Author: Natasha Frost / Source: Atlas Obscura
It was 1942, and over 100,000 women were expected to join the newly instituted Women’s Army Corp. For the first time, women could contribute to the war effort from within the military, in an all-female auxiliary unit modeled on the British equivalent.
American officers believed themselves to be ready for this female onslaught: Jobs had been sorted into two piles—406 deemed “suitable” for women; 222 more active or technical roles “unsuitable.
” Women’s barracks had been set up; hair and uniform regulations had been considered; smelling salts were on hand for when women needed vaccinations. Yet when women did join the army by the thousands, the officers discovered they were woefully unprepared and had created rules that were impossible to follow. Hair was supposed to be kept above the collar, but there was often nowhere for women to get it cut or set. Skirts that had looked stylish and demure on the page were cut for men’s bodies—they constantly rode up and made even the slimmest women seem “pot-bellied.” WAC hats were so badly designed that they cut women’s foreheads. Almost no women fainted after receiving shots.But perhaps the greatest oversight was in what women wanted to eat: Thousands of WAC members unexpectedly gained weight on rations designed for male combat fighters, or were forced to skip meals to avoid sexual harassment.
Army officials had planned a one-size-fits-all menu and mess schedule for men and women: same sinks, same utensils, same chow. As time went on, however, it became clear that their initial inflexibility had caused women serious harm. Toward the end of the war, some adjustments were made—though, for more than two years, women had to find solutions themselves.
Some modifications were practical necessities: In the kitchens, ad hoc adjustments made it easier for women to use service stations designed for men—duckboards to make sinks less deep, or shelves and wheeled carriers to minimize lifting or bending. “Similar mechanical contrivances made it possible for women to manage heavy equipment designed for men,” writes Mattie E. Treadwell in The Women’s Army Corps.
Other changes were aesthetic—or simply represented a desire for a mess hall that felt like home. The buildings and kitchens were standardized across male and female barracks, and had an identical budget—yet walking into the women’s mess was quite a different experience. Women transformed their mess halls into a kind of hearth: They added potted plants, color, and even curtains, all salvaged at no expense or funded themselves. (“I’ll never see a sweet potato…
The post How the U.S. Army Botched Feeding Its Female Soldiers in World War Two appeared first on FeedBox.