Beware -- Witch Hunt In Sessio

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military, the order went out: don’t anybody speak to this woman, and for those three long months, almost nobody did; the dayroom, when I entered it, fell silent till I had gone; they were afraid, they knew the wind would blow them over the rail, the cops would come, the water would run into their lungs. Everything I touched was spoiled. They were my lovers, those women, but nobody had taught us to swim. I drowned. I took 3 or 4 others down when I signed the confession of what we had done together.
No one will ever speak to me again.
Judy Grahn on the military in the 1950’s (Faderman, 130)

Thus began the decade of the 1950’s. A time in our history when paranoia concerning national security ran high and feelings of fear ran deep. The threat of Communism to the American way of life became top priority to certain government officials. Certain groups of people were targeted as deviants, national security risks and social outcasts. This was a time when ...

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(i.e. separation from family, loss of life) it brought about some radical changes in the area of gender norms, whereby women entered the labor market in mass numbers, working in all types of factories and shipyards. Their contributions to the war effort were numerous and vital to a successful American military war effort. For the first time in modern history, women were working in more male dominated roles than ever and making more money than they ever had. Women were participating in previously restricted public spheres and becoming economically independent, women were now more than mothers and housewives, they were productive members of an ailing labor force, which gave them ...

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