Fictional Women in WWII: The History Behind Their Impact

This week we're unpacking the impact of some of wartime's most influential women, who weren't actually real. The history of some of the most impactful women of wartime propaganda is that they were created in offices with the purpose of providing a morale boost to the women who were still at home. Faces like Rosie The Riveter, whose reminded women that they could join the factory workforce and do just as the men had; or Betty Crocker who helped stretch the rations at home became household names. And all that without ever actually existing. Grab your coffee and a fresh sinker and join us in The Clubmobile as we unpack the history of the most famous non-existent women during the war. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Hey guys, here come the Dollars. They got fresh sinkers, hot coffee, and the sweetest smile. Welcome back to the Club Mobile, everybody. We're so happy to have you.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Hello. Welcome back, everyone.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Uh, we are diving into, I think this is a great um, a great topic because it's something that I don't know that a lot of people are aware of. So this week we're going to be talking about uh fictional women during World War II, um, otherwise known as the ideal woman.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Yeah, I thought that was a really great title because um while these women were fictional, they were all sort of revered as the ideal woman and who to aspire to be. Um, and in a lot of cases, it was impossible during World War II to adhere to all of these requirements that were put out. And you can imagine the pressure that homemakers and women were facing um in the face of rationing and of course the the ongoing war overseas. Um a lot of women could not stick to these requirements, so a lot of women could not stick to the instructions they were given because it was fundamentally impossible. So I thought labeling these women as the ideal woman um really brought home that nothing much has changed since that time.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

There really is no ideal woman. And you could ask, you know, 30 different ladies and 30 different men today, what's the ideal woman, and you'll get 60 different answers.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Yeah, you will get so many different answers. And even now for homemakers and and working mothers, the requirements are insane. Oh, absolutely to be the perfect mother, the ideal woman, it's there's a lot of pressure, and with how easy life is now, there's still I feel like there's still a lot of pressure. Yeah, I can't imagine being under this much pressure.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

No, and I feel like you understand this a bit more than I do, because you are a wife and a mother, and you know, you have a different set of expectations for yourself and for your family than I do. I'm just here kind of floating around. I'm just kind of here floating around doing my own thing. I'm just but I am very hyper-aware of what men in society might classify as the the ideal woman and how for certain men it looks different. You know, you might meet a man who works in finance, and his ideal woman is somebody who's dressed to the nines and is waiting for him at home every night with a cocktail. You might meet a guy like in the 50s, you might, you know, an older, an older gentleman, maybe of my dad's age in his 60s, who you ask, what's the ideal woman? And he'll describe his wife who goes out to work every day and comes home, and then it's just, you know, the two of them maybe sitting down to dinner together, you know, and just recapping their day. And the ideal woman is somebody he can sit down with and share time with. Yeah. It's different for everybody, but I think the fact that during the war, um, media fabricated these women, these fictional women, to kind of boost morale and remind the women that were home that hey, you can do it. You can do this, you can get through it.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Yeah, you can do anything, you can you can laugh in the face of adversity, and you can still feed your family. And and here's here's a cookbook to help you when everyone's allowances was different, everyone's capabilities were different, everyone's financial situation was vastly different.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

We did already have an episode on Rosie the Riveter, who surprise if you didn't know, she's a fictional woman. There was no one model for Rosie. The women were the Rosies at that point. Yeah um, but I think my favorite, and maybe because maybe because I love to bake and I'm like, you know, a real kitchen person, Betty Crocker, and I didn't know this until recently that Betty Crocker was created in, I mean, she was created well before World War II. She was created in 1921 by a woman named Marjorie Housted, and she was an employee of the company that would later be known as General Mills.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

Yes, she was part of an independent company that was then merged into another, and then they became General Mills. I believe this was like in the mid-1920s, so yeah. Katie Crocker had been around and in people's lives well before World War II. Many, many years before World War II. Yeah. And I think one of the main things that attracted this woman, Marjorie, to make a fictional woman was that she herself obviously worked full-time. Yeah. Right, right after she had made Betty Crocker, I believe it was through a competition where people could design Betty's signature or her autograph. Yeah. Which is, I think, what we see on the boxes now. It's that logo that you see on the boxes. Marjorie herself was then promoted as director. And her department was labeled the Betty Crocker Department, essentially.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Yeah, the Betty Crocker homemaking service. You know, you think about like, you know, how many people on like how many people on the names on the shelves at the grocery store that we see today were like, you know, created for one reason. Yeah. And have become absolute household names and staples in so many people's households.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

