S90: Attitudes towards Women in the Services

Purpose of survey unavailable.

Questionnaire

Date

Nov '43

Original Size

approx. 3,400

Location

US

Sample Method

See Planning Survey II for standard operating procedure.

Location Details

Camp Adair, OR

Brookley Field, AL

Camp Campbell, KY

Ft. Devens, MA

Camp Mackall, NC

Mitchel Field, NY

Orlando AAF Tactical Center, FL

Robins Field, GA

Camp Ellis, IL

Camp White, OR

Field Personnel

William McPeak

Gould Beech

George E. Cole

Eugene J. Zander

William M. Zurflieh

Arthur Strang

A. Lee Coleman

Donald Horton

Ralph Lewis

Petterson Marzoni, Jr.

Reports

B-80 What the Soldier Thinks of the WAC

Filter
Put words or phrases inside quotes to search for an exact match.
39
If you have any further remarks to make about the WAC, please write them below as fully as you like.
The unfavorable remarks passed about a few Wac's should not be a miss lead to condemn a whole outfit of highly trained women. On the other hand, one bad apple would spoil a whole tree. Remove the bad apple, & your tree will live.
If they want to come into the army why aren't they willing to work instead putting in onto someone else. They are worse goldbrickers than soldiers. Most of them do as they please and don't want to take orders from non coms male or female.
It simple this. The Army has continually wasted man power as far as I can see. I can truthfully saw I get over paid for the amount of work I do. I know that if the Army was run like a business it would be bank rup in no time at all. I don't think the time has come for the use of women in the Army. The Army or my government has spent untold millions on the WAC's. Cheap advertisement & cheap publicity that has been used is of course tipical of the Army. But I maintain if even half the expense was used in puling the army on a business bases, (Every man earning his on slalt so to speack) there would be no need for the WAC's. I have been replaced 3 times by WAC's and I am still doing the type of work that WAC's do and eventilly I will be replaced again. But Sirs: what do you think we are fighting for "the Government) No! we are fighting for thing that government does for us. Principly a home, a place to work and enjoy life, and when this is over do you think we want to come home to a government No! we want to come home.
The Women's Army corps is a fine organization doing great work but too many men are being deferred from the army because of essential industrial work which could be carried on by a woman. If all the women join the Wac's then the men at home will continue to use their job as a cover to stay out of the Army. Women can be of far more help in industry than in Army camps. We should win this war with the best help from the female sex as possible, the women of America are the finest in the world. Let's not have them see to much of tragedy brought on by this war.
I think that the WAC basically is more interested in trying to help win the war than most soldiers who were either drafted, or some who ran to enlist in the armed forces about 2 weeks before they thought that they would be drafted.

Amongst the braggarts who beat out the draft board, you constantly hear them singing their own praises because they enlisted. However, these same braggarts are the ones who go AWOL and gold brick most of the time. The WAC's, on the other hand, never bring up the fact that they enlisted. Of course, I don't feel that way only about the WAC's, I feel that way about any women's auxiliary in the armed forces, whatever job they may be doing. I personally feel that they joined up for purely altruistic reasons, and not for any selfish motives.
1. If a woman is working in an essential industry she should not join the service.

2. The WAC does not determine character but rather releases the inhibiting factors of home so that she lives her own character not an assumed one. 3. Most civilian employees of the government should be in essential industry or in the service. 4. The Wac. discipline is much better for a woman than living in boom towns of war industry.
You have some very good women in the wacs but you also have some that won't do very much work. In some jobs they are very capable and others they are not. The army would have been better off to let limited service men at these jobs rather than have discharged them putting WAC's in their places. Most men were contented with staying in the army before the WAC's came in.
Maybe I am wrong, but all the girls that I know who have gone in service joined for the publicity more than any thing else. If they would stay in their home town and work at the work they are best fitted for and keep things going so when the boys do get done "over there" and come home they will have something to come back to.

There are lots of fellows who are crippled in this outfit who are really too bad off to do field duty. If they could be put into work that the Wacs are taking up they would be doing their country more good and themselves too.
I think if our women were fully mobilized they would be a very helpful toward winning the war. There are very few jobs in the AAF that a woman is incapable of handling. They would augment the effectiveness of our fighting forces to a great extent.

