Patriotism in American Pin-Up Girls during World War II

During World War II, Pin-Ups played a big role in military propaganda. At the time, Pin-Ups weren’t just about comforting soldiers on the battlefield. Therein lay a uniquely American patriotism. In a liberal country like the United States, it is difficult to ask citizens to defend the country, so American politicians had to appeal to private obligations, first and foremost the moral obligations that exist between men and women. Pin-Ups were a useful tool to arouse men’s patriotism by conveying the message that they should defend their wives and girlfriends on the mainland. Meanwhile, American women were able to find their own new sexual identity through Pin-Ups. The conventions that confined women to the roles of wife and mother were broken during the war. New attributes of independence and assertiveness were spreading among American women. The Pin-Up Girl, an icon of the active and desirable woman, was a useful model for American women to create a new self. With the end of World War II and the return of men from overseas, the social climate for women returned to the past. A country that had actively supported women’s mobilization into the workforce during the war now began to tell women that it was their patriotic duty to return home. Women lost their place in the workplace and men-only magazines like Playboy became popular. However, the sense of liberation that American women experienced during the war, and the experience of living as full members of society, would later lead to the American women’s movement of the 1960s.