And a lot of them weren't even real. They were all um a lot of them were pretty much the metaphor of the perfect woman or the ideal housewife.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Yeah, or like uh or a or um a group of people, like would cover a demographic in a sense.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

During World War II, Marjorie Hested, assisted by her department, the Betty Crocker Homemaking Service, they created an outreach program to help housewives adjust to their new normal in the face of rationing. And it was named Betty Crocker's Home Legion. So despite this ideal housewife being fictional and all of these expectations being laid out for this new normal, they still tried their best to assist and to help women in this difficult time, which I think is really really nice. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

I mean, America was on the shores of, you know, the opposite shores of the war, not directly in the face of the fighting, and yet there was still so much war present in their everyday lives that to have something that would kind of give you, as maybe a housewife whose husband is overseas serving, or a mother whose young boys are overseas, and you're looking for something to kind of give you a little oomph to go through your days, to have this group of women to kind of remind you that hey, you can do this, you're not alone. Yeah. No, you're not the only woman whose husband or mother, here are 50 other women in your community. Yes. And then you can, as a woman, you can band together and find comfort and find solace. And she did, I feel like the the purpose of Betty Crocker was just for so much more than here's a book of things you can cook with your rations.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Yeah, it gave women a sense of community. They could all bond over the same thing. Um, they could all bond over the fact that perhaps their husband had been sent overseas to war. They could all bond over the fact that they didn't have much and yet were expected to still provide healthy meals and constructive dinners and things like that. So they there was there was a way to make all these women essentially band together. And she became so popular too.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

She was second, she was the second most popular woman behind the first lady Eleanor Roosevelt in 45.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

Isn't that crazy? There's Eleanor Roosevelt, and then there's just some.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

This woman who was fabricated fabricated out of thin air as a symbol.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

And and Betty Crocker was only invented because the before the company became General Mills, obviously in magazines and things, they would put their address, and every single day they would get numerous letters with questions about baking. So in the end, rather than like personally signing each letter with the tip or the trick that that the sender wanted, they ended up just making Betty Crocker and putting the questions and answers in women's magazines, which also became extremely popular during the war because again, yeah, it was a way for women to find comfort.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

Yeah. I think I have an old Betty Crocker cookbook somewhere in my in my house, which was gifted, gifted to me, I think by my landlord, believe it or not. Um she was like, Here, I get a lot of my cookie recipes out of this. I know my mother has a Betty Crocker cookbook somewhere, which was my grandmother's that my mother just you know ended up with, but I think mine is Betty Crocker.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

But I mean and there's so many more there's so many variations of them, too. Yeah, so many more modern iterations as well now because it feels like Betty Crocker adjusted to the times as things wore on, and she's still so popular.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

I mean, she's still go buy boxed cake mix or boxed muffin mix, anything in the grocery store, she's sitting right there next to Duncan Hines.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

And I nine times out of ten, if I'm in a pinch and need to grab something like that's boxed, I will grab Betty Cracker.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

I will, yeah, never fails, you know. She's trying to true. I will grab Betty Cracker, yeah. And the fact that it's provided comfort over so many years to so many people, and there is now the modern like variations and iterations of her, and she's gone along with the times, I think is something quite admirable, honestly. The fact that the company saw how popular she was all the way back from the 20s, and she essentially saw a group of housewives all the way through the war. Oh, yeah, and it's still helping people learn how to bake. I think, you know, I don't think they expected it to happen. No, I don't think they expected it to be this popular ever.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

Do men in media ever expect something with a woman at the front to blow up though? Especially back then, especially during the war. Is it ever expected that this right? And they always, you know, they always sound and look so surprised. You're like, oh, she's very popular. Oh, well, you know, I guess she's I guess women really like her. And it still blows my mind to this day that like men will feign shock at something as simple as a woman-branded company or a woman branded logo just being popular among women, and it's like we're here too.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

We're here too. Uh exactly. Uh a woman doing anything, I feel like, especially during World War II, was sort of looked at with a side eye by a lot of men, especially this next gal who we're gonna be talking about. We would like to refresh everyone's memory on Rosie the River Dove.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

