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| WWII propaganda for carpooling and saving gas |
What is propaganda? Propaganda is promoting a political point of view through the use of posters, movies, and any other media source possible. It is usually biased and probably not reliable information. Now that we all know what propaganda is, let's dive in.
Civil War
The civil war was one country fighting itself over the issue of slavery. There were two sides, Confederate and Union (South vs. North). The South was for slavery and the North was not. It divided families and brothers fought brothers.
We think about propaganda for WWI and WWII, but why not dig into propaganda during this war? Every war had it and used it to rally support for their side. In this case, it began long before the fighting did. The newspapers were the source, and given that brother was fighting brother, you can probably guess that both sides were putting out their propaganda competitively. War broke out, obviously, and the posters and patriotic songs became more common. "Join us!" Mail envelopes being the only communication, they were used for this purpose, too.
In this case, women played an active role by singing about how men were real men if they enlisted. Women also wrote songs and poetry here. Visually, women are portrayed as weeping over graves, praying, and generally being the domestic that they were before, only in distress. You may imagine Gone With the Wind in this case, but that may not be entirely accurate, depending on social class. What women were encouraged to do was support both the home and the troops. As the war got worse, this meant working jobs out of necessity. Nursing, politics, factories, store clerks, even becoming spies were common. Some women wrote to their men saying to come home or they would starve. The ones that did this were facing possible starvation, so they questioned why the men had to fight and were considered unpatriotic. Women suffered, and sometimes ended up feeding families with prostitution money, when men went to war. The south was in the worst shape when it came to this due to the slaves deserting. With all this happening, women were told to support the home and still keep men's morale up.
WWI
World War I was a war the US didn't enter until around 1917. The common medium for this propaganda was posters, lots of posters.
Women were depicted as victims of war, to play on men's need to protect their women. In this same era, they were also shown as seducers, war bystanders, or supporting the troops. "Supporting the troops" posters were on the homefront, to encourage women to be active in support and soldier morale. Being bystanders or normal people on posters was to set an example for a social standard. As for the seductresses on the posters, they were telling men not to sleep with loose women or prostitutes in an attempt to cut down VD and illegitimate children. The army didn't want to deal with soldiers procreating on their off time (and if they did, the army had already told them to protect themselves).
We know how they were depicted, so let's move on to what they told
women directly. The most direct was the red cross posters that told women to "hold up their end". Support the war and give the men your support. Women were also shown on these posters what germans did to women, so fear tactics were being used. The only strong images of women were women nursing men back to health and women working factories. They were called to work, but after the war, called back to the home. During the war they were called to Victory Garden, for the sake of canning. Saving food for times fo famine was also a message sent.
WWII
The Cold War
After the war, however, we find propaganda that is anticommunist and resulted in the 1950s lifestyle that was so constricting and suffocating to womenkind. The Cold War was a war no one fought, but everyone felt. You stayed in line to avoid being labeled a communist, and thus if you were different you stuck out like you were neon. The propaganda toward women at this time was through household cleaner and appliance ads. Add the sitcoms like I Dream of Genie or Bewitched and you have an excellent picture of what propaganda was out there.
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| Pyrex Ad 1950 |
Women in the US were compared to unattractive, working Soviet Union women. Women in the US were portrayed as happy, perfect, domestic women with modern appliances. On top of this, single meant "sex-hungry" in this time and you were "a danger to men" according to society. Along with the pressure to be a perfect mother came the pressure to have a bomb shelter well stocked and prepared for a nuclear attack. Were these women happy in their lifestyle? Most weren't fulfilled at all. Why go along with it? You had nowhere else to go and your opportunity to be independent was not as present as when men were at war. In that way, the Cold War was far worse for women than WWI or WWII.
Today
Today's wars have propaganda, alright, but it is far more subtle. The news, TV shows, movies, and social media are where we get our propaganda today. We don't have a million posters of violent germans wearing swasticas in this day and age, but we do have memes and social media sources. What do these modern sources say about women? One, feminism is very much alive, and two, women have far more voice than ever before. We can join the military at any time now. We work jobs and have a lot of choices in our lives.
All the same, when you look at your TV shows, movies, and social media sources check your history and your facts. Pay attention to details and trends. Don't fall for some of the overly ridiculous propaganda that is out there. Subtle trends that seem to be everywhere may be propaganda. Be intelligent about what you believe. If you Captain Picard face-palmed at any of this, I did, too. Learn from history and be safe out there.
Pictures:
cbs news
the riverdale press
hennepin county library
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