Rosie the Riveter
Throughout the era of World War II, gender equality and roles in the work place quickly steamed to the front of the list as one of America's hottest issues of debate. However, racial equality in the workplace was still towards the end of the list, and, although this issue was becoming increasingly prevalent, it still lacked the imperative exposure and sentiment that it would eventually need in order to evolve into an issue that received the attention it deserved. In the documentary, The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter, gender equality in the workplace is clearly displayed as the film's main theme. However, in a deliberate yet subtle manner, the documentary also clearly illustrated that race, racism, and racial inequality in the workplace were overwhelmingly present, and were especially apparent in the types of jobs that the different races had, and in the status and treatment that the different races had at these jobs. Throughout the documentary, it became increasingly visible that the types of job that a female worker had were dependent not primarily on her skill, however, primarily on her race. Laborious, uncomfortable, and often draining jobs were designated for the female workers of color. African-American fema
Women of color were not even visible in the massive loads of propaganda that encouraged women to become employed, whereas white women were on the front page of every advertisement or were smiling at the end of every commercial. In the rare case that two women of a different race shared the same job, the white woman tended to be treated in a forgiving and ladylike fashion by the employer, whereas the woman of color would often be treated in the unforgiving nature that a man might be treated. Another described how every morning she awoke with "an aspiration to work" and sometimes even "wished she (I) had more challenging and laborious jobs". At every point on the wide spectrum of society, racial inequality, particularly at the workplace, was as visible as it could be. "Black women could always get hard jobs or cooking jobs because they were saved for us," stated one black worker in the documentary. Not only did the type of job a woman had depend on her race, but the status, benefits, and treatment a woman received at her job also were dependent on her color. Women of color described "long hours" of uncomfortable jobs and conditions, fights and disagreements with their bosses (apparently which white women rarely had), and other hardships. Not only that, but the showers at work were segregated (often with the showers of the white women being of a higher quality and maintenance), daycare for children was available to whites at many jobs (whereas it was not offered to blacks, and as a result, the blacks had to either send their children to boarding school, as in one testimony, or leave their children with relatives), and many black testimonies repeated that unions responded in a suspiciously more rapid manner to white women than to women of color. But, the testimony at the other end was close the polar opposite. However, perhaps the most convincing piece of evidence pointing towards racism in the workplace was simply the difference in the way the work experience was described by the two different races. One black woman even said she married a man because he simply worked at Oldsmobile, and that it was unheard of for a black man to be able to do so. One black women even described an experience she had once where she had a welding job that was identical to a white women, yet she was still paid five cents less per hour for the same job. Race, racism, and racial equality in the workplace during the era of World War II were clearly issues that needed to be faced, however, the issue of race took a back seat to another evolving civil rights issue during that time, gender equality. The white women would work at colorful party goods/supplies plants, or would do skill work such as painting beautiful and elaborate gliders, or would be employed to stamp finished products, or would even be employed occasionally in the trading/non-labor sector, which was not even a remote possibility for women of color. One woman even described "the little pretty outfits and fun lunches with salami sandwiches".
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