My favorite.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Feel free to go back and listen to our previous episode, but yes, I thought that she fits in so well. She does deserve a second, she deserves a second moment. Let's call it an encore for Rosie. An encore for Rosie. Even though that Betty Crocker was named the second most popular after Eleanor Roosevelt, I do think that somewhere Rosie should be top three. She should. Because she's one of the most recognizable symbols of the war. Oh my gosh, even to this day. Yeah. Even now, you're still getting magnets and postcards with the We Can Do It symbol and her little flex arm and her um her red headscarf.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

There's a whole section on Rosie the Riveter at the National World War II Museum. And it's all about there was a whole room where they had like machinery that was riveted and like interactive. If you wanted to try riveting, they had the riveting gun there. But oh, that's cool. Unfortunately for me, the riveting gun was out of service when I was there. But probably fortunately for my safety and the safety of my family who I was with, the riveting gun was out of service.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

I was about to say they did that on purpose.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

But they also have at the museum, not at the museum, at the hotel across the street that's associated with the museum up on the roof. They have it's called Rosie's on the roof. And it's a whole Rosie the Riveter themed rooftop bar. And there's pictures of pictures of real women working in factories and working in plants, and then there's you know renderings of Rosie, and then there's the Norman Rockwell Rosie, and then the lyrics to her song. Because Rosie has a song, guys. It's by the flow of vagabonds, and it's very good. I love the Rosie song. I love the Rosie song, but every time somebody plays, I hear it, it's like it gets stuck in my head for like at least three days minimum.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

It's such an earworm. Oh, absolutely. I think that was the purpose, and I'm really happy that that was the purpose of it, honestly. Um, mentioning the Norman Rockwell design, that one was the one that was sort of taken out of circulation because she wasn't she wasn't feminine enough. Yeah, she wasn't ladylike enough. So for people that haven't seen it, go Google it. Google Rosie the River to by Norman Rockwell.

SPEAKER_01 14:41

I think it's more of an accurate rendering of Rosie than the pot than the one that really made it made its mark. I love them both, but I do think that Norman Rockwell's rendering of Rosie is the true accurate depiction of what of what a Rosie was like.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

Yeah, I have such a soft spot for that one because she's she's a bigger lady, she's wider, her hair is crazy. She's not wearing much, if any, makeup.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

She's wearing her bummerols, and she's just sitting on sitting on something. She's sitting on like a she's sitting on a wall. She's sitting again leaning against the wall. She's got the riveter gun over her leg and she's just eating her lunch.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

She's eating her little sandwich, and if you look down at her feet, she's your favorite part stomping. Yeah, she's stomping on a copy of Mein Kampf, and I think it's such a symbol of patriotism, and you know, in the face of fascism. I like how she's essentially giving the middle finger without giving the middle finger.

SPEAKER_02 15:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

Um, and I think that's sort of what put people off was that it was a woman uh having an opinion, even though this was a fictional woman that was drawn by a man, I think it was the fact that this woman had an opinion and she would probably open her mouth and say it, but she was too busy eating her lunch to physically say it. And I think that's what turned people off because the newer version, she is made up, her hair is neat in her scarf, her mouth is closed. She's very serious looking.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

That's a good observation. Her mouth is closed.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

Whereas the Norman Rockwell one, her lips are pursed because she's trying to eat. She's a normal woman, whereas the the second iteration, again, is a higher expectation of what a Rosie should look like. They should look ladylike and made up, and their mouth should be closed.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

It's the preferred version of a woman to a man of that time. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

It is. That's why I like the Norman Rockwell one so much, because you could tell that this woman is opinionated and she will say anything that comes into her head. But the second iteration, she just looks compliant. She's the compliant, she's the compliant version. Yeah. As beautiful as she is, and as great as it is, and I'm so happy that women have a symbol for themselves. Oh, absolutely. She's the more ideal version because she looks serious and she doesn't look like she's gonna say anything aside from we can do it. Right. Whereas the Norman Rockwell version, her opinion is right there under her foot. Literally. Literally, it is right there. Of course, men were not particularly happy with women working, but there was just no other option. They had no choice being drafted.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

They had no choice at that point. It was either literally send in the girls or or you know, that was it, we were gonna lose the war.

