I recently ran across this awesome summer day camp for girls (too bad there isn’t one for adult women!) ROSIE’S GIRLS is a three week day camp for girls (6th-8th grade).  It a place to learn skills (carpentry, welding, etc) that build confidence.  PLUS they get to use power tools!  This is an awesome way to introduce girls to career options that even today don’t seem accessible to women (did you know that as of 2006 the Department of Labor counts only 6% of professional welders as women?! ***)

FACT: women can weld just as good (and sometimes better) than men. Brains, not brawn makes for an excellent welder… and check out these girls WELDING!

***HOLY SH&%$# ***  I just looked up more recent statistics (from 2008) and the percent of women employed in the welding/ metal industries has GONE DOWN!  WTF?  check it out:

Welding, soldering and brazing…  4.7% women (5.9% in 2006)

Sheet metal workers….  4.8% women (3.1% in 2006)

Pipelayers, plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters….  1.5%  (1.9% in 2006)

Tool and die….  1%

Structural Iron / Steel…  0.9%

You can check out these reports and many others about women in nontraditional occupations from the Department of Labor online.

And lets brainstorm!  what can WE do to make these “nontraditional” occupations “traditional?”

Rosies Workwear is sponsoring a contest….

Dirtiest Rosies Contest
Not that Rosies need any excuse to get a little dirt under our finger nails, but we thought it would be fun to have a contest to see who is the dirtiest Rosie. Just have someone snap a quick photo with your phone or if you want to get fancy, get yourself video tapped. You can post your pictures here or on our Facebook page. The dirtiest Rosie will win a spanking new pair of overalls (of course!). The contest ends June 1. Spread the dirt….

Details online–>

And if you don’t win a pair of overalls, and you need some work wear, don’t forget Arc-Zone carries the Angelfire line of welding wear for women.

Sized for women…  you’ll find jackets, and gloves.

No, we’re not talking about not insects, nor the Protestants.  These are the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) who served during WWII (the first to ever do so) — right alongside the Rosies who helped build the planes in which they flew!

Female WWII aviators honored with gold medal

By KIMBERLY HEFLING, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – A long-overlooked group of women who flew aircraft during World War II were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal on Wednesday.

Known as Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs, they were the first women to fly U.S. military planes.

About 200 of these women aviators, mostly in their late 80s and early 90s and some in wheelchairs, came to the Capitol to accept the medal, the highest civilian honor bestowed by Congress.

In thanking them for their service, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said these women pilots went unrecognized for too long.

“Women Air Force Service Pilots, we are all your daughters, you taught us how to fly,” Pelosi said.

In accepting the award, WASP pilot Deanie Parrish said the women had volunteered to fly the planes without expectation that they would ever be thanked. Their mission was to fly noncombat missions to free up male pilots to fly overseas.

CONTINUE READING ONLINE ->

Gordon Brown has lately honoured the women who worked in the steel factories during WWII!  Huzzah for our fellow Rosies from across the sea!

Sheffield’s World War II Women of Steel are thanked

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has paid tribute to hundreds of female workers who toiled in the steel factories of South Yorkshire during World War II.

The workers, known as the Women of Steel, produced metal which was essential for the war effort.

Among them were Ruby Gascoigne, 87, Dorothy Slingsby and Kathleen Roberts, both 88, and Kit Sollitt, 90, who were honoured on a visit to Downing Street.

They travelled from Sheffield on a train named the Women of Steel Express.

The engine was specially renamed in honour of the occasion and was unveiled by the four steel mill veterans before their journey on Wednesday.

The women received a special letter of thanks from veterans minister Kevan Jones and met Sheffield MPs at the House of Commons before visiting 10 Downing Street.

CONTINUE READING ONLINE ->

I thought you all might find this interesting — what were the original Rosies recommended to wear to work?  Well, now you know!

All I can say is, it’s about time!

It’s about time somebody put up a statue in honor of the working women of WWII, and it’s high time I find out about it (it’s only been nearly a decade)!

Now, if we could just get some of the other states to follow suit…

Tinker statue commemorates working women

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City)
Apr 3, 2000 by Bill May The Journal Record

When Elizabeth Ward decided to apply for a job at Tinker Air Force Base, it was no precedent-shattering event.

“I just walked in and got my job,” she said. “It was because of women like her, that it was that way.”

The “her” she referred to was Frankie Collier, 73, who went to work for the Douglas Aircraft Plant, now building 3001 at Tinker, the day she turned 18 in August 1944.

