Victory Girls, Khaki-Wackies, and Patriotutes

The Regulation of Female Sexuality during World War II

Marilyn E Hegarty

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9780814737262
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Social History
• Index: History

Victory Girls, Khaki-Wackies, and Patriotutes offers a counter-narrative to the story of Rosie the Riveter, the icon of female patriotism during World War II. With her fist defiantly raised and her shirtsleeves rolled up, Rosie was an asexual warrior on the homefront. But thousands of women supported the war effort not by working in heavy war industries, but by providing morale-boosting services to soldiers, ranging from dances at officers' clubs to more blatant forms of sexual services, such as prostitution.

While the de-sexualized Rosie was celebrated, women who used their sexuality—either intentionally or inadvertently—to serve their country encountered a contradictory morals campaign launched by government and social agencies, which shunned female sexuality while valorizing masculine sexuality. This double-standard was accurately summed up by a government official who dubbed these women“patriotutes” part patriot, part prostitute.

Marilyn E. Hegarty explores the dual discourse on female sexual mobilization that emerged during the war, in which agencies of the state both required and feared women’s support for, and participation in, wartime services. The equation of female desire with deviance simultaneously over-sexualized and desexualized many women, who nonetheless made choices that not only challenged gender ideology but defended their right to remain in public spaces.

1

The Long Arm of the State

Six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, in June 1942, nine hundred girls and women were arrested on morals charges in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. These arrests came about as a result of the efforts of local, state, and federal government, assisted by various social agencies, which were launching a campaign to control the spread of venereal disease during wartime through the suppression of prostitution. In cities and towns across the country, thousands of women were arrested on morals charges during the next four years. Many of the women involved were neither prostitutes nor venereally diseased. Nonetheless, officials of the state referred to them as “patriotutes.”¹

While it is not unusual for the power of the state to increase during wartime, it is not always evident how deeply the state penetrates individual lives.² Historian Cynthia Enloe has pointed out that both military and civilian authorities attempt to “maneuver different groups of women and the idea of what constitutes ‘femininity’ so that each can serve military objectives.”³ The wartime state needed women to assume a variety of supporting roles, including that of building and maintaining morale, but they simultaneously feared the results of encouraging women to act in masculine and sexualized spaces such as factories, public dance halls, bars, and military service.

While historians John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman have noted that the “meaning and place of sexuality in American life have changed over the last three and a half centuries,”⁴ we can nonetheless identify the persistence of particular concerns regarding female sexuality. Fear of female sexuality, often perceived as dangerous, can be found throughout history, especially in times of change.⁵ As a result of preconceived notions about and attitudes toward female sexuality, increasing numbers of women were arrested on morals charges, incarcerated, and forced to undergo venereal disease testing. As the country prepared for war and more women moved into public spaces and engaged in nontraditional activities, government officials became concerned that women might engage in disorderly (sexual) behavior. Persistent notions of female sexuality “as a source of social disruption”⁶ led to increased surveillance of women whose activities challenged sex/gender norms. Fears that uncontrolled female sexuality would endanger male health and thereby diminish the nation’s strength gave birth to the term patriotute. This term was used primarily to describe women who, in responding to the nation’s call to service, crossed an all-too-ambiguous line between the good and the bad woman.

Government, military, and medical authorities as well as social reform authorities began to develop plans to protect the wartime state and male health that attempted to control dangerous female sexuality by focusing on a link between prostitution and venereal disease. Disorderly female bodies, in the official discourse, posed a threat not only to homefront defense plans but also to social stability in general. Seeking to ameliorate the chaos of wartime and “to protect the armies of field and factory,”⁷ the government of the United States took action by initiating a campaign to repress prostitution in order to defuse the danger posed by disorderly women. In 1939 representatives of state health departments, the army, the navy, the FSA, and the American Social Hygiene Association (ASHA) met and formulated the Eight Point Agreement, setting out “measures for the control of Venereal Diseases in areas where armed forces or national defense employees are concentrated.”⁸ The agreement covered services that should be developed by state and local health and police authorities in cooperation with the Medical Corps of the U.S. Army, the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery of the U.S. Navy, the USPHS, and interested voluntary organizations. Point six of the agreement called for “all assistance possible to the cooperating agencies to bring about a reduction in exposures to venereal diseases through the repression of prostitution, both organized and clandestine.”⁹ (See Appendix 1 for full text of the Eight Point Agreement.) In May 1940, the Eight Point Agreement received the endorsement of the Conference of State and Territorial Health Officers, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Sheriffs Association (NSA), the American Bar Association, the American Medical Association, and other professional and civic organizations. Ness called the Eight Point Agreement a “declaration” of the federal government’s policy on the repression of prostitution. The agreement also covered matters such as early diagnosis and adequate treatment, quarantine of infected persons,education, and development and stimulation of support for the preceding measures.¹⁰ In addition, it called for the “gathering of information” from servicemen regarding sexual contacts (with any women, not just with prostitutes), as well as the reporting of this information to the appropriate authorities. This agreement marks the official start of wartime sociopolitical efforts to control female sexuality. The passage of the May Act in July 1941 added another weapon to the government’s arsenal. Prostitution became a federal offense in areas around defense plants and military bases. (See Appendix 2 for the full text of the May Act.)

