Seems Washington DC suffered something of an invasion during WWII. In this case, though, it was expected ... well, mostly! They came to work in offices, to break code, in some cases to be spies. They came in the thousands, so housing became an issue. They worked every shift imaginable so safety and security was a concern. They were women! Lipstick Brigade: the Untold True Story of Washington's World War II Government Girls, by Cindy Gueli is one of those hard-to-put down books. Well researched, there are footnotes and a wonderful bibliography (regular readers know how much I like these). Their work was tedious, often twelve hour days, six days a week. Or hard ... imagine typing and sending death notices for hours every day. Sometimes a job was well below the skill level of the employee, other times if you could 'recognize a typewriter' (but couldn't actually type) you'd get a job. Housing was a huge problem, outhouses were still in use in some places, raising concern for a variety of diseases. Skin color could affect getting a job or housing, too. A compelling look at a unique time in our history. I strongly recommend partnering it with the book from the Images of America series Washington, D.C.: the World War II Years, by Paul K. Williams (see blog post for August 10, 2018). It has several pictures of things that are mentioned in this book.

Women are the weaker sex, right? Not so, and here's a book that takes on just that subject: Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong -- and the New Research That's Rewriting the Story, by Angela Saint. Full disclosure, I got bogged down and ended up doing a lot of skimming, but that might not be true for all readers! There's lots of interesting studies here ... evolution, biology, gender issues (and how they got started). and so on, so I suggest giving this book a try. :-)

Reading Hermit With Dog