Women’s Role in Shaping Pacific Northwest History

Image via Wikipedia

Skold (161) claims at the height “of the training program, a government agent, Augusta Clawson, enrolled in the Swan Island welding school to discover ways of improving training and reducing turnover, especially among women. At her suggestion, an orientation program for the newly hired was started, which included a special session for women workers conducted by the women’s counseling department. A few months later, the turnover rate for women production workers dropped to just slightly above that of men. The training program, coupled with the breakdown of crafts into component parts, made it easy for women and other inexperienced workers to enter shipbuilding…

     Another barrier to the employment of women fell when unions admitted women to membership. Workers in the Portland yards, as in most West Coast shipyards, were represented by the American Federation of Labor (AFL) craft unions. Even those conservative unions soon recognized that if women had to be hired in the ship yards, it was preferable that they work under union jurisdiction. In September 1942, the Boilermakers Union, which controlled two-thirds of all shipyard jobs, voted to admit women. This decision came a few months after the first women welders were hired in Portland.” This was a major step forward in equal rights for women.

     Skold (171) claims “In general, the pattern of job segregation may be summarized as follows: Women were overrepresented as unskilled workers, and in some of these jobs nearly all the workers were women. Women were underrepresented as journeyman, except in welding. Women were promoted to lead-man only over helpers and laborers, with a few exceptions. In addition, women and men in the same job categories may have been doing different types of work. The barriers that channeled women into some jobs rather than others were not rigid, however, and women with exceptional talent or persistence could gain access to most shipyard jobs.”

     Skold (173) claims that the attitudes about women’s work were much the same if not worse than before the war. Men pressured women back into the kitchen to do women’s work. Job opportunities were taken away from women and given back to men to keep women at home taking care of children and their men. Supposedly, there was a survey and that is what most of the women wanted to do was to come home and take care of their families. However, it is argued that the survey was hardly accurate. Hirabayshi (145) claims that growing up American “meant the acquisition of American values as expressed in the Declaration of Independence; it also meant learning to subscribe to and uphold the constitution, including the Bills of Rights and other amendments”. Hirabayshi (Terra Northwest 154) further claims that growing up in America as a Japanese immigrant created barriers of communication and socialization. In the traditional Japanese society the focus is on the family unit or group and life is not individualized. This is quite opposite of American tradition. “Growing up in pre-World War II period not only exposed me to the hardships of the Great Depression, but also to two kinds of duality-first, the cross-cultural norms of a Japanese ancestry vis-a-vis American ways and values, and secondly, the inconsistency of American (also “Occidental” or “Western”) ideals versus the practice of them in Washington.”

 You may also be interested in World War II Technology and The Pacific Northwest

History of The Pacific Northwest and Land Rights  Land Rights and Cultural Differences in Pacific Northwest History