unknown 17:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

And this, I mean, the symbol of Rosie Alone pushed more than six million women into the workforce during the war. Yeah, which is incredible.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

And then I feel like they were thrown away the instant all these. They were and a lot of these men came back with horrendous PTSD. Of course, it wasn't known as that back then. They just called it shell shock. Yeah, yeah. When you think about it in terms of life today, you can't imagine that all these men have fought overseas for so many years, and then they're expected to come back and essentially fix stuff that had been broken because they had not been there. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 18:35

I always go back to that line, that moment in A League of Their Own in the movie, where at the end, um Ira Loenstein is sitting with uh Mr. Harvey and they're watching the the watch, they're watching the girls play. And Harvey says, I love these girls, I don't need them, but I love them. And Lowenstein looks at him very confused, and he's Harvey says to him, Well, you know, Roosevelt said, you know, we're winning the war. Baseball won't need to be fully shut down, so I don't need the like, I don't need the girls. Essentially, I don't need them anymore for another season. So Lowenstein basically lobbies for them, which is surprising of a man in the 40s that he's lobbying and and fighting for the girls. And it's a line that Harvey says, he goes, Well, what do we tell the men coming back from war? Do we send the men coming back from war to the kitchen? No, you wouldn't send a man coming back from war to the kitchen so that his wife can continue riveting. But at the same time, these women just gave you their all. They worked, went home, took care of the kids, cooked, cleaned, got up, did it all over again. Whereas essentially, back in the day, a man would get up, go to work, come home, and his house would be clean, his laundry would be done, his food would be on the table for dinner. He wouldn't have to do anything else. She would bring him his pipe and his slippers. And a woman was doing her job and then some as a homemaker and as a breadwinner. And a lot of men just refused to accept it. No, and the idea of having a man do what she did, we could never do that.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

And I think as well as there was all these expectations on on working women to be uh to be the perfect Rosie in their own way, and also while they are doing that, they're expected to be the Betty Crocker of the house. So they're expected to be both of these fictional women. So the list of expectations with both of those, how are you gonna keep up? You're doing everything literally by yourself. Yeah. You're doing everything plus more. You're taking care of the kids, you are cooking meals, and then you know, in the morning for eight, nine hours a day, you are going to work and replacing a man. So you're not only doing your own job, you're doing your husband's job too. So having to essentially be both of those women must have been exhausting for every woman that was working, even for just for homemakers. They were expected to be just like Betty.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Women being expected to be both is a lot to it's a lot to carry. And not all of them were just on their own. A lot of them had kids, so it was like triple. And I think the fact that a lot of this was put into visual aid for men at war. Yes. It was entertainment for men overseas. Yeah, it became entertainment. There were, you know, uh cartoons and comic strips, and it was For them, it was wow, look what the girls are doing back home, or oh, my wife went out and got a job, or you know, but oh, your wife went out and got a job because otherwise your wife won't eat, your kids won't eat. There won't be anything. You'll come back home to nothing. There will be no house. You know, there will be nothing.

