Our young women in America are unwell. Large shares of them are battling strikingly high mental health issues. They also hold distressing levels of antipathy toward this country. America has so much opportunity to offer young women — but work alone is not enough.
A love for their country won’t fix all that ails young women, but a stronger sense of duty can help. Young women should consider the legacy of Rosie the Riveter and consider why women in the past fought to preserve the blessings of a free society. And why they should continue that fight today.
As we celebrate our nation’s 250th anniversary, many young women aren’t in the mood to party. Last year, 40% of women aged 15 to 44 said they would leave America permanently if they had the opportunity — four times higher than a decade ago, according to Gallup polling. Young women’s aspirations to leave deviate significantly from other U.S. cohorts, including older women, men of all age groups, and even young women in other countries.
Young women have higher levels of depression than other demographics and express feeling more anxiety and stress. Alarmingly, 1 in 5 Gen Z women has seriously considered self-harm or suicide in the past year. They point to a lack of trust in American institutions, politics, and affordability as the cause.
Yet, American women are swimming in opportunity. Women accounted for 98% of job gains last month and most of the jobs created during the second Trump administration.
For just the third time in history, women hold more payroll jobs than men. We earn more degrees of every type than men, from associate degrees to doctorates. Young women outearn men in many cities, and those who never have children will enjoy pay parity over their careers.
Working women today have the agency to craft careers for themselves. They can choose the family structures and living arrangements that meet their values and ambitions, from trad wives to corporate ladder climbers — and everything in between.
Women owe their progress to the Rosies of the World War II era. The war effort plucked nearly every able-bodied young man from the workforce, leaving millions of open positions in jobs and industries traditionally walled off from women. Young women, wives, and mothers traded frilled collars and aprons for blue collars and overalls. From factory workers to farmers, streetcar operators to journalists, upwards of 6 million women entered the U.S. workforce. By 1945, nearly one in four married women worked outside the home
The fictional icon of “Rosie the Riveter” launched by the U.S. government became an effective marketing tool to reach a critical demographic in the effort to build an “arsenal of democracy.” Rosie was the call, and American women answered.
Rosie also broadened America’s view of the roles in the economy and society that women could fill. Industry recognized that women could be trained in technical and skilled work, lead teams, and oversee large-scale production. They were “clamoring for more women,” said one Rosie. By demonstrating firsthand that they were up to any task, women stepped out of the shadow of their spouses and fathers.
Financial freedom followed. Although earning a fraction of men’s pay, Rosies still amassed fortunes from their overtime and double-time earnings and purchased war bonds. Rosies injected new wealth into consumer spending during the post-war economic boom, providing down payments on houses and furnishing new homes.
Listening to the experiences of real-life Rosies, it becomes clear that money was not the motivator for these women, but love for their country. “It was important that America survive,” recounted Milka Bamond, who left home in West Virginia to build planes in Detroit during World War II. We “must keep some remnant of patriotism going or it might not last.”
Barmond, who died last year at 100 years old, cared deeply about what could happen to America if we did not win the war, and later feared what was going to happen to America if we lost that sense of patriotism. She helped form a small — and shrinking — group of Rosies who speak to American students about their experience. As she said, “to keep us reminded that freedom is not free.”
Rosies weren’t out to become famous and rich. They starkly contrast the attention-starved social media influencers shaping young women’s perceptions of life and work today.
PFIZER SAID ‘NO IMPACT ON FERTILITY.’ THE DATA SAID ‘WE DIDN’T CHECK’
The can-do spirit and purpose that drove Rosies to work every day, even as they lost loved ones, overshadowed the fear of the times in which they lived.
A new Rosie for 2026 calls on women to rally around the values of freedom — free expression, association, autonomy, faith, and pursuit of opportunity — that America was built upon and that sustain us today. As Rosie Milka aptly described the assembly of other Rosies, “it brings back the spirit of what held America together, and it was patriotism.” It’s time for a new generation of Rosies to step forward. We did it before, and we can do it again!
Patrice Onwuka is the vice president for economic policy and director of the Center for Economic Opportunity at Independent Women.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
