"Beauty and the Helldivers": Representing Women's Work and Identitites in a Warplant Newspaper‪.‬

IN THIS ARTICLE, we discuss representations of women's identities as workers in the wartime newspaper, Aircrafter, produced by management at the Canadian Car and Foundry Company Limited in Fort William, Ontario, during World War Il. We argue that Aircrafter functioned as an ideological mechanism by which pre-war, middle-class prescriptions of femininity, emphasizing women's roles as decorative homemakers in the private sphere, survived the challenges of women's war work to shape post-war gender roles. The article demonstrates the efficacy of this ideological mechanism by revealing the comprehensive way in which different rhetorical styles and varied sections of the newspaper -- the front page news and pictures, the editorial page, the women's page entitled "The Feminine Touch," as well as cartoons and pin-ups -- collectively conveyed an ambivalent attitude that both praised and questioned women's war work in traditionally male jobs thus reinforcing pre-war socially prescribed forms of femininity. This research reveals how state policies concerning representations of women workers in government war propaganda influenced a northwestern Ontario war plant and shaped the ideological atmosphere which the women war workers at Canadian Car would have to negotiate as part of their daily working lives. DANS CET ARTICLE, nous discutons de la representation de l'identite des femmes dans le journal, Aircrafter, publie par la direction de Canadian Car and Foundry Company Limited a Fort William, Ontario, pendant la Deuxieme Guerre Mondiale. Nous soutenons que Aircrafter a servi de mecanisme ideologique par lequel les preceptes de feminite, qui insistent sur le role des femmes en tant que femmes decoratives au foyer, ont survecu aux defis que les femmes ont releve dans leurs emplois pendant la guerre pour faconner le role feminin apres la guerre. L'article demontre l'efficacite de ce mecanisme ideologique en revelant la facon dont les differents styles rhetoriques et sections du journal - les nouvelles et les photos de la page couverture, l'editorial, la page feminine intitulee la touche feminine , ainsi que les caricatures et les pin up - ont transmis une maniere de voir ambivalente qui, a la fois, faisait l'eloge des femmes et posait des questions sur leur travail pendant la guerre; alors que ces femmes occupaient des postes traditionnellement tenus par les hommes, renforcant en consequence les notions de feminite socialement acceptees avant la guerre. Cette recherche revele la facon dont les politiques de l'Etat relatives a la representation des travailleuses dans la propagande du gouvernement pendant la guerre ont influence une usine du nord-ouest de l'Ontario et cree une ambiance ideologique contre laquelle les travailleuses de Canadian Car ont du se battre dans leur vie quotidienne.