Contemporary history: concepts, scope, and significance

Women in the Second World War

Human population can be segregated into genders but it cannot be said which gender played a superior role in the survival and development of the humanity. The history of nations is filled with ventures of wars that are considered manly in nature. However, several times in history, women proved that they are equally capable of doing things that can save their country from financial and security threats. During the world war, women served in post, military, journalism and health care. These sectors were vital in fighting the war at several fronts. Three women have particularly written their names in the history by serving during WWII. These names include Dorothea Lange, Clare Boothe Luce, and Esther Bubley.

War is one of those words that are intrinsically bad. The word is associated with pain, sufferings and miseries. It is unlucky that the world is not popularly familiar with the concept of a "positive war"- the war against poverty, war against illiteracy and war against corruption. Rather the wars have majorly been against humanity where in one way or the other, one nation has won at the cost of loss of the other. Thus, it is an act of great courage and determination to fight a war specially the one to speak for the rights of others by risking self. History names many men like Churchill, Napoleon, as well as women like Lange, Luce, Bubley that took part in wars in different capabilities (Morelli and Tomlinson, 2008). However, the ones that spoke for others are remembered the most respectfully.

Hailing from different backgrounds, Lange, Luce and Bubley faced same threats to their lives and families because of their service in the war. Dorothea Lange fought the war through her pen. She wrote extensively on the ethnic people and the labor class and the impact of war on their lives. Lange was hired during President Franklin Roosevelt's time to write about and snapshot the lives of Japanese camps and facilities. Lange had a special magic in her pen. She could write too well about the suffered families and individuals as if she could exactly feel their pain. She wrote about the migrants specially the working class and their miseries during the great depression. Lange soon felt that she was under-narrating the stories and the workers were facing a lot more problems including the ethnical and racial discrimination. She captured images from the immigrant camps that could tell the story of courage of the worker class to fight the miseries. She was questioned for those photographs and the government bodies claimed that many of her photographs were false claiming that there were no such problems in the camps. It was quite courageous of Lange to work for the rights of Japanese prisoners and her work was first acknowledged in 1972. About thirty photographs of Lange were incorporated in Whitney Museum telling the contemporary story in images and narrating the war crimes during World War II. Lange is one such woman who is a lesson for many generations that a war can be fought with pen and camera as well and it is not necessary to hold a gun to speak for rights of the suppressed. She lived in a time where working on fashion photography could have earned her much more but a soldier is way different than an earner. She was a fighting journo and a narrator or stories about the forgotten people of the war.

Esther Bubley was another member of the tribe of women that fought in the world war. She was also a photographer who believed that camera could tell much more than a person would. Bubley was quite young when she decided to serve in the war. Just 20 years old by then, she started working with team serving the historical section at National Archives (Women came to the front, 2010). Bubley did not restrict her only to learn from the expert photographers during the work time. She would rather spare her off time in photographing war-hit families. She covered wartime subjects through her camera. Her striking photographs of areas and camps related to war time were inspiring enough that she was hired in the Office of War Information. Since photography of suffered and war-stricken areas was not merely her job but her interest, she used to make hundreds of photographs in single cross-country bus trip. She found the resemblance in the lives of people hit by war and the people suffering the great depression. Thus, Bubley also started snapshotting the class suffering from economic crunch. She was not impressed with the industrial steps and rather liked to speak about the average Americans.

Clare Boothe Luce was not just young and talented, she also hailed from a wealthy background. She was in the congress and served as an ambassador and playwright. Her rich family background did not make her insensitive. She rather felt the pain of the Average American suffering the problems of WWII (Women came to the front, 2010). Women were generally considered delicate and fragile, and still they are, but it is women like Lange, Bubley and Luce that tell the world that no matter how delicately the women are raised, they can associate to the sufferings of the unprivileged class. Rather than living her own life of luxury, Luce preferred to find out how the war-hit people were managing to live. She visited many war fronts during the World War II and managed to live in the most uncomfortable places to find out the true face of war. She directly experienced the pain, frustrations, discomforts, and attack risks like any other fighter would confront (Role of women during Second World War, n.a). She also witnessed bombing raids and was house arrested for writing truth about the military preparedness of UK in the war. Luce had a vision that could guide the nations about what could work in their favor and what war blunders will cost them a lot. Her suggestions were not all taken seriously but yet at many times the British administration had to accept that only boosting about preparations of war was not enough and some practical steps were needed to fight the war better.