Article

(H)our History Lesson: Women's Sexual Health & Safety on the World War II Home Front

Large face of brunette woman with small male figures in the low left corner and the words "She May Look Clean-But"
"She May Look Clean-But." US Government poster, 1940. This kind of propaganda, warning men and blaming women for servicemen's sexually transmitted infections, was common during World War II.

Courtesy of the National Library of Medicine.

Introduction

During World War II, sexual harassment and violence were not limited to the conflicts overseas. It is important to prepare students and share the purpose of examining sexual health and safety issues women faced on the US home front. Learning from historical sources on these issues can help us to better understand how men’s routine discrimination against women in the US affects sexual violence in the US, both past and present.

This lesson can be taught as part of a unit on World War II, the home front, public health issues, and/or women and gender studies issues. The lesson has two readings (one secondary background reading and one primary source) along with two activity choices and an optional extension.

Grade Level Adapted For

Grades 9-12

Lesson Objectives

Students will be able to . . .

  1. Describe issues of sexual health and safety of home front women by using details from primary and secondary sources.

  2. Make connections between wartime propaganda and media and the influence it had on stereotypes and women’s well-being.

  3. Critically analyze historical artifacts through the modern lens of gender bias and discrimination.

Essential Question

What factors impacted women's sexual health and safety on the US home front?

Background Readings

The primary and secondary readings below will introduce students to the complex history of women's sexual health and safety on the American World War II Home Front.

Reading 1: Secondary Source

Reading #1 is a secondary source summary of women's sexual health and safety on the World War II Home Front.

Excerpt by Sarah Nestor Lane (December 2022)

During World War II, 350,000 American women volunteered for service. Nineteen million women worked for wages, five million of them for the first time. At the same time, American and Allied troops poured into US port cities. Prior to D-Day (June 6, 1944), estimates indicate as many as 75% of US servicemen were stationed in these port cities. Their presence strained local resources such as housing and transportation, but also endangered the health and safety of many women who lived there. Men outnumbered women in port cities (and areas with a higher military training presence) and women faced high risks of sexual harassment and violence. Military authorities largely granted immunity, both written and unwritten, to servicemen who harassed and attacked women. Government entities, such as the American Social Hygiene Administration, described women as the cause of sexual crimes and blamed them for the public health issue of rising sexually transmitted infections.
 

Gender Stereotypes and Contradictions

Several factors contributed to sexual harassment and violence against women. One factor was that government agencies depicted women in home front propaganda with stereotypical roles and contradictions. For example, in propaganda and government messaging, women were . . .

  • Depicted as a consumable good for the sake of patriotism and service to country, but also a “trap” to servicemen.

  • A potential “masculine-type” civilian laborer or service member that contributed to the war effort, but also maintained femininity to please men.

  • Intelligent enough to learn things like Morse Code but directed to let servicemen feel superior and successful.

  • Able to work away from the home but only “for the duration” of the war and maintained the home and care for the children, in anticipation for the return of servicemen.

The contradicting messages, the increased hyper-sexualization of women, and the lack of consequences for servicemen were some contributing factors to a time that placed many women at risk of sexual harassment and violence. At particular risk were women of color, and/or lower socioeconomic status. Men and propaganda were more likely to describe or depict these women as promiscuous or “less-than” due to many discriminatory factors, such as segregation. A common example was the exclusion of women of color from positive war propaganda. Posters and media often showed positively contributing women as middle-class and white.

Some researchers believe another contributing factor to sexual harassment and violence against women was men viewing the expanding roles of women as threatening to the traditional male workforce. Even with women encouraged to work or volunteer, some men responded with harassment and resistance to women doing physical or skilled tasks. Men questioned the sexual morality and femininity of working women. Men became anxious and worried that the traditional American life would be lost if women shifted away from homemaking. “Rosie the Riveter” was an example of the government encouraging acceptance of women working for the war efforts--but "Rosie” still wore lipstick and had styled hair.
 

Women to Blame

State and federal governments were aware of sexual violence and rising rates of sexually transmitted infections on the home front. Local governments wanted to maintain the respectability of troops. This included turning a blind eye to sexual harassment and violence committed by service members. Government officials were concerned that investigating sexual violence would have taken away from the war effort. If service members did “slip up,” leadership usually blamed it on the promiscuity of the woman. It was also a common “unwritten” expectation of women to understand and meet the needs of service members to “keep up morale” in serving the country.
 

