Domestic Security

Although the poster image of Rosie the Riveter is ubiquitous, the real women wielding real tools, most of them for the first time, are the images that I have found arresting and inspiring. 

The patterned fabrics recall women’s more traditional peacetime work in the home and the conventional notions of femininity that were expediently modified for the war effort. 

The homey prints rub up against and interact visually with power tools and shiny metallic fuselages. Intrepid, tranquil women in floral jumpsuits and coiffed hairstyles rivet, tighten, assemble, inflate, sort, and seal in oversized industrial landscapes.

The notion of empowering women is used, often cynically and opportunistically, to promote and advertise war. On the other hand,real women, strong and feminine, made these bombers and test-piloted them. The noses of many of the same bombers were decorated with cheesecake pinups, cartoons of femininity that were supposed to inspire men to fight a war. The relationships among these players are slippery, contradictory; they defy easy definition.