(5 of 5)
Now she spares herself no work. Hus band Hobby has to go to Washington if he wants to see her. She is at her office before 9 o'clock, gets home around 7:30 to have dinner with her seven-year-old daughter Jessica (William, 12, lives with his father). Frequently in the evening she pores over a stack of work. In her busy, private moments among the soft tan Chi nese hangings of her living room, she must often wonder, as many a WAC does : What is the matter with U.S. women? The Answer. One of the answers is: U.S. men — who have always preferred their women in the home. Women themselves have plenty of excuses and confused rationalizations:
"WACs waste time in bedmaking, drilling, marching. A woman can get more accomplished as an ordinary civilian worker. WAC hats are terrible. They were designed for Mrs. Hobby. She's the only one they look smart on. The WACs might make a woman with a scientific background into a cook. The Army gives the WACs no real responsibility. There is no glamor in the WACs, or in the WAVES or the SPARS or the Marines. They are segregated from men. The pay is awful."
The truth might be: the majority of U.S. women are unmoved by any great sense of personal responsibility for helping fight this war. Colonel Hobby could beat her iron-grey, smartly coiffured head against that blank wall until she was groggy. She could launch advertising campaigns, promise recruits they could pick their own post, camp or station, get Army generals themselves to appeal to U.S. young women to help. The U.S.'s young women were not listening.