Can the decline of the American family be traced to women entering the workforce during WWII?

Being a Boomer myself I can see specific areas where lack of respect and the constrained / denied rights of women long before WWII was the crux of the situation leading up to the opportunity and dire necessity for the freeing of so many tortured spirits.

What you ask is rather like the tip of the iceberg. Women were cheap labor and someone that was an amusement and great convenience to knock out babies and work the fields at the right time. They've pulled plows, built whole societies without being able to vote, defend the wrongdoings of men for generations an in many cultures. When women had to take over the steel mills and munitions factories as men were sent off to war, it turned on a machinery of power that was restricted by the male-dominated society that was indeed the chink in the armor. How can man totally demand the return of stunting women's minds and spirits to the former shackles willingly? Just like education expands the mind, the freeing of creativity and personal desires in life could not be denied. Now the mutant-like practices of a repressive / oppressive society is naturally righting itself. Science has shown that although mutations happen, through generations eventually they right themselves. Such is the case for society as a whole. Now is the time for gay people to stand on the deck and take their right place on the natural order of things. Tradition doesn't mean that it truly the way it was intended because of homicide and genocide and the like. The decline of the lack of the American Family is caused by selfishness on all parties and not merely a woman working. There are actually women and men who value their roles as parents and responsible adults and have not sacrificed their children nor their own personal lives and their homes are quite happy. At a significant point somewhere in our history we lost sight of the importance of educating children and making them accountable for their actions. Education is the tool allows each of us to know how to deal with life as it comes at us from all directions. Tough when nobody finds it important enough to change the lessons with the changing of the needs. How sad society has forgotten why it is necessary. So much focus on money and little on character, industry, integrity, responsibility, charity, and what it takes to experience a fully rewarding lifestyle in what little time we're allotted.

It's a bit of a myth about women entering the workforce during WW2. The vast majority of women who worked during the war were women who had already been working before the war, that is single women, and poor married women who had no choice but to work. Many single women left poorly-paid jobs to go and work in defense. Large numbers of laundries and restaurants had to close because they couldn't get help, their employees had gone to earn good money in defense factories.

While it is true that some married women did enter the workforce during the war, it wasn't in anything like the numbers that people seem to imagine. According to Gail Collins in 'America's Women' of the women who were housewives at the time of Pearl Harbour, 90% remained at home for the duration of the war.

For black women, the war often led to an improvement in their work prospects, as jobs opened up that would not have otherwise been available to them. "My sister always said Hitler was the man who got us out of the white folks' kitchens" one woman said.

In general, though, I don't think the majority of women's attitude towards work changed all that much. After the war, women still went on giving up work when they got married, if they could afford it, and in the 50s there was a massive increase in the number of people marrying young, women on the whole did not seem to be desperate to stay in work if they did not have to.

Women have always been in the workforce. It is a myth that women all of a sudden joined the workforce during WWII. Prior to the 20th century, most people lived in rural areas on farms. Extended families were the norm, and all able-bodied adult women were expected to work the fields. Elders and younger children were the ones who took care of very young children. As populations began shifting into the cities, young and unmarried women, as well as poor women (and most people during this time were pretty poor) would often work in factories, as nannies/maids, and such. What WWII saw was women from all walks of life moving into professions that were exclusively male.

Since I define family as being composed of many different combinations, I think the American family has dramatically improved over the last six decades. I don't consider institutionalized racism, sexism and homophobia representing the "ideal" American family. It was stifling and dangerous for many families before the 1960's women's, civil, and gay rights movements..

Formerly, no matter how miserable they were and made others, people rarely divorced. People lived with horribly violent partners with no recourse (the first battered shelter opened in the US in the 1970's). Women with other interests who wanted something different from being a wife or mother were not allowed to be educated or work at more than a couple of occupations outside the home (The Equal Pay Act was not passed until 1963 and not widely enforced until the 1970-80's; Title IX was not passed until 1972). Men were expected to work their entire lives and were considered irresponsible if they didn't provide for their families. Men and women were expected to live by rigid gender roles. The birth control pill did not become widely available until the 1960's, and until the 1970's, unmarried people could not buy it. Abortion was illegal until 1973 and many women died from botched abortions, and many abortions are performed on married women. It was legal to fire women if they became pregnant until the Pregnancy Discrimination Act was passed in 1978.