During this period of policy debate, the army and navy, USPHS, FSA, and Department of Justice met and recommended to Paul V. McNutt, the FSA administrator (and also director of the Office of Defense Health and Welfare Services [ODHWS]), that a section be set up within the ODHWS to “implement” point six of the Eight Point Agreement. As a result, in early 1941, the SPD was established within the FSA. Later in the year McNutt, acting in his capacity as FSA administrator, “delegated the administration of his responsibilities to the SPD.”¹¹ Eliot Ness, formerly of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and more recently the sanitary commissioner of Cleveland, became the director. (During the first few months of the agency’s operation, Bascomb Johnson served as interim director.) Since the prostitute was already conflated with “other women differing from them only in nomenclature,”¹² it is apparent that the campaign to eradicate venereal disease served a purpose that exceeded disease control.

Official plans to control female sexuality became complicated, however, by simultaneous governmental efforts to mobilize women to support the war effort in a variety of ways. Wartime women were not only asked to labor in the factory and the shipyard but also called upon to provide services that would sustain military morale. Morale building and morale maintenance emerged as significant concerns of the state apparatus; the military must be fit to fight both physically and psychologically. Government officials assumed that women would provide such services to the military, and they did. There was, however, a hidden cost for many women, who often (inadvertently) crossed an ambiguous and fluid line dividing acceptable and unacceptable behaviors; the patriotute became a symbol for such women. The subject of male sexuality was both present and absent in these discussions. Since many authorities took as a given the male need for sex, their concern was not to prevent men from sexual liaisons but rather to ensure that they would be protected from venereal disease and fit to fight.

Mobilization and the State

The magnitude of health-related defense problems became evident as early as 1939. The USPHS engaged in sanitary reconnaissance work in army maneuver areas, expanding its endeavors to ensure a safe environment and to protect and maintain national health as mobilization and industrial expansion progressed. USPHS concerns covered contagious diseases, water supply, waste removal, nutrition, and related problems that would or could occur as a result of overcrowding and material shortages.¹³ The surgeon general, Thomas Parran, noted in his 1941 annual report the possibility of total war. He stated that it was critical to move beyond seeking health primarily for its value to the individual. “Now,” he said, “we must obtain it for the nation’s security.”¹⁴ Assistant Surgeon General Vonderlehr also addressed national health, speaking of “the necessity for comprehensive defense of the nation.”¹⁵ Maintaining high military morale, according to the authorities, had become even more important given the logistical problems emerging in areas such as transportation, housing, sanitation, health, and recreation as the nation mobilized for war. In short order, population density increased in manufacturing cities; some small towns and cities expanded into overcrowded “boomtowns.” Population distribution also began to change significantly as many people moved around the country; military forces traveled to maneuver areas, and workers and families headed to defense production areas. The large numbers of men summoned to report to their draft boards in 1940 ultimately added to the movement throughout the country.