SPEAKER_00 22:19

But a lot of these women, a lot of these women in the comic strips were not, they were very obviously very, very fictionalized. They were oh yeah, they were not of an average American woman body type. They were and they were dolled up, they were more dolled up, more on the sum they aired more on the side of a pinup, but they were still cartoonish, like they were cartoonish, they were pinuppy, but then they were sort of shown as a real enough woman that it wouldn't be unlikely to meet something kind of risque but innocent, like you know, maybe the dress was coming off the shoulder, but you know, her eyes were very wide and her cheeks were very rosy because she was shy, but still sexy but wholesome. Sexy but wholesome is how they were described. You could look at them, but you could also get married to them and start a family with them. So after you've got over how hot after you've got over how hot she is, you can then do the rest of it. Um, two of my favorites, one is lace, and she was in male call. She first appeared in 1943, and she's described as having dark brown hair, uh a pal to the soldiers. So she was just a gal. Um she was described as risque, dressed or undressed. So I think that means she had like a big chest at the time, you know. That's how they would describe it, but still innocent in spirit. Un not shockingly, she was created by a man. She was created by a man, his name was Milton Caniff, but he never got paid, he never got paid for his illustrations. This was his donation to the war effort. Yeah, he donated this to the war effort, which I believe he was too old to enlist, and I believe he was too old to be drafted. So this was his way of of serving, essentially. Um, it was titled male call, spelled M-A-L-E call, as opposed to, you know, male. Right. Um, and it was seen in more than 2,000 military newspapers, and it was also put in civilian newspapers. So everyone got to see Lace. Everyone got to see this. It wasn't really just for servicemen, it was for everyone, because again, you're going to meet someone like Lace on the street as a homemaker, or you're gonna meet her if you enlist and she's you know, one of the gals that volunteered with the Red Cross, or she's one of the gals that's enlisted in the whack, you know, the waves. She was supposed to be revered as like the all-American gal who did anything and everything, but she was still sexy. Right. And she was still a man's gal. She was a man's gal. There is a lot about lace in Our Mothers War by Emily Yellen that we have described as the encyclopedia, but then Sage corrected us and said anthology, which I it is really the anthology. I thought was way better than encyclopedia. But this is what this is what Caniff had to say about his creation of Lace. Miss Lace became the central figure, both because she had one and because a pretty girl is a nice thing to look at, even if she is a paper doll. The name Lace sounded feminine, it was short and easy to remember. The strip's title was suggested by the Camp Newspaper Service for its obvious twist on a familiar phrase. One of my favorite strips from it. Um, Lace receives a letter from a GI and it reads, Dear Miss Lace, since you are the only glamour girl most of us guys ever see, we'd appreciate it if you'd show up in real pin-up outfits, you know, like the movie steals. Dog face damn. And then in the next frame, she's reading the letter in a black bra, underwear, garter belt, and stockings. We reacted by trying to figure out how to accommodate the soldier while still observing proper decorum. So of course, she was still concerned about keeping it clean. In the last frame, back to her original skimpy outfit after trying on a bunch of outfits that are trying to look sexy yet wholesome. She says, Dear Dan, I guess you're stuck with me the way I am, not pinned up. Approximately yours, lace. So she was funny. She was fun, and she was funny, and she was gals. She was which I really, really like about her was that she was snappy and funny.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

And again, I think I like that bit with I guess you're stuck with me the way I am, which is basically her way, her cute way of saying tough shit. You want me to look like this? Well, I don't want to look like this, so tough so tough shit. But she's gotta be cute and funny because she's you know that letter's going back to a GI somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

And then that's another expectation upon women after they've baked through the Betty Crocker cookbook, they've been at work for eight, nine hours being a rosy. Now you gotta come home and be funny and cute.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

I live alone and I don't want to come home and be funny and cute.

SPEAKER_00 27:44

Exactly. Why would you, after all, why would you want to the list of expectations just grows and grows in this woman? It does, it does. It's an impossible thing to adhere to. Even now it's impossible. So I can't even imagine. I don't know how you do it.

SPEAKER_01 28:04

I mind I'm calling just myself, right? And even like, and even that, I'm like, some nights I get home from work and I'm like, uh, I have to cook. Thank you. I have to cook. I have to I have to do stuff here after I did stuff there all day. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

These women had to come home and be cute and funny in a letter to a man that was, you know, being traumatized in the face of war. Yeah. What a what a mess. What a time. Um, there was another um another girl in the I do love her. Um she's my favorite for obvious reasons.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

Uh her name is Winnie the Whack. You should go as Winnie. I think you should go as Winnie the Whack for Halloween this year.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

Oh, I would love to. I would love to. Um but wearing the uniform, I think I've got nowhere to put a replica uniform. I need one of them mannequin things, and I don't have room for that.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

No. Um, but no, for obvious reasons, she's your favorite. She's my favorite too. She's my favorite. Um Winnie the Whack was created by Vic Herman, who was a corporal in the army. And once his uh his camps newspaper editor found out that he was an ill illustrator, they asked him to create a weekly cartoon for the paper. So he created Winnie the Whack, which she really is. She's got, you know, her uniform, her hat. She really, she's definitely the more wholesome of the two.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Yes, because she's serving.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

Because she's serving, which I think is, I think it's very admirable that a man drew up a woman serving instead of a woman, you know, at home, half dressed or you know, more visually pleasing to the eye. Yeah. He really, you know, he acknowledged that these women were also doing their part and their job, and they were part of the army as well.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

