12018-12-01T16:23:59-08:00“There’s Nothing to Be Afraid of in a Factory”: Gendered Depictions of Factory Work103plain2019-03-22T19:13:55-07:00When war erupted between Britain and Germany in September 1939, so did the need for increased production within the entire British Empire. But it was not until 1942 that the British and Australian governments took an active role in mobilizing women for war work. In both countries, thousands of women left their peacetime jobs as shop assistants, housemaids, and waitresses. They traded their aprons for overalls, their hairpins for bandanas. Many became factory workers, stepping into an unfamiliar world of clanging machinery and billowing smoke—though already known to those women who had worked in factories long before the war.
In wartime Britain and Australia, women worked, often alongside men, to meet the urgent need for production. They worked to make munitions, aircrafts, and gas masks—anything to support the Allied war effort. They learned how to operate heavy machinery and work on assembly lines, and, like their iconic American counterpart, how to rivet sheet metal.
Though factory work in the metropole and dominion was similar, British and Australian propaganda films present it much differently. British film allows female factory workers to display masculine characteristics, celebrating their transformations from very feminine, incompetent workers to more masculine, capable ones. In contrast, Australian film shows factory work to be a highly masculine profession that excludes women entirely.
How do these different depictions reflect societal attitudes toward gender and factory work in both countries?
12018-12-03T03:56:24-08:00The British Experience of the War26plain2019-02-12T17:55:58-08:00On September 1939, the German armed forces thundered into Poland, making their way east, marking the beginning of the Second World War in Europe. But after the initial upheaval of the Nazi invasion of Poland, there was relatively little activity on the western front for the next several months. It was as if the world was holding its breath, waiting. In the spring of 1940, the waiting ended abruptly, as the Nazis invaded the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. It was not until that July that the dangers of the war came home to Britain in perhaps the most celebrated air battle in British history: The Battle of Britain. Hitler intended to invade Britain, but in order for the invasion to take place, he first needed control of the skies over the English Channel. As the Luftwaffe dropped bombs over southern England, targeting RAF airfields, the RAF fought to stop them. Over the Channel and southern England, the British Spitfires and German Messerschmitts collided in showers of sparks and volleys of gunfire, each trying to gain the upper hand.
Once it became clear that Germany could not achieve defeat the RAF and achieve air superiority, Hitler tried another tactic. On September 7, 1940, the Luftwaffe launched its first nighttime attack on London. For the first time, the wail of the air raid sounded across the city, warning Londoners of the danger and driving them to take shelter. Planes darkened the skies above London and bombs exploded in the streets. The Blitz, the German bombing of London and other major British cities between September 1940 and May 1941, had begun. Though the Germans soon abandoned plans for an invasion of Britain due to an RAF victory in the Battle of Britain and the approaching winter, they did aim to disrupt manufacturing, transport, and administration systems in London, while also striving to break civilian morale and to encourage the British government to seek peace terms. In London alone, the bombing killed tens of thousands of civilians and destroyed more than two million homes. But overall, Londoners remained courageous in the face of adversity, their spirits unbroken by bombs.