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| SUN LAKES LIFESTYLES | FEBRUARY 2018 | 23 I hope your winter is pleasant – clear days possibly with birds in your backyard or our open spaces, maybe some travel and of course – a book! On March 10 we will have our first Book Sale of 2018, in the hardcover library from 9 am to 1 pm. Please join us – we will have some bargains and we like to chat with all Sun Lakes book lovers. Thank you for your donations. Remember the free bookmarks in each library – on one side we describe what books we accept as donations. I've been pleased to read several books with female protagonists during WWII that were quite exciting and compelling – to experience that side of the story. This war brought significant changes to the United States, ending the war as the primary superpower. The war years were hard on those at home, not just the GIs. Women's roles in our society were changed considerably as so many openings needed to be filled with young men away fighting. An estimated six million American women played a role in the war, directly (WACs, WAVEs, WASPs, nurses) or through working for industry, 24 hours a day, to supply our troops as well as the allies. Both types of work entailed risk – injury or rarely, death. Working women increased their sense of independence, ability, and self- determination as they took over primarily male jobs for armaments, munitions, aircraft and others. Receiving a paycheck, often for the first time in their lives, was a game changer. They learned to juggle the demands of working and keeping the house going, for better or worse. At the end of the war, many women were satisfied that they had performed their patriotic duty but were ready to resume their previous lives. Some women however liked their changed status and financial independence from their work and wanted to remain there. This was not always easy – there were men coming home to take those jobs. Despite working the same jobs, women were paid less than men – about 55 percent. There was frequently sexual banter, intimidation, and harassment on the job. Additionally there was a massive coordinated government propaganda campaign that the "women's place" was with her family. There was a concern, proved wrong, that the economy might go into depression once wartime production shut down. Overall postwar America was a strange mix: winning the war, the vision of a happy and prosperous future, soldiers returned – to wed and start families. But also the anxiety of the dawn of the atomic age and the threat of communism – Russia a large and powerful new superpower. Most returned to the home but some didn't. There was sustained economic growth after the war so women in the labor force helped keep businesses running/expanding. The baby boomer age had begun. Many married couples wanted large families. New postwar housing is built. Lots of jobs. Suburbia. Middle income families with money to spend. Madison Avenue promoting all the latest household luxuries. Keeping up with the Joneses. Educated, thoughtful young moms who wanted to improve their towns, provide better schools for their kids, volunteer for this and that and struggle to be perfect housewives. Dispossessed in a way, living their lives through the lives of their husbands and children. And a relentless media – women's magazines, TV showing submissive wives, not able to make their own decisions, meek, but the goal, "please your man." Betty Friedan provided a catchphrase: "There is something missing." She received thousands of letters from American women as she did her research, expressing desperation in the emptiness of their lives, the desire for success and positive reinforcement outside of childcare and housework. This was the incubator for the beginning of the "second wave" of feminism in the 1960s. Library Committee

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