A Case of Violence and Blame

When popular media did report on sexual violence, public commentary often accused victimized women of recklessness, promiscuity, and even stupidity. For example, in the Evansville Press newspaper on Wed., May 14, 1941, the following case was published: “CASE S-163: Nelly A., aged 23, recently called the Chicago police. ‘I was on my way home from a beer and wine party last night,’ she explained. ‘It was about midnight. While I was waiting for a street car, three men drove up in an auto and offered to take me home, saying they were going my way. Well, one of them struck me on the jaw when I slapped his hand, and when I woke up, I was lying on a deserted prairie in South Chicago. They had attacked me. Now I want you to arrest those men and lock them up for the rest of their lives!’

The psychologist, Dr. George W. Crane, goes on to write his response to this case, including the opinion of one of his psychologist students: ‘Any girl who’d go out on a beer and wine party alone must be a moron to start with . . . And after a few drinks, her limited intelligence would be so reduced by the alcohol she’d be an imbecile, anyway. What did she expect from these three fellows?’

Part of Dr. Crane’s conclusion later states, “But women don’t often look ahead. They are not passionate creatures, as men understand the word. They often are child-like in their gullibility. But the average man will still call Nelly a dumb cluck.”
 

Sexual Health

There was government concern for the sexual health of servicemen at home, but little for women. Infections were costly to the government, due to servicemen not working, yet collecting pay and benefits while being treated. Again, with the intention to keep positive imagery of service men, the negative effects of sexuality – such as sexually transmitted infections – were depicted as stemming from promiscuous, troubled women. On intake and reporting forms, men were directed by health officials to describe the woman that supposedly gave him the infection. Women were depicted within propaganda as the carriers due to their behaviors. The American Social Hygiene Administration’s health campaigns monitored and tested “promiscuous” women. Women could be reported for being with men outside of their family and visited by agents warning them about their behaviors.
 

Challenging Contradictions

Women made advancements in the workforce during World War II. Record numbers of women worked outside of the home for the first time and many in positions that were once male-dominated. Some historians credit the years as supporting the liberation of women in their sexuality, homes, and other areas of living as well. However, women on the home front, despite advancements, faced challenging environments. The challenges they faced included gender stereotypes, biased, unhealthy expectations, and in areas of high military presence, an increased risk of sexual harassment and violence. The role and safety of women on the home front in the U.S. was a time of uncertainty and challenging contradictions.

Reading 2: Secondary Source

Reading #2 is a primary source excerpt from an article in the Akron Beacon Journal, published on June 11, 1943.

From The Akron Beacon Journal (Akron, OH), Jun. 11, 1943.

Like other large American cities, Akron is finding that delinquency and juvenile crime are increasing by leaps and bounds.

Gonorrhea and syphilis are spreading like wildfire. In some states the current percentage of venereal infections is now almost 19% (189 cases per 1,000).

Akron’s rate, fortunately, is considerably lower than that but the danger is ever present.

Public health officials are finding that the girl friend or “pick-up” date, is disseminating these venereal diseases far more than is the paid, professional prostitute.

Police and health officials soon can locate and isolate the infected prostitutes. But it is difficult to do so with the foolish young women who are throwing away their future happiness for the temporary ego-inflation of an evening’s date.

Why do I stress that term “ego-inflation”? Because girls are always gullible in the teens.  . . . Thus, a 15-year-old liberally applies rouge and lipstick, then saunters down the boulevard in the early evening, hoping to be picked up.

A man, possible in uniform, flirts with her. He is older. The very fact that he, aged 21 or more, thus pays attention to this 15-year-old, is immensely flattering to her vanity.

“He thinks I am a grown woman!” is her immediate reaction, and thereafter this gullible girl will do almost anything to live up to that adult category.

If her new escort soon begins to make undue sexual demands upon her, and if she attempts to rebuff his advances, then he intimates if not disgustedly states: “Why, you infant! I thought you were a real woman. I should have known better than to have picked up a kid.”

This devastates her pride in being thought mature, so she tries to prove to him that she is a woman. In brief, to inflate her vanity on this age factor, she finally succumbs.

Next day he is gone, perhaps for good. She often never sets eyes on him again. But she may retain some long-time reminders of that evening’s foolishness, for she may soon have a full-blown case of gonorrhea or syphilis or both, since these two dangerous venereal diseases can both attack you at the same time.