Um she she gained popularity because uh actress Carol Landis wrote introductions to the comic strip. Yes. And she described her as cute, blonde, and pert and pinupy.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

They were all very pin-uppy, but I think that was I think at some point that just became the style of cartoon and artwork of the time. Like because it was really all that men who were serving wanted to see.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

It was either a pinup or a picture of their wife. This is what Carol Landis wrote in her introduction. Cute, blonde, per pinuppy. That was Winnie. She wasn't any one whack in particular, just all whacks rolled into one, and one whack representing all. The whack who, for so long now, had been quiet, conscientious, thorough jobs, and receiving only a pittance of praise they deserved. A cartoon character glorifying them, laughing with them rather than at them. Which I think is a great way to serve its purpose, was that finally they were recognized for the job that they were doing.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

And I love the end of that quote where it was, people were laughing with them, they were no longer laughing at them. And I but I hate to think that it was because she had been drawn as pinuppy and cute. She again, she was not your average-looking woman. She was not what people expected to be serving or enlisted because a lot of the a lot of the rumor of women enlisting was that they were big and bold and brash, and they were one of the guys, derogatory one of the guys, not more akin to the Norman Rockwell Rosie.

SPEAKER_01 31:57

Big, loud, opinionated one of the one of the boys. And it that was that was really it was frowned upon.

SPEAKER_00 32:05

There was such a difference between one of the guys derogatory and then one of the guys, respectfully. And it's that's still a thing now. Oh, absolutely. That's still a thing today, and again, nothing here.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

I see it at work all the time.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

One of the lads, but one of the lads in terms of male attitude against women. One of the most popular creations in comic strips during World War II was Wonder Woman. Um, and she I always forget that she was a World War II creation. Yes, not only that, she was an army nurse in the first few um comic strips in All-Star magazine. I believe in the very big so in in 1941, she is created by William Moulton Marston, who believed there weren't enough strong female role models for little girls. Um, Marston was a staunch feminist. He was very much on the side of women. He did not believe that women got a fair shake. Um, he was correct, obviously. Um so in the very beginning, I believe that Wonder Woman falls in love with an American soldier who was shot down on her Amazonian island. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 33:30

It kind I guess they kind of got that right in the first Wonder Woman movie. The move the Wonder Woman movie with uh Galga Dot. The only difference is I think the movie with Galga Dot and Chris Pine is set in World War I, not World War II. Not World War II, yeah. So that's where it changes a little bit. But it's still very on it, it it stays on the line of where it's yeah, where Molten wrote his his you know his comic.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

Yeah. So when this American soldier is flown back for rehabilitation, Wonder Woman takes on the alter ego of a US army nurse named Diana Prince. And obviously, through all this, she is turning into Wonder Woman and fighting Hitler and fascism. And I think it showed girls and young women that they were able to fight the war no matter where they are, where they came from, or what they were doing. And I think it was such a powerful, um, a powerful symbol. The alter ego Diana Prince quits nursing and joins the WAC, and she becomes a secretary of a colonel. So absolutely need to read the original work because that sounds really cool. Definitely good. Um Wonder Woman fights against threats to America from the Axis powers, so she essentially tries to defeat Hitler, which I think is really cool. I'm sure in the comic there's some pows against uh against Hitler, you know, when they pump Oh yeah. Oh pow. Love those.

SPEAKER_01 35:06

Yes. I love those, I think it's great. She tries to defeat Hitler on her own, which is still very admirable. But also now you think about what they did in the movie, it's World War One. She runs across, she runs across, I think it's no man's land at the Somme. Oh, yeah, at the Somme in France, yes, and she deflects, she deflects every bullet with her armor.

SPEAKER_00 35:37

Oh, yeah, yeah. I have seen this where she's like running in bed.

SPEAKER_01 35:40

She's running and she's deflecting every bullet with her her wrist cuffs, cuffs, and her armor, and becomes a hero. That's pretty cool. Which is it's it's very cool. It's very cool. It paints, it paints a really good picture for little girls who want to change the world, who wanna do something to make an impact, right?

