Great Depression Effects On Women

“Just fire women, who should not be working, and hire hard working men!”( “Women and The Great Depression”). This is what employers and businesses used to say to women, even though they eventually had to hire women because it was inexpensive to pay them. This caused large amounts of chaos in the working industry as a whole because of the thought women were there to steal the job opportunities of more ‘deserving men’. Women, single and married, fought the hardships of The Depression. Even if some of their lives didn’t differ from being a housewife. Suddenly things just got a lot more arduous. Money, and work, and for the first time in history, women were the laborers of the household, and men were being laid off from their jobs. Women often
went unnoticed by communities, and yet they were the glue that held everything and everyone together during the Depression. Women endured long hours, and did the best they could to support their families, and challenged the public to have their rights. Women were the motivation for advancement across the nation in many forms . Women had the blunt of the brutality in society if they decided to work outside of the home, openly degraded by their husbands, and work establishments.
The fact of work for women was contradictory since businesses desired women to work for them to make money they were losing, and they knew women could not refuse. Some men were so ashamed of their non-existent jobs that they abandoned their wives and families. A 1940 survey revealed that 1.5 million women had been abandoned after their husbands lost their jobs to The Depression (Gervase). Men were so afraid of losing their authority in the household that they felt it was women to blame, however, it could not be further from the truth. The public media drilled the view into people that women were somehow at fault for wanting work in hard times to support their families. Men saying it was irresponsible for leaving their duties at home for something as ‘ridiculous’ as working. More than half of all employed women in the 1930s worked more than fifty hours a week and one-fifth of those worked over fifty-five hours. (“Working Women” ) Even with this extreme work environment, and hours, a woman’s annual pay was only $525 to a man's $1027, and yet people still said that women were undeserving of work and steal their money (“Working Women” ). Women were constrained into taking the low wage even if it did not meet their home expenses. During the Depression women’s wages dropped lower than ever, and businesses took advantage of
this to keep the money to themselves instead of paying their workers. Women were unfairly treated, used as items to keep businesses afloat. Even with the disastrous times, married women were given the cold-shoulder when they they wanted jobs to support the family along with her husband.
The Depression pushed women into the workforce more than ever. A poll in 1936, only 15% of respondents said married women should not have a full time job. 48% disapproved completely and the remaining 37% said there were conditional requirements they had to justify women working ( “Working Women” ). It was a very well-known stereotype of the time that a woman’s only place of work was inside the household caring for the family. Men were hard workers, so when The Depression hit, men were somewhat lost on what to do because their lives had been turned upside down. So then during the Depression when men lost their jobs because businesses did not want to pay them, they were outraged when women stepped up to the plate instead. Even the WPA (Works Progress Administration) said women with physically able husbands could not qualify for a relief job(“Working Woman”). Since the view of men was that they were considered heads of households, even if they were unable to find a job and provide an income for the family. This continued to push the stereotype that women were always the insignificant role, no matter how much effort they put into keeping the family afloat in unfortunate times. Married woman may have had some of the liberties of not changing much of their lifestyle when The Depression hit.any women had been pushed back,because
they could no longer do just the housework, but also had to work jobs as well as taking care of everything else they had previously been responsible for.
Though some historians have argued that feminism died during The Depression, the advances women made at the time tells the real story. The expansion of social welfare, a field dominated by women, led to the appointment of more women in high government positions than ever before(“Working Women”). As feminists had been appointed to higher ranked jobs, they used their advantage to work in favor of women’s rights. These advances caused women to be accepted into a variety of greater workforces. Women experienced The Depression differently based on their age, marital status, geographical location, race and ethnicity, etc (“Women and The Great Depression”). While the city living women with working husbands often had electricity and water, women that lived in rural areas, such as on farms had none of these conveniences. For black and Mexican-American women, times had been tough for a long time, and then The Depression hit and things just got harder. Mexican-American women had an added burden of the threat of deportation because of so-called ‘job-stealing’. Feminism during The Depression could actually be stated as the opposite of what some historians think. Many advances were made for women during this time. Even with the discrimination against them, women worked hard to get where they needed to be to support themselves and their families.

The Depression seems to have left scarred for those who endured it, and even some of the views have moved on to today about women and their gender roles. The nation’s women at the time having to reach an unattainable standard of working, and looking their best, alongside taking care of their husbands. These hard times seemed to work for reinforcing the public view of women’s