She survived the war and was later awarded the Medal of Freedom.
Her fellow American, Virginia Hall, served in France under the British SOE, using her prosthetic leg against her enemies by making herself appear unthreatening. She posed first as an American journalist covering the war, and later as a critical radio operator. In 1942, she was discovered and she eluded the Nazis by hiking over the Pyrenees mountains for three days in the snow, going on to become the war’s most decorated female civilian.
Also operating in France was Jane Vialle, a Congolese woman raised in France who was also working as a journalist while gathering intelligence on the Nazis. She was discovered and sent to a concentration camp, which she later escaped. Yet another was the famous Josephine Baker, American-born French entertainer who was a major celebrity, which granted her access to many officials throughout Paris. Baker used these social connections to strike up conversations with Nazi officials and pass any gleaned information along to members of the French resistance and even across country lines. She was also known to help protect refugees and even help them escape the country.
Military Intelligence (n.), the collection and analysis of information about an enemy or potential enemy to help commanders make decisions.
Neurodivergent (adj.), differing in mental or neurological function from what is considered typical or normal (frequently used with reference to autistic spectrum disorders); not neurotypical.
Women working in codebreaking at Bletchley Park
Women working a Mark 2 Colossus computer at Bletchley Park
Vera Atkins
Covert (adj.), not openly acknowledged or displayed.
Subversion (n.), the undermining of the power and authority of an established system or institution.
Née (adj.), originally called; born (used especially in adding a woman's maiden name after her married name).
Nancy Wake and Noor Inayat Khan
Violette Szabo
Florence Finch and Virginia Hall
Josephine Baker
Conclusion
Industrialization improved women’s lives, perhaps more than it did men’s. It led to somewhat better medical care in pregnancy and women and men in industrial work did better economically than their agrarian peers. Thus, the standard of living increased considerably as a result. Despite low wages, some women did find means of supporting themselves, and a few even acquired considerable wealth. Industrialization also upended the patriarchal norms in some ways because it challenged the idea of a “male provider,” as it was increasingly obvious that more and more women needed to work to make ends meet. Women’s income also allowed them to become independent consumers, and with that new role came great power to influence production.
It is important to note that industrialization also fueled western imperial expansion. Factories could produce more weapons, fueling military conquests in Africa, Asia, Siberia, the Pacific Islands, and the western Americas - all of which were desired for raw materials and laborers to fuel production. Whether in positions of leadership or in missionary efforts, women both supported imperialism and fought against it.
Industrialization changed the global make-up, shifted power structures, and allowed the Global North to impose its systems on others, including their views of women. How did class and region change the effects of industrialization? Did the benefits of industrialization outweigh the costs? How would women’s role in the labor force influence policy and social change? Would women be able to enter industries considered “male”? How would society adapt to allow for women to be wage earners and mothers? Maybe the greatest question of all - what would it take for women to earn the vote and thereby increase their say in these matters?