Racism and sexism and homophobia were rampant for decades, non-white soldiers returning from WWII were treated horribly once they returned to the US. Segregation was not outlawed until 1964 when the Civil Rights Act was passed. The Federal Voting Rights Act wasn't passed until 1965. Non-white families were not given opportunities for education or access to many occupations until the Civil Rights act was passed and even then it took decades for it to be enforced. I don't see how you could consider the Jim Crow laws in effect in the 1940-1960's as the basis for a wonderful home life! Gays and lesbians had to remain closeted or not only risk their jobs, but their lives. The Stonewall riots didn't occur until 1969. Now gays and lesbians have children or adopt children, which was unheard of even 20 years ago, unless they had previously been married to the opposite sex.

Not only is your question sexist but it is horribly racist if you think non-white families would want to live with the Jim Crow laws of the 1940-60's. Your question assumes that white middle-class and wealthy men were happy, and that that is all that counts. That doesn't take into account all of the men and women living in poverty, people of color dealing with racism, or gays and lesbians dealing with homophobia or women living with sexism in education, law, politics, economics as well as socially.

NO the decline of the American family has other causes

1. the higher prices, lower wages and the outsourced jobs and importing cheap labor meant that one parent cannot support the family

2. the change to having fewer kids means that larger familes are no longer the norm so society doesn't support this concept

3. the advent of the Internet and TV allow violence and porn to every invade everyone's home

4. the increasing mortgage crisis means fewer Americans can even own their own home so that is stressful for families

5. the lack of manners and courtesy everywhere you go really destroys family values in terms of cursing and criminal behaviour

No the decline of the american family is actually traced to extreme capitalism and greed, where a single family home and one wife were no longer enough, selfishness and greediness is what led to the decline of the american Nuclear family

Yes it showed women that if they wanted they could do factory work. But the down turn happen when they wanted to work an left the children to be raised by strangers. An thus had more men who where getting payed a good salary to compete with them. So they drove wages down an left children with no strong parental presence.

Its obvious you aren't taking a course at all.

Its a shame, because you could really use some education.

But here is something for your pretend paper anyway:

'The Way We Never Were' by Stephanie Koontz, PhD.

This myth-shattering examination of two centuries of American family life banishes the misconceptions about the past that cloud current debate about "family values." "Leave It to Beaver" was not a documentary, Stephanie Coontz points out; neither the 1950s nor any other moment from our past presents workable models of how to conduct our personal lives today. Without minimizing the serious new problems in American families, Coontz warns that a consoling nostalgia for a largely mythical past of "traditional values" is a trap that can only cripple our capacity to solve today's problems. From "a man's home was his castle" to "traditional families never asked for a handout," this provocative book explodes cherished illusions about the past. Organized around a series of myths and half-truths that burden modern families, the book sheds new light on such contemporary concerns as parenting, privacy, love, the division of labor along gender lines, the black family, feminism, and sexual practice. Fascinating facts abound: In the nineteenth century, the age of sexual consent in some states was nine or ten, and alcoholism and drug abuse were more rampant than today ... Teenage childbearing peaked in the fabulous family-oriented 1950s ... Marriages in pioneer days lasted a shorter time than they do now. Placing current family dilemmas in the context of far-reaching economic, political, and demographic changes, The Way We Never Were shows that people have not suddenly and inexplicably "gone bad" and points to ways that we can help families do better. Seeing our own family pains as part of a larger social predicament means that we can stop the cycle of guilt or blame and face the real issues constructively, Coontz writes. The historical evidence reveals that families have always been in flux and often in crisis, and that families have been most successful wherever they have built meaningful networks beyond their own boundaries. --The Publisher.

Yes, people have known this for years. Having both parents working as opposed to a single income stream has caused the divorce rate to skyrocket.

No, definitely not.

It's funny how some people say that equality has destroyed the family, yet pretty much anyone with half a brain has benefited. Oh well, we'll always have Utah!