What do you believe were the challenges for many of the women after the war?

What do you believe were the challenges for many of the women after the war?

These women had been working in an environment that used their special skills and intelligence to contribute to the war effort. After the war they were simply told they should not work so that jobs would be available to the men returning. For many of the women this was such an abrupt reversal - from a high powered purpose to that of a housewife and they struggled to find their place in the postwar world. Interestingly though they did help spur the feminist movement thanks to their groundbreaking effort during the war.

After the war these amazing women were simply told that their services were no longer required. They had held such important jobs and now, in many cases, they were told they could not be accepted to various university programs as the available spots were for men. Once again the attitude of females being less important than males prevailed.
They were expected to get married, have children and let themselves be taken care of by a husband. These were very capable, independent women who now had to live as if their past jobs had never existed

The women were respected for their intelligence and the contributions they made to the military while they were actively 'decoding'. After the war, they were treated as all other women were which included a lack of respect. They had to change their mindset on how to approach society to get ahead.

the feeling of self worth! they were in charge of such a skilled and high intelligence , top secret job during the war, then after the war, the jobs were given back to the men and the women were basically told to get back into the kitchen... they went from total independence, back to the mindset of a woman needing a husband to help her make it... would have been very difficult for me to go back to the "old fashioned" set of ideals.

Many women had been doing serious war work and had important jobs. If it was me, I would have felt that I had earned the right to hold important jobs. It would have been very difficult to go back to what I had before the war.

I’m sure it was very difficult for many women to return to a secondary role after the war. Maybe the baby boom was partly fueled by women’s need to fill an important role. I was interested in how many women in the book regarded teaching as unrewarding labor. The large class sizes and low pay undoubtedly contributed to that view.

The answers already given are identical to my initial thoughts. I do have a couple of others. One is that some of the women chose to remain single and continue working, or they married and because they had supportive husbands, they continued to work. Like Ann Caracristi, they had to be better than the men competing for the same jobs. What a challenge to fight to stay in the workforce! Those who chose the more traditional path knew what women were capable of and could see to it that their daughters went to college and considered careers equal to those of men. How many of us are the daughters of similar women?

After the war, many of the women were pressured to leave their jobs and be a full-time homemaker. For women who enjoyed work and liked a challenge, being full-time homemakers was not as satisfying as working. But at the same time, arranging for child care while working was frowned upon.

I think the author did a good job of showing that many of the women who had been code girls found the transition to life after the war to be complicated and sometimes difficult. It interested me that a number of the women did return to the workplace when their children were older. And some of them excelled at their work, in the NSA and in other positions. (In fact, they were under pressure to excel, just to be taken seriously by male colleagues.) I kept thinking how much freer most women are now to create their own lives--and am grateful for that!

Abandonment comes to mind! These women did an amazing job under intense pressure and did it well. Then they were told they were no longer needed, The men were coming back to their jobs.

I think the biggest challenge was not being able to tell anyone what you did during the war! You are on full speed and they are totally shut off completely the next day and told to go home.