SPEAKER_00 36:05

I wish they kept it to World War II, though.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

I do wish they had kept it to World War II. I don't know why they didn't. They might, oh no, I think I know why they might not have. I think I can understand why they didn't. Because Diana Prince is the the US Army, the pilot who gets shot down and lands on her Amazonian island. His name is Steve. And I think they didn't do it akin. This is why, this is my assumption why they didn't do it to World War II was because Captain America's name is Steve and his story, his origin story starts in World War II. So they probably decided like let's they probably DC probably decided not to claw at the heels of Marvel in that sense. Um, so I'm thinking them for I'm thinking that's why they they chose World War One, which makes sense. But again, it does make sense, it makes sense, but again, it does paint a lovely picture for little girls.

SPEAKER_00 37:02

Yeah, this is what Moulton said about his creation of Wonder Woman. At last, in a world torn by hatreds and wars of men, appears a woman to whom the problems and feats of men are mere child's play. A woman whose identity is known to none, but whose sensational feats are outstanding in a fast-moving world. With a hundred times the agility and strength of our best male athletes and strongest wrestlers, she appears as though from nowhere to avenge an injustice or right or wrong. As lovely as Aphrodite, as wise as Athena, with the speed of Mercury and the strength of Hercules, she is known only as Wonder Woman. Which again, I think, sets a difficult expectation for women because not only are you expected to be per, cute, sexy, go to work for eight hours, be Betty Crocker, you are then expected to uh change the world like Wonder Woman did.

SPEAKER_01 37:59

And it's also very much um, it really does feed into today, where like a lot of times you'll see like everybody's an influencer, right? Everybody's putting their women are putting everything on Instagram and like, here's how I work my full-time job and come home and cook dinner for my family of six. And then the in the comments, it's like, wow, you're like Wonder Woman. Oh my god, she's Wonder Woman, and it's like that's the expectation.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

Yeah, it will always be the expectation of women then and now to save the world, but also she does it all like Wonder Woman, and it's like everything else, I know.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

Ugh should she have to at this stage in the game in 2026? Should she have to do it all? Should she have to? I I think it should be back to should she choose to do it all is one thing. Should she have to? Should she have to? Again, depends on her circumstances. Is she a single mother? She might have to do it all.

SPEAKER_00 38:58

It goes back to the mother. But if she's not, does she have to do it all? Right. It goes back to what we said in the Rosie episode where it's she's obviously got her arm up and it's we can do it. And we said we can do it all. Yeah, we can do it all. We're going with does she have to? Does she have to adhere to all these expectations?

SPEAKER_01 39:23

Does she have to do this all by a thousand different ways you could spin the phrase we can do it?

SPEAKER_00 39:29

Yeah. I'm very happy that we have the freedom to do it.

SPEAKER_01 39:33

I'm yes, something less alone. I'm glad that as women today we have the freedom, should we desire to do it all, that we can do it all.

SPEAKER_00 39:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:44

I'm also glad that we have the option to say, I don't want to do it all.

SPEAKER_00 39:49

Yeah, if I don't have to.

SPEAKER_01 39:51

If I don't have to, I don't want to. I shouldn't have to. At the same time, you know, like knowing that, you know, I shouldn't have to. I don't want to, but I can. If I wanted to, I could, but I don't want to.

SPEAKER_00 40:09

Yeah, it's very comforting. And I do it is, it's very comforting.

SPEAKER_01 40:12

It's it's very much like, you know, somebody asked me once, well, don't you want to get married? I said, Yeah, of course I do.

SPEAKER_02 40:20

Yeah, of course I do.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

I said, but you have to understand I want to. Yeah, I don't need to.

SPEAKER_00 40:28

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 40:30

You know, I can I can cook for myself, I can keep my house clean, I can get up and go to work every day, and I can pay my bills. I can do it. I would like to have somebody to share my life with, but I don't need somebody to cook and clean and keep my lights on. There's the difference, you know.

SPEAKER_02 40:54

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 40:55

And I I thank thankfully we have that option as women today to say, yeah, I want to, I don't need to, but I want to.

SPEAKER_00 41:05

That's always the big thing. And I always feel really sad that these women had no options and so much pressure upon them to keep everything perfect. Yes. And everything they couldn't be emotional about it, they couldn't outwardly be pissed out.

SPEAKER_01 41:22

No, stop frowned upon if you cried about it, if you stomped your foot about it. Don't throw a tantrum. This is the way this is the way it is.