DISGRACES HER FAMILY
Besides, she may become pregnant and thus not only disgrace her family, but handicap the innocent baby’s future chance for happiness by labelling him as a fatherless youngster. . . . Quite a price to pay, don’t you girls think, for the temporary ego-inflation of trying to make a strange man believe you were older than your years? . . . .

Invoke Military Aid
Some of our military leaders seem implicated in this wave of juvenile delinquency that is sweeping the nation.

Instead of urging continency and gentlemanly behavior, they are often intimating, if not openly stating, that the soldiers and sailors are perfectly free to have relations with as many girls as possible.

They are giving the men medical advice and a portable kit of drugs for preventing infection, but are saying too little about the moral preventives of venereal infection.

From one large camp not long ago, I received a letter from a man who quoted his medical officer as addressing them on the subject of hygiene and venereal prophylaxis. The latter was limited to medical methods and morality was ignored.

This medical officer quoted in vulgar terms a statement which he attributed to a high officer of World War 1, to the effect: “A soldier who won’t -----, won’t fight!”

The entire implication left with the men was that they were quite free to seduce all the women they could find. Moreover, it was indirectly regarded as a mark of distinction if they did so. . . .

It is high time our military leaders emphasized more thoroughly the fact that a military uniform does not excuse selfish and ungentlemanly behavior in its wearer.

Women are the chief sponsors of morality, so when their sons get away into an all-male environment, then morality most inevitably declines. This is probably the basic cause for delinquency and crime in time of war!

Illustrated image of a white woman in overalls and kerchief with a white man in brown suit standing next to her with hands on her shoulders
"I'm Proud...my husband wants me to do my part -- See Your U.S. Employment Service." This poster depicts a middle-class white woman joining the war effort--with her husband's approval.

John Newton Howitt, United States Office of War Information, 1944. Courtesy Library of Congress.

Reading Responses

Considering Readings 1 & 2, answer the following. You may use both readings to support your answers to some questions.

  1. In what ways were women portrayed in home front messaging and propaganda?

  2. Why may we idolize “Rosie the Riveter” when thinking about women on the home front? Did this imagery represent all women?

  3. In the newspaper article, who does the author blame for loose morals and the increase of sexually transmitted disease?

  4. Do you think most felt the same way as the newspaper author in describing the military’s role (see “Invoke Military Aid”)? Why, or why not?

  5. What do you think were the leading causes of increased unwanted sexual advances and behavior toward women?

  6. How do narratives and messaging differ from today? Are there similarities?

  7. Summarize your learning by answering the essential question: What factors impacted women’s sexual health and safety on the US home front?

A black and white common strip titled Etta Kett depicting several women
A strip from the syndicated comic Etta Kett by Paul Robinson, May 14, 1941.

Fair use.

Activities

These activities are optional and can be assigned as homework or used as extensions.

1. Women in Comics and Cartoons

Propaganda in the form of posters and TV/movies weren’t the only source of communicating ideas about women during the war. Another source of imagery that had the ability to perpetuate stereotypes or hyper sexualize women were comic strips.

Examine this strip from the syndicated comic Etta Kett, published Wednesday, May 14, 1941.

  • What does the comic convey?
  • Compare the comic to the readings in this lesson. Do you believe women benefited from the increased presence of service men in their communities? Why or why not?

Panel 1: Two women showing movement. “Hurry! Etta’s holding a secret meeting in her garage!”
Panel 2: One woman speaking, outline of four other women gathered. “Girls, it’s up to us to do something. We can’t sit around biting our nails and let that big government air school slip through our fingers.” “We want it located right here . . . in our town!” “Can you imagine all the knockout-looking air cadets?!” “Dates will be a dime a dozen.”
Panel 3: Close up of four women speaking. “They’re planning on turning out pilots at the rate of fifty a day . . . And we’ll turn down a hundred proposals a night!” “Yippee! That’s putting cupid on a mass production basis!” “...But my dad is against training flyers here! Too much noise!”
Panel 4: Outside, in shadow, four women outlined. “So’s mine! . . . But we’ve all got to trick them into writing to the government . . . And here’s how!”

Extension: Read additional comics depicting women during World War II, specifically those showing home front life.

