The following chart appears in Richard Gerstell’s How to Survive an Atomic Bomb (1950). How does the chart relate to Elaine Tyler May’s analysis of gender and Cold War ideology?
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May wrote that the role of women was to “embrace domesticity in service to the nation” and this list of jobs open to women shows that. Many of these roles are domestic ones, but in service to the nation, not just their family, such as child care, emergency feeding and social work. To survive the Cold War, and possible emergencies like nuclear attacks, women would not reject the domestic roles but embrace and build on them to ensure the survival of their and other families. They would be nurses and teachers and feed the hungry, maintaining a moral stability that would keep their children and husbands from being communists. The men could do the jobs that needed brute strength like firefighting and rebuilding, and women would do the care-giving. As May says, a key way for people to not be tempted by communism was to have men be very manly as this kept the proper order in society. And just as women are supposed to keep their homes and families ready for nuclear attack, in the face of an emergency such as that, women would be vital in ensuring survival. I would very much like to know if there was further distinction within the jobs men and women share; medical teams, air-raid warden and geiger crew. I wonder if a similar figure could be made dividing the responsibilities within these jobs between men and women which might fit the pattern.