History and Evolution of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corp - Research Paper Example

Nevertheless, they worked so hard that they were seen to be more hardworking and determined than men and had proved to be more organized than them as well. Following is the account of how their journey began and came to an end. History and Evolution of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corp In the year 1942, around 800 females had joined the WAAC ad began their elementary training in Iowa where they were properly equipped with arms and ammunition, given uniforms to wear and were assigned proper duties to be performed during the war.

For the purpose of defining their goals and objectives, a manual was established which identified what they were supposed to achieve in clear words (Permeswaran & Yashila, 2008). The manual said that they had to replace men and be with them on equal terms. In those times however, it was a very critical move because women were not encouraged to come to terms with men on an equality basis, and men felt devalued seeing females standing with them involved in a furious physical activity like war. Moreover, women had not participated in war previously on ground level.

The only females to participate in war before this were nurses. Even though there was a lot of criticism on the women for being part of WAAC, there was a necessity arising in this regard due to the number of men decreasing because of the War. There were around 150,000 women who took part in the world war. They were also believed to be better than men in terms of being more organized, well-disciplined and hardworking. Even in an appalling situation where women were not given overseas pay or any other benefits like life insurance or medical coverage, their passion was enough of an evidence to prove their worth which they successfully did even after facing difficulties of initially getting the bill passed for females to participate in the World War as part of WAAC.

It had become very difficult for people to accept women in this new role because most people believed that it was not the kind of job women were supposed to do. Opposing parties questioned that if women started to serve in the army then who would be responsible for the house work and that females were not smart enough to be part of the army, they were likely to make mistakes and have the tendency to act carelessly. The day the bill was passed officially, Oveta Culp Hobby was chosen as the Director of WAAC.

She proved to be a very determined and hardworking lady and had proved all assumptions about WAAC wrong. According to her, women were there in the army to assist them in winning war and their roles would not exactly switch or become different from what they are in civilian life. She just believed it would help men in achieving success. In the year 1917, it was decided that women will play a role in the British Army as for being sent to France and Haig who was the then commander in chief wrote to the war office that women will be permitted to fight in the war in France and their services will be utilized wherever appropriate.

However, the kind of work they were supposed to do at that time was much more related to household than to anything else because physical labor was not what they ought to do after all. Selection in WAAC required two references and interview