In these situations, control of communicable diseases, including venereal disease, was of paramount importance.¹⁶ At the time, venereal disease was extremely difficult to treat or cure. Not only were venereal diseases considered shameful, but they required lengthy, painful, and costly treatment. Total cure could not be ensured, and treatment was inaccessible to large segments of society. Penicillin, which could cure venereal diseases quickly, did not become available until 1944, and then only in limited quantities. According to government officials such as Surgeon General Parran, Paul V. McNutt of the FSA, and officers of the army and navy, as well as officials of the ASHA, if prostitutes and promiscuous women infected servicemen with venereal diseases, the resulting loss of manpower could sabotage defense efforts. Officials were, however, well aware of the magnitude of venereal disease in at least one segment of the male population when, in 1940, the Selective Service adopted the practice of routine blood testing for all draft registrants summoned to report for induction. While statistics indicated that sixty thousand of the first million draftees (6 percent) were rejected due to venereal disease, these numbers failed to remove the spotlight from females (including women in the military) as sexually promiscuous and as vectors of disease. Moreover, the rejected men were, for the most part, sent back to their communities untreated. In mid-1941, according to the USPHS surgeon general’s report with regard to deferred individuals, “in twenty-two states, the District of Columbia, and Hawaii, where this information was available for tabulation only thirty-one percent of the cases were brought under treatment or shown to be already under treatment.”¹⁷ But as the disease discourse continued to focus on transgressive female sexuality, including but not limited to prostitution, the scope and message of disease prevention narrowed significantly. The double standard, which took on new life in this period, served to shield numerous servicemen from charges of promiscuity while instructing them in how to protect themselves from sexually transmitted diseases. In general, white men’s bodies would remain unmarked by disease, while women, especially nonwhite and working-class women, as well as black men, were marked as actually or potentially diseased.¹⁸

The venereal disease campaign of the Second World War era involved not only the branches of the federal government but also state and local governments. Law enforcement groups such as the FBI, local police departments, sheriffs’ organizations, and women prison superintendents all participated in the organized effort to protect the nation’s health and wartime efficiency through the vigorous repression of prostitution and the eradication of the alleged threat posed by promiscuous women and girls. The army, navy, USPHS, FSA, and ASHA joined the fight, as did women’s groups and concerned public citizens. As the repression campaign progressed, the activities of the SPD ensured that solutions to the problem of venereal disease remained focused on women. For example, in newspaper accounts regarding the closing of red-light districts and brothels, the authorities referred to vice districts as “swamps that bred malaria-carrying mosquitos.”¹⁹ And in Rapid City, South Dakota, girls who were “continually on the streets and whose behavior for any reason seems questionable were approached by the VD nurse or the police-woman and asked to come to the clinic for examination.”²⁰ The campaign to control venereal disease and to protect the health of the nation by protecting the men of the armed forces from dangerous or diseased women served not only as a gendered system of domination and control but also as a rationale for official surveillance of women’s activities. As mobilization for war progressed, women’s increasing economic, social, and geographic mobility challenged systems of control, even if unintentionally. When government agents increased the level of interventions into women’s lives, more, albeit limited, overt resistance would emerge.

By late 1940 it was clear, at least to certain officials, that there was little chance of avoiding American involvement in the war. Talk of more widespread mobilization became part of the public discourse of preparedness, and government officials continued to discuss the topic of mobilizing and controlling female sexuality behind closed doors. Historian Cynthia Enloe points out that women can provide support services for the military if the military is certain that the state apparatus exerts sufficient control over women. The control, however, needs to be “invisible.”²¹ While most women were probably not aware of the state’s consuming interest in their sexuality, they did recognize the problems and the opportunities offered by wartime service. Women continued to enter areas in the public realm formerly closed to them, as they responded to the needs of national defense. Women migrated to take defense work, joined the women’s armed services, moved near military bases to be near husbands, and volunteered to meet the need for morale-maintaining entertainment for servicemen. But as numerous women, often traveling alone, waited at train stations and bus terminals, the authorities saw camp followers—that is, prostitutes. Meeting their wartime obligations, women entered public and disorderly spaces, including dance halls and servicemen’s clubs, as well as male spaces, such as factories and the military. Many women who provided support services for the war effort engaged in activities that still seemed somewhat inappropriate when judged by prewar gender norms. They were, after all, socializing and dancing with men who were strangers, behavior not expected of a “respectable” woman. The USO was able to avoid accusations of impropriety by employing a rhetoric of respectability, by recruiting only middle-class white women, and by “functioning as a normative force that empha...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Abbrevation Lists
• Introduction
• 1 The Long Arm of the State
• 2 Prelude to War
• 3 “Reservoirs of Infection”
• 4 “A Buffer of Whores”
• 5 “Spell ‘IT’ to the Marines”
• 6 Behind the Lines
• 7 Conclusion
• Appendix 1 The Eight Point Agreement
• Appendix 2 The May Act
• Appendix 3 Federal Agencies
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author