As an inspection clerk, Collier didn’t handle the wrenches, tools and rivet guns that gave the name “Rosie the Riveter” to a whole generation of women who took over defense manufacturing jobs to free a equal number of men to fight World War II.

“I worked there until the end of the war, then they just let us go,” she said. “There was nothing done about it, nothing said. They just told us to go home, the war was over.”

In the 55 ensuring years, Collier — like so many of her generation — got married, raised a family and continued with a teaching career.

One thing was missing, though. There was no memorial, no statue, nothing to commemorate the tough work these women tackled during the nation’s dark days.

CONTINUE READING ONLINE ->

How do you wear your hair to work?  Up?  Down?  Short?  Long?

In the 1940′s there were no two ways about it — to look good, and keep safe, there was only one iconic actress to emulate: Veronica Lake.

When I was growing up in Long Beach, this school didn’t exist yet, and that’s a pity, for me, and for thousands of other girls who didn’t have the option of going HERE:

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Nailing a trade at Rosie the Riveter High

Long Beach charter school seeks to put young women in nontraditional jobs such as welding and carpentry.

By Bob Pool
December 3, 2009

Students are welding the old to the new at Rosie the Riveter High School.

The Long Beach charter school was created in 2007 to help prepare teenage girls for careers as welders, plumbers, carpenters, electricians and other trades.

Today, its 50-member student body includes girls and boys, but its organizers still attempt to break down barriers for women seeking careers in what largely remains a man’s world.

“It’s about trying to change the way society looks at women,” said Lynn Shaw, who helped create Rosie the Riveter High. “We just feel that women should have an equal opportunity.”

Shaw, who lives in Long Beach, teaches electrical technology at Long Beach City College.

She heads the board of directors for Women in Non Traditional Employment Roles, a nonprofit economic development group that sponsors the charter school.

She knows plenty about nontraditional jobs.

CONTINUE READING ONLINE ->

Edith Kent just turned 100 this past year.  Her fondest memories?
Those of being a woman welder in the Plymouth shipyards, where she was the first female to be paid a man’s wage.

Edith Kent, wartime welder and the first woman to receive equal pay, turns 100

Being 4ft 11in paid off for Edith Kent.

Her diminutive stature meant that she could crawl inside torpedo tubes — and helped her to become the first woman in Britain to earn the same wage as her male colleagues while working as a welder during the Second World War.

This week Mrs Kent celebrated her 100th birthday with a tea dance at a hotel with 50 family and friends, including her sister Minna, 105.

Mrs Kent began working at Devonport dockyard in Plymouth in 1941 but was so good that she received wage parity in 1943 — which was unheard of at the time.

Starting on five pounds and six shillings (£5 6s) a week as a skilled female worker, she was soon given a rise to £6 6s. A male manual worker in 1943 would have been on a weekly wage of only £5 8s 6d.

Mrs Kent, who still lives near the dockyard, said she was extremely proud of her signal achievement but she was embarrassed at the time.

She said: “I got the job because my brothers worked at the dockyard and they thought I would be good at it. I was the first woman to work as a welder there. It made me a bit uncomfortable that I was the first woman to earn the same as the men — and in some cases I was earning more than them. All the men I worked with were marvellous and they didn’t seem to mind me earning the same.

“None of them ever dared say it, but I think they knew I was worth as much as them, if not more,” she said. Mrs Kent took time off to have her only child, Jean, in 1942 and then went back to work — leaving the baby with one of her sisters. She worked at the dockyard until 1945 when the male workers returned from war and she left to work as a barmaid.

Mrs Kent’s daughter, Jean, 66, said: “My mother has lived a remarkable life. After I was born she went straight back to work. She was a pioneer of girl power.”

Mrs Kent, who still lives near the dockyard, said she was extremely proud of her signal achievement but she was embarrassed at the time.

She said: “I got the job because my brothers worked at the dockyard and they thought I would be good at it. I was the first woman to work as a welder there.

It made me a bit uncomfortable that I was the first woman to earn the same as the men — and in some cases I was earning more than them. All the men I worked with were marvellous and they didn’t seem to mind me earning the same.

“None of them ever dared say it, but I think they knew I was worth as much as them, if not more,” she said.

CONTINUE READING ONLINE ->

I defy you not to laugh at this video.  Seriously.  This is a short clip about recruiting women to work during WWII from a 1943 propaganda film entitled ”Manpower”.  Some of my favorite quotes were:

“Employers find that women can do many jobs as well as men.  Some jobs, better.”

and

“They discover that factory work is usually no more difficult than housework.”

Take it with a grain of salt, but remember, it just goes to show you how far we have come in the past 60 years!