The Effects Of War On Women
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The Effects of War on Women
It is a globally accepted phenomenon that the majority of armed conflicts are not tied to the borders or the boundaries. These internal and external conflicts have devastating consequences for civilian populations. These consequences do not only affect the male population but the female population as well. According to Tanya Biank, in “Under the sabers: the unwritten code of Army wives”, the segment of women and children is the one that is critically affected from any conflict. There are several categories of conflicts, but the most crucial among them is war. The history has witnessed that the war that took place in the past affected not only the economies and the structures of the concerned countries, but also the residents; especially the female population and children (154). The war effect the women homes, health conditions, and job status. Women were kept in detention, sexually assaulted and imprisoned for no reason.
The Civil War had a greater effect on American women more than any other conflict in the nations history. Women from both the North and the South played a wide range of roles during the war. “Although conditioned in contrasting environments and schooled in opposing philosophies, women stepped forward as defenders of their respective causes,” Mary Elizabeth Massey wrote in,” Women in the Civil War”, Emotions, energies, and talents that even they did not realize they possessed were unleashed” (213). Images of women during that conflict center on self-sacrificing nurses, romantic spies, or brave ladies maintaining the home front in the absence of their men. The men, of course, marched off to war, lived in germ-ridden camps, engaged in heinous battle, languished in appalling prison camps, and died horribly, yet heroically. Mary Elizabeth Massey stated in, “Women in the Civil War: American Civil War”, ” this conventional picture of gender roles during the Civil War does not tell the entire story. Men were not the only ones to fight that war. Women bore arms and charged into battle, too. Like the men, there were women who lived in camp, suffered in prisons, and died for their respective causes” (245).
Women made great sacrifices during the Civil War. Many women would disguise themselves as men or spies to fight in the war. Other women would be nurses, aides, and doctors on the battlefield. Women who were not part of the civil war still made a great effect by manufacturing things to the war. According to Ina Change in, “A Separate Battle: Women and the Civil War”, women as spies were particularly effective. The people they helped were very grateful. Belle Boyd a teenager known as “La Belle Rebella” was one of the most famous spies, after being arrested six times it still did not stop her from doing her job. Belle ran across the battlefield to deliver military information. (61) Harriet Tubman was a black union spy, scout and commander. Harriet would disguise herself as an old lame lady. Sarah Edmonds was disguised as a black laborer. Sarah joined a crew to learn about fortification in Yorktown. The general that sent her had no idea that she was a women. (Chang, 72) Nurses, aides ,and doctors were the “angels” of the battlefield. More than three thousand women were army nurses, no matter how bad the pay was or any worse the conditions they still stayed and helped. Serving as nurses both in the hospital and on the battlefields, women came to know a whole different world; a world outside of the home. Massey also stated, ” Both the Union and Confederate armies forbade the enlistment of women. Women soldiers of the Civil War therefore assumed masculine names, disguised themselves as men, and hid the fact they were female. Because they passed as men, it is impossible to know with any certainty how many women soldiers served in the Civil War” (257).
The Civil War inspired many American women to move beyond the comfort of their
traditional roles. Before the war, only 25 percent of white women worked outside the home before marriage. According to Kevin Hillstrom and Laurie Hillstorm in, “Women in the Civil War: American Civil War” the taking care of a home and raising a family were considered the ideal roles for women, while men increasingly worked outside the home. This situation created separate spheres for men and women in American society. (67) The outbreak of war seemed to confirm women roles as facilitators. Dennis Showalter states in her essay, “Gender Roles: Were Women Excluded from the Great War?”:
The well -worn cliché of women handling whit feathers to men not in uniform is even
more ironic because that symbol of cowardice was borrowed from cockfighting, among
the most brutal and macho of sports, were a rooster with a white feather was considered
a crossbreed and therefore lacking the killer instinct. In a deeper sense, women acted as
enablers. Instead of refusing to participate, they stepped in at both family and public
levels to assume a broad spectrum of social and emotional roles previously filled by
men: street car conductors, factory workers, and disciplinarians. Women during the
Great War were arguably most important in traditional feminine roles. As lovers and
nurtures, as givers of life to the next generation, they came to symbolize both a future
that at times seemed far away and a past whose rough edges eroded under the pressures
of war. (124-131)
Women were being accepted in the workplace. During the Civil War American women turned their attention to the world outside the home. According to Emily Yellin in , “Our Mothers War: American Woman at Home and at the Front During World War II”, thousands of women in the North and South joined volunteer brigades and signed up to work as nurses. It was the first time in American history that women played a significant role in a war effort. By the end of the war, these experiences had expanded many Americans definitions of “true womanhood.” (309). After the Civil War, which saw the deaths of more than 600,000 men , it became necessary for women to enter the work force in increasing