The Role of WWII Propaganda in Shaping Women's Roles

This study offers a comparative qualitative analysis of World War II propaganda and how it influenced women’s labor in the United States and Canada. It investigates how each country’s cultural identity and political climate shaped propaganda messaging aimed at women and how that messaging affected public attitudes toward their roles. Using a wide range of primary sources—including propaganda posters, government studies, pamphlets, films, radio broadcasts, speeches, and oral narratives—this research highlights the stark differences in how the U.S. and Canada mobilized women during the war. In the United States, propaganda promoted female empowerment through iconic campaigns like Rosie the Riveter, encouraging women to join the workforce in a wide range of capacities. Meanwhile, Canadian messaging emphasized traditional family values, portraying women as temporary contributors to the labor force and moral defenders of the home. This project carefully analyzes how these different narratives shaped women’s experiences during the war and in the postwar period. The U.S. government's message of empowerment began to challenge existing gender norms and played a role in the rise of postwar feminist movements. In contrast, the gains made by Canadian women proved more temporary, with a return to prewar gender roles after the conflict ended. This dissertation contributes to the broader historiography of gender and wartime propaganda by filling in critical gaps in histiographical studies between these two nations. It engages with existing academic research while also considering how race, class, and ethnicity and how they relate with gender in shaping women’s experiences. Ultimately, this study argues that while both countries used propaganda to mobilize women for the war effort, their differing national ideologies and cultural values led to distinctly different portrayals—and those portrayals had lasting effects on how women’s roles were understood in each country.