HOW DID THE STRUGGLES OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION AFFECT WOMEN?
This video depicts what society thought a women's "role" should be during the Great Depression. It shows a seemingly happy wife that does not work outside the home. However, when the Great Depression arrived, women who would normally continue to work inside the domestic spheres of their houses were forced to look for jobs outside to support their families, as their husband's struggled to make ends meet alone.
As a result of the growing economic hardships that came with the Great Depression, the fight for gender equality that boomed during the 1920s suddenly seemed like a small priority. This meant that society's opinion that women should lead domestic and inferior lives, as shown in the clip, held strong throughout the 1930's.
As a result of the growing economic hardships that came with the Great Depression, the fight for gender equality that boomed during the 1920s suddenly seemed like a small priority. This meant that society's opinion that women should lead domestic and inferior lives, as shown in the clip, held strong throughout the 1930's.
WHAT DID THIS MEAN FOR WOMEN SEEKING WORK?
Roosevelt's New Deal program aimed to repair the country's broken economy.
All the factors of the Great Depression meant that all women who sought relief from homelessness and living life on the margins had to deal with one fight in particular: the fight against societal prejudice. Many problems women found in seeking work were created by:
-Parts of Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ program
-Governmental discrimination such as the implications of protective legislation
-Society's view on African American women
-Parts of Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ program
-Governmental discrimination such as the implications of protective legislation
-Society's view on African American women
UNDERSTANDING SOCIAL PREJUDICE:
To understand how prejudice was reflected in the New Deal especially, one must understand the popular opinion of the day.
One
influential writer and social critic of the time, Albert Jay Nock, mirrored the
majority opinion of the day on women in the workplace; he stated in an article,
" One may easily see how our society, if it had to, might get on without women lawyers, physicians, stockbrokers, aviators, preacher, telephone operators, hijackers, buyers, cooks, dressmakers, bus conductors, architects."
Highly respected men, and even women of the time, felt as Nock did and this gives insight as to why prejudice was reflected in government programs.
