Illusions of Freedom: Factory Life and Female Emancipation
"The portrayal of the woman, alongside details like the sky, presents working life as something novel and inspiring."
by Tai Jing Yi Jeanne
Throughout history, women have performed, and indeed have been expected to perform, important supporting functions during wars. Europe's 20th century wars were certainly no exception. World War II Britain, for instance, held campaigns to draw women out of their homes into war-time industry to produce weaponry. Women were thus heavily encouraged to take on their male counterparts' former factory jobs for the sake of the nation. This poster from 1941 (Plate 1) was one such attempt to engage the British female public in such professions.1
Superficially, the poster encourages workforce participation which appears enticing. However it holds subtle but profound contradictions, notably the slogan's command to women to "Come into the Factories" (my emphasis). Yet the woman featured is obviously not in the factory, which is some distance away. In fact, details in the poster seem to subvert the relationship between women and the factory: instead of submitting docilely by entering into the factory, as the poster's caption commands, the woman featured has emerged from it, appearing liberated and empowered. This discrepancy goes beyond mere artistic oversight. This essay will argue such contradictions reflect a larger tension between promises of female emancipation on one hand, and the reality of an oppressive factory life on the other. The poster's paradox thus arises from strained attempts to create convergence between female desires and national defense needs, portraying factory-life as enticing while downplaying aspects which refute this.
Tension is already apparent in the representation of the woman, who embodies opposing ideals. She appears to dominate the foreground, striking a solitary pose with a confident smile and outstretched arms. Her stance is one of unfettered independence and robust empowerment, seemingly exalting factory work as a liberating experience. Yet subtle indicators of conformity and confinement exist in opposition to this. Thus she is commanded by the caption to retreat unquestioningly into the cold, impersonal factories behind, which suggests a cloistering of oneself within its walls. Furthermore, she wears a dull, standardized factory uniform, presumably donned by multitudes of other factory women; her hair is also in a stern bun, again a visual sign of the factory's restrictions on her person. Collectively, such signs are incongruous with her supposed emancipation as suggested by her posture and expression. Rather, they implicitly signal her membership of a larger, overarching entity and weaken her identity as an independent individual. As such, while the portrayal of the woman deflects attention away from the specific nature of factory life and instead assures freedom and liberation, she still demonstrates discreet signs of the factory's restrictions and confinement. This undercuts the poster's inflated claims of emancipation.
Additional motifs of liberation are superimposed on the poster. Notably, it prominently features an endless sky towards which the woman is reaching. The open sky powerfully represents the absence of boundaries and constraints--particularly striking when juxtaposed against the woman. The immediate impression is that a career provides women numerous possibilities--indeed invoking the adage 'the sky is the limit.' Yet once again a paradox ensues because to achieve this sort of freedom, the poster prescribes her submission into the factory. This so-called emancipation is therefore contingent on females conforming to the rules and regulations of the factory and thus relinquishing some of their freedoms. The overriding emphasis on freedom thus clashes with subtle reminders of captivity associated with going into the factory. This reflects tension in marketing employment to the female public of the time, most of whom were accustomed to pre-war domesticity. There is thus, in the poster, an almost overwrought attempt to differentiate career-hood from the traditional domestic routine, making the former appear the empowering and hence more attractive route. The portrayal of the woman, alongside details like the sky, presents working life as something novel and inspiring: it offers a liberating experience unattainable within the confined feminine setting of the home. It therefore plays psychologically on the female audience, making them more amenable to national security efforts, by voluntarily going 'into the factories' based on the poster's attractive promise of emancipation.
The poster even suggests that liberation goes beyond the individual level to the national. Planes and tanks are reminders of the war in the poster, representing the means by which the country will liberate itself. The direct reference to the war in the context of a poster exhorting female workplace participation affirms the importance of women in the war effort. While national defense was hitherto a masculine vocation, the poster tantalizingly portrays women as being part of this once exclusive sphere. Returning to the woman, we notice how her stance makes her appear to be conducting the planes forth, presumably toward the enemy. Her size also elevates her importance to the war. The poster thus almost exaggeratedly exalts women as co-liberators of the nation. But yet again, such visuals are clearly antithetical to the poster's other details. The figure of the woman towering over the smaller factories in the background seems to give her mastery over them, subverting the command seeking her meek submission into the factory. Furthermore, the striking outdoor setting as emphasized by the sky, soaring planes and tanks emanating outward, conflicts with the poster's command for women to retreat indoors within the factories. As such, the poster's superficial promise of release and emancipation on various levels--the individual and national--contends uneasily with the fundamental oppressiveness and confinement of the vocation extolled, as suggested by its other details. The notion that women will be leading the war effort--as suggested by the poster--becomes ultimately questionable when we consider the elements that gesture toward her enclosure within the factory. We sense again the idealization of factory employment which places in the forefront blatant, overstated images of freedom, while attempting to expunge the idea of factory conformity which nevertheless is retained subtly, thus explaining the poster's inherent contradictions.
In sum, to mobilize women in the nation's defense, their new role was made to be desired and coveted. Promises of emancipation recur in the poster, as seen by the portrayal of the woman and the backdrop. Yet these belie other contradictory reminders of the factory's repressiveness. Such tensions hint at the attempt to suppress the uncomfortable fact that factory employment merely transplanted women from the confines of the household to the new confines of the factory.
Editor's Note
1 For copyright reasons we are unable at present to host this poster on the website. Please click the external link below for the image, or see the print copy of folio 7, facing p.26. [Back]
Work Cited
Zec, Donald. Women of Britain, Come into the Factories. Cited September 2006.
About the Writer: Tai Jing Yi Jeanne is a student in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, majoring in History. She wrote this paper for Yew Kong Leong’s class Danger and National Security.
Go to volume 6, 2007