SPEAKER_00 41:30

This is the way it is, and you have to pull yourself up by the bootstraps and do it. Pull up the bootstraps and do it. You have to do it in the face of patriotism. Your country needs you to do it. Yeah. And obviously, there was propaganda and and ads and things in newspapers that was that were essentially saying, if you do all this, we will win the war, and your husband will return home because you did all this.

SPEAKER_01 41:55

Right.

SPEAKER_00 41:56

And it must have felt very much not worth it if your husband did not return. Working yourself to the bone and all in the face of patriotism, and then he doesn't come back. So of course there's the grief. There's there's the grief of, oh my goodness, my husband is no longer here. I did what they asked me to do. And it still wasn't enough. And it still wasn't enough. And even in the face of all that, they are still expected to adhere to all these expectations. I don't know how my grandmother did it.

SPEAKER_01 42:32

She was newly married in 45. She was newly married on the heels of the war. She had a newborn son, and her husband was in Africa.

unknown 42:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:41

She lived with her mother.

SPEAKER_00 42:44

And that was very common, especially.

SPEAKER_01 42:46

Grateful, luckily, she had one or two brothers who were either too old to join, or her husband's brothers, my grandfather's brothers were maybe too old. Um, one of his brothers was 4F because he had, I think he was, I think he only had one lung. I'm not sure. I'm not specific. I'm not 100% sure of the details. Um, right. But she had some form of support. She had somebody there to kind of you know help her out a little bit. But at the same time, there she is left to worry. Is my husband coming home? Is my new husband and then the father of our first child coming home? Or am I gonna live with my mother for the or my mother and I gonna raise this baby for the rest of my life?

SPEAKER_00 43:37

Haunting.

SPEAKER_01 43:38

It's haunting, it's very haunting. And she did everything that was asked of her. She did everything that was asked of her. She still lost her husband very young. You know, my dad still lost his father very young.

SPEAKER_00 43:48

But yeah. He still he returned and and everything. He returned, he came back in 45. They had three more boys.

unknown 43:59

Everything.

SPEAKER_00 44:00

Was done in the face of patriotism and defeating fascism and having to stick to every single expectation that was set out for you and not by real women. These women were all thought up either by a woman that herself worked full-time. And um while she promoted, you know, Hearth and Home, she was still a working woman for General Mills, which at the time is excellent. But of course, she's still promoting the fact that women should stay home and take care of their husbands and take care of the house while the husbands are away at war. Exactly. And then on the other hand, you've got you've got men creating cute perr pinuppy women, which is another expectation that cannot be stuck to. Because when you're gonna have the time to look cute and per and pinupy, when you're riveting for hours and hours. Um I think the only one that truly stuck to the belief that women could do it all was the man that created Wonder Woman because he himself was a feminist. I feel like he was the only one.

SPEAKER_01 45:16

I would give a little credit to I would give a little credit to Vic Herman from Winnie the Whack as well.

SPEAKER_00 45:21

Yes, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:24

Those two are the most realistic. Yes, exactly. With the exception of Wonder Woman being from an a secret Amazonian island, Amazonian Island, and having wild superpowers. The rest of it is pretty believable. I think those two are the most realistic, but we want to know what you guys think. You know, what's what's your take on what's your take on on Rosie and Betty Crocker, and then you know, somebody who is fictitious as Winnie the Whack or Wonder Woman, you know, give us drop us a line, let us know. We're we're curious.

SPEAKER_00 45:58

Tell us what's what. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:59

What's your what's your opinion on it all? Especially because we have such a nice split of female followers and and male followers. The demographic is really is really melded for us.

SPEAKER_00 46:14

So that'll be interesting.

SPEAKER_01 46:16

It'll be interesting to see. It'll be interesting to see. We'll drop a poll on our on our Instagram. And you guys can pick your favorites, maybe. Yeah, that'll be fun. I like it. Yeah. So until next time.

SPEAKER_00 46:29

Yes, thank you for joining us.

SPEAKER_01 46:31

For all of our for all of our female listeners, remember you can do it. Even if you don't want to or don't need to, you can.

SPEAKER_00 46:38

You can. And remember, sometimes you just don't have to. And you don't have to.

SPEAKER_01 46:44

So until next time, we'll see you guys next time. Bye. Bye.