The Legacy of Rosie the Riveter’s Bandana

Post #2 – Rosie’s Daughters: The “First Woman To” Generation Tells Its Story – Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett

March is National Women’s History Month. We have so many accomplished women to celebrate, and one jewel is Rosie the Riveter–an icon for courage, grace and strength during WWII. It took a world war and the government’s desperate need for a workforce to first empower Rosie, but she didn’t disappoint. She changed the question of women’s roles from “What work can women do?” to “Is there any work women can’t do?” By war’s end, the answer was loud and clear: “No!”

In late 1945, Rosie went home, but her story was just beginning. To use the vernacular, “she was out there.” Women had shown their mettle, and the millions of individual Rosie stories serve as a legacy of empowerment. They forever changed women’s sense of opportunity, self-esteem and potential. Women knew they could do it. Most important was the message they shared with their daughters. They may have left the overalls behind, but figuratively they passed their red-and-white, polka-dot bandanas to their daughters.

Rosie’s Daughters accepted the opportunities and challenges of that legacy. They opened doors, broke barriers, and never looked back. Their accomplishments are so great and varied that in our book Rosie’s Daughters, we call them the “First Woman To” (FW2) Generation.

With all their accomplishments, it was natural for Rosie’s Daughters to believe that they had successfully passed on the legacy of the bandana given them by their mothers. At least that was the intent. Baby Boomer and Generation X women have certainly lived up to the legacy. Today, however, we see disturbing signs that empowerment and its twin pillars of self-esteem and self-worth are in jeopardy. Many young women are making bad choices largely because they aren’t making their own choices. Media and peer pressure are powerful sways.

It’s time to actively pass on The Legacy of Rosie’s Bandana again. We’re working to create the tools for capturing, collecting and sharing all women’s stories. If you’d like to know more about this or are interested in sharing your story, please give us your comments or contact us through this website.

Iconically it all starts with the bandana, but you can’t buy a red-and-white, polka-dot bandana today. Maybe that’s the problem! We had to design our own and have them made for us. The added bonus, however, has been that it’s given us the opportunity to have our messages of empowerment and sharing printed along the edges.

We encourage you to wear a Rosie bandana to celebrate your life story and to share a bandana with a friend, your daughter, your granddaughter, or a young woman you feel could benefit from the legacy.

There’s an anonymous quote at the Rosie the Riveter Memorial that sums up the imperative of sharing our legacy: “You must tell your children, putting modesty aside, that without us, without women, there would have been no Spring in 1945.”

Today, we all have stories to share that will empower the next generation of young women to help make this a better world. Share Rosie the Riveter’s Legacy.(TM)

We Can Do It…Pass It On.(TM)

UPDATE: Now the official Rosie the Riveter Legacy bandana is bigger (27 x 27″) and more beautiful than ever before. And it’s made in the USA. We’ve been getting orders from empowered women who want to show their strength by dressing like Rosie the Riveter this Halloween. We think that’s a wonderful idea.