GOVERNMENT PLAYING ON WOMEN'S EMOTIONS WITH MEDIA'S WILLING HELP

What did you do today... for Freedom?

Today, at the front, he died...Today,what did you do? Next time you see a list of dead and wounded,ask yourself: "What have I done today for freedom? What can I do tomorrow that will save the lives of men like this and help them win the war?"

-Excerpt from a collection of war time magazine articles mostly directed at women.

This is an example of the kind of messages being fed to women during the war. Magazines such as Cosmopolitan were writing articles and running advertisements that played on the emotions of women across the country. They played to the nurturing side of these women. The ads and articles that ran in these publications spoke to every mother, wife, sister,daughter being affected by the war. No woman wants to think of herself as a person who did not stand by her man or brother or whatever the case may be and let him die, when he was merely fighting for the just cause of defending the "American Dream" . What surprised me about these excerpts was not the messages given to women about doing her part , buying war bonds, fighting at home,etc.., but the magazine war guide for June and July 1943 that was given out by Office of War Information in Washington D.C. . It served as a guide to what should be printed and stressed in magazines during World War II. The guidelines never say to the magazine editors what they cant write, but merely what they should write. it shows that the government was targeting women during this time period to capitalize on them as an alternate source of income and labor for the war. magazines were not entirely forced to go, along with this plan, but in large part chose these themes involving the war by their own free will. This is what their government expected them to do and that is what they did.