The outcome of this war is just as important to women as to men - the fact they are a so called "weaker sect" does not free them from their obligation to their country during a time of war. (a war that is a life and death struggle for civilization and their very existence
I think when a girl joins the WAC she doesn't realize full what she is up against and does it more for adventure than anything else. I don't think the Army is any place for a girl to be but if she can help her country if she joins very much if she has the guts to do it realizing what she is getting into.
It seems that many girls who try to join the WAVES SPARS or MARINES are rejected. But the WACS will take them in. Just why is it that the girls have to meet certain requirements to join those other organizations while the WACS will except anything that looks like a female. I would never ask or advise any girl to join such an outfit. I told my girl friend back home if she ever joined the WACS I would be through with her. I'm proud of the other women's organizations but the WACS well I says thumbs down to them.
Wac's should be used in case we run completely out of men but we haven't.

While in Civilian life they should work in war plants so the rest of us can win the war.
The real purpose of the WAC's are to replace men & release them for Combat duty. This is certainly not done very much either. The recruiters build up the girls to a bunch of false ideas to get them to join then they aren't carried out. I say to use the wacs to serve their purpose instead of giving them too much publicity give them duty & give the Army men some publicity
In the first place a women's place is in the home. She can do more there by writing letters or by doing war work than by being in the army. In the army you come in contact with all kinds of people from different parts of the Country and actually live with them. I would hate to have my sister sleep near the sisters of some of the men I met. Furthermore the so called "soldier followers" are driven from the camps. All they have to do is join the WAC and they could carry out their immoral work under government sanction!

Women are not necessary in the army. There are enough of the "limited Service" men who could cover the work instead of discharging them or putting them on a general duty basis and thereby endangering the lives of other soldiers. I feel therefore that there are too many immoral women in the service and I wouldn't want my sister to live with such people nor would a self-respecting woman and that they are not necessary because I've seen more than enough wasted manpower which would amply cover the jobs covered by Wac's.
Usually a woman will join the Wac's for a reason other than being patriotic. Most of them are wolves in sheeps clothing. The people back home might think her patriotic but that's only a form of subterfuge for the real reason. One that men have enjoyed for ages and which women have craved. Released from family and relation pride she now can let herself loose and enjoy the pleasures alongside the men with hardly anything to prevent her from doing so. What a relief for the over-sexual or "bad" girl.

Sometimes a morally fine, upstanding, red-blooded American girl will join the Wacs and nine out of ten times she changes over to the "habits" of the others. God bless the women who stay home and are preserving the fine things that we are fighting for. "Wake up America!"
The only point I disagree upon in comparison to a Wac and a soldier is this. Why do they get a rating so rapidly?? Here I am, and now this is no grudge or hard feeling to a Wac, a master mechanic, doing an average of twice as much work as the civilian workers and who are only to my estimation not even 1st class helpers in civilian life, but here in the Army, they get a mechanics salary and are merely "real" gold brickers and not the soldier. We work for the post engineers and many a day I've worked 16 hours a day figuring our workmanship would be recognized for at least some rating. For in other companies, soldiers just do processing or "yard bird's" work (cleaning windows, raking leaves, cleaning floors and walls) and they get swell ratings and what do we get for our skill work and manual work. Nothing but promises. "Will see what we can get for you," is the only answer. Check on this report and see for yourself that this is nothing but the truth.
We don't need any women in the army. There are more men in the army now than we need; the way it looks; because there are thousands just sitting around doing nothing now. Keep the WAC's out and give the men about twice as much money as they are getting. The men take a chance of getting killed for their money & its a fact that the WAC's never will.
I think that if the WAC's were all put to work in defense, where manpower is more needed we could profit more. This war, as many realize is a battle of production more than anything else.

If this were done we would consequently win the battle of production & then it would be a less simple matter to go to work on the enemy. A few armadas, like the one which landed in Africa, would be just the thing for an attack on the European fortress, produced of course by the extra manpower furnished by the women's services.
It is not necessary to ask women to help us fight this war. There are enough men who are laying around camps without a thing to do who could handle jobs that are being given to W.A.C. If a survey were made to find out why there are so many of these so called casual companies, the answer to the WAC problem would be solved.

In this camp alone there are hundreds of officers who could do a lot more for the war effort by getting down to business and not trying to keep up with the next man. If the purse strings were drawn and the men now working on certain jobs were given enough to do, there would be no need for WACs or civilian help.
I believe the WAC's [Womens Army Corps] could be used in the Army but not put on the same basis as the men. If they are needed and is purely voluntary they should expect a different type of rating. Men who have served in quite a few battles and also those who have put in a lot of time still remain as privates while the females get a rating in a few months. Females should not be able to boss the men around. Why should we salute a woman who has attained a rank in 7 weeks what it takes 3 months for us to do. We salute because we respect what is in the uniform but the only reason why we I salute a WAC officer is for the uniform she is wearing. Everything should be put on an equal basis if equal rank is to be given.
1 / 20
Directional arrowDirectional arrow