Race, Gender, and Space: Black Soldiers in the United States Military during World War II

• In Event: 408 - Section on Comparative-Historical Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 01. Race, Politics, and Exclusion

Abstract

In 1942, the Women’s Army Corps (WAC)3 was formed to produce an “elite” women’s army corps aimed towarding enlisting educated, skilled, middle class (white) women with high moral standards. Due to not meeting recruitment quotas, the WACs lowered requirement “standards” in January 1943 and began enlisting more women of color.4 We argue that an analysis of WAC demonstrates how the United States military developed, employed, and attached meaning to space through segregation policies towards Black female and male soldiers during World War II. We interrogate the multiple layers in which Black men and women operated as part of the Women’s Army Corps and larger U.S. military in order to better understand the racialized and gendered spatial environment Black men and women occupied within the U.S. military. We demonstrate how the U.S. military was instrumental in reinforcing and reproducing racialized stereotypes of hypersexualization, laziness, and immorality of Black male and female enlistees. The implications of the shifting meaning of space and boundary making of WAC for Mexican American enlistees are also discussed.

Authors

• Kay Sarai Varela, Texas A&M University

• Laura Lee Oviedo