Before the War started the women were rarely seen in the work force. The women wern't allowed to be in the work force. That all changed when the war started. With the men at war, women had to take the jobs left behind by the men. Some of those jobs consisted of factories making, planes, tanks and other weapons. Most people didn't think of women being capable of doing so much, but after the war more responsibilities.
As you can see in the graph above, after World War II men and women worked nearly the same amount. One of the causes of this was due to the new empowerment that they were given after the war.