  • What other topics and themes appear?
  • What kinds of women (socioeconomic status, race, age) are represented?
  • What thoughts and behaviors of women do the comics depict?

Example resource: Saturday Evening Post Cartoons (Women of World War II collection)

2. 'Fight Syphilis': Public Health Film (1942)

Teacher tip: The full video runs about nine minutes. You may choose to watch a pre-selected section of the video that depicts women (ex. the woman’s leg wearing heels as a place where diseases begin, referring to “pick-ups”).


Student prompt:
Watch the following video that was produced to inform, and warn, against the dangers of syphilis in 1942: Fight Syphilis video (9 min): National Library of Medicine

Discuss (as a class, or with a partner):

  • What was the intended message of the video? The intended audience?
  • What tactics (imagery, voiced information) was used to convey this message?
  • When and how were women depicted in the video?
  • Compare the themes in this video to those seen in printed posters about venereal disease, like shared in this lesson.

Extension Reading

This additional short text can be shared to continue to discuss the issues of public health and women on the home front.

Excerpt by Sarah Nestor Lane (December 2022)

Congress passed the May Act (1941) to give the federal government the right to police the areas around military bases. Prostitution was a federal offense for female sex workers within a “reasonable” distance of a military base, although the men who solicited their services were not punished. Despite these efforts to curb sexual activity, prostitution was legalized in Hawaii. (Hawaii was not a state until 1959.) The men to women ratio in Hawaii at the time was approximately 500 men to every one woman. Women were outnumbered and at risk of unwanted sexual advances and assaults, which led to the federal government’s approval of Hawaii as an exception to the May Act.

In the magazine Hawaii in 1944, it was written, “If the sexual desires of men in this predominantly masculine community are going to be satisfied, certainly not one of us but would rather see them satisfied in regulated brothels than by our young girls and women—whether by rape, seduction or the encouraging of natural tendencies.” It was expected that men would have their needs met no matter what, and legalizing prostitution was their solution to the risk of sexual violence.

Working in prostitution involved difficult living conditions and strict rules to regulate their movements and communication. Managers of the women made large financial gains by capitalizing on the demand, while at the same time provided unfair, unhealthy working expectations. Women worked all day with few breaks and at risk of infections. They were subject to intensive, and often violating, exams to ensure their health for clients. 

Lower socioeconomic status women were often considered easier to convince to leave the mainland for Hawaii with the promise of higher salaries and a better island life. These women may not have been aware of actual conditions and were continuously brought in to replace the jobs of women on the islands who became infected with sexually transmitted diseases and therefore prevented from working.

Women who left prostitution had to face stereotypes and discrimination against them for their past work. There were few gains made to support the women’s social, emotional, or physical health, and these impacts were more heavily felt by the women of color and/or lower socioeconomic status.

Discuss:
What was Hawaii’s “solution” to the risk of sexual crimes against women? Do you agree or disagree with this, and the federal government granting an exception to Hawaii (from the May Act)?

Resources
Crane, George W. (1941, May 14). ‘The Case Records of a Psychologist.’ Evansville Press. Retrieved from https://www.newspapers.com/image/763357232
Dixson, Kara. Gender on the Home Front: Overview Essay. The National World War II Museum. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/gender-home-front
Lawlor, R. (2022). "Aaron Hiltner. Taking Leave, Taking Liberties: American Troops on the World War II Home Front."
Littguer, Amanda. (2016). "Sex on the Home Front: Venereal Disease and the Topography of Heterosexuality." Notches. https://notchesblog.com/2016/04/05/sex-on-the-home-front-venereal-disease-contact-reports-and-the-topography-of-heterosexuality-during-world-war-ii/\
McEuen, Melissa. Women, Gender, and World War II. (2016). https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.55
Mueller, Adrienne. (2018). Prostitutes, Prophylactics, and Propaganda: The Venereal Disease Campaign and the Fight for Control of Female Sexuality During World War II.
Summerfield, P. & Crockett, N. (1992) ‘You weren't taught that with the welding’: lessons in sexuality in the second world war. Women's History Review, 1:3, 435-454."Why Talk About Prostitution."(1944, July 31). Hawaii, 5.

This lesson was written by Sarah Nestor Lane, an educator and consultant serving the National Park Service’s Cultural Resources Office of Interpretation and Education. This lesson was funded by the National Council on Public History's cooperative agreement with the National Park Service.

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Last updated: August 28, 2023