Women in Wartime: World War II (1939-1945)

"What we can determine at this juncture is that virtually all women who served in the war were demobilized in 1945 and encouraged to go home. They had confounded social and military expectations of the prewar years, which made no allowances for the importance of women to national war efforts, and in many ways, their societies were ungrateful for their service. France (in 1944) and Italy (in 1946) extended suffrage to women as a reward for their sacrifices, but other gains were few and far between. Most men and many women wanted to return to traditional roles, and in the rush toward peace, many valiant women were slighted. They were not eligible for the Victoria Cross, were banned from some Italian Resistance group parades, and were denied admittance into the American Veterans of Foreign Wars. Some women found their wartime experiences such a social liability that they hid them for the rest of their lives, much to the dismay of historians."

Source:

Janda, L. (2005). Women in World War II. In S. Tucker (Ed.), The encyclopedia of World War II: A political, social, and military history. (Vol. 4, pp. 1647-1654). Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.