Never mind if they try to hang out their shingle as a plumber or electrician. It'd be an interesting study to compare the number of calls that Charlie vs Charlene would get in that field, but I think we all know the answer.
Similarly, getting a start and sticking it out is just as difficult for women today as it was in the pre-war era. The post war period has been ingrained as the normal baseline in our collective imaginations, though it is anything but normal.
I am willing to wager that Rosie the Riveter isn't the norm for the US and if she or your aunt was trying to make it as a welder, they both will not find the supportive environment that existed post-war
There are indeed women working trades, but not many of them. In Canada, for instance, they are 4.5% of the skilled trades workforce. [1]
[1] https://globalnews.ca/news/3823621/women-skilled-trades-manu...
I suspect there is some truth to that however, I regularly see women with 'welder' listed on their dating profiles (mostly tinder, although I've seen 2 on Facebook dating app, within 15 miles of me, since it rolled out making matches in Indy yesterday) and personally I only know one male that welds for a living.
I see plenty of female automotive techs/mechanics around too. I think out of my last dozen oil changes there has been at least 1 woman in the bays working and as many as at least 3 and my last brake job was a woman (she called me out to do the 'well we could machine your rotors butttt...).
I'm sure there's a lot of sexual harassment and general unpleasantness still there in a random shop but I feel like there are a lot more 20-40ish women in these sorts of jobs than there were even a decade ago. Indianapolis could be somewhat of an outlier though as we have a huge FFA presence here and in surrounding towns as well as a few trade schools that just do automotive, welding and electrician training.
What I've never seen though is any women doing HVAC or plumbing. One would think women would be more inclined towards plumbing given they are generally smaller and can fit in those tight spaces better, instead in my experience I've generally seen plumbers that are built like me, like a refrigerator, grumbling and groaning while they try and snake their way under a sink or behind a toilet.