[xoxoxoBruce]

Working class women? What is that? I always figured it was women living in the section of society where all the neighbors worked at mostly manual labor jobs, although some were more skilled than others. That included the wives/daughters of the men that had those jobs, but were students or housewives. Not the same as working women who may be part of the working class neighborhood.

When the big war push came, the working women still had jobs, although they may have changed jobs for new horizons, or more likely more money... if the government felt the job they wanted to leave wasn't on the essential list. The women moving into the jobs vacated by men going into the service, or created by big increases in production, were mostly fresh out of school or housewives. They had numerous motives for seeking jobs but they didn't have experience in a corporate environment, or skills.

Not only was production ramped up, but efficiency was aggressively pursued, not just to save money, but increase output. In that environment, training new people only to have them quit or get injured was a major obstacle for both goals. With those goals in mind, instead of just letting capitalism work as it always had, this list was created as a proactive attempt to tackle the reasons new hires washed out.

Yes, it seems clumsy. But like Clodfobble said, the men in management had the view of the times, and so did the women then. Little changed from the view of their parents and grandparents. The frailty and emotionality of women was accepted as a truth by both sexes... sometimes as a handicap sometimes as a weapon.

My brother and I were surprised to find out my mother smoked when she met my father, then immediately quit because he didn't. When questioned about it she replied, "Everybody did". Before TV and Internet, not being part of the social life in the neighborhood was not a happy prospect. There were no wife homemakers, no husband child carers, you were what was acceptable or be excluded. Any woman that tried to be a mechanic or machinist was looked at as peculiar, even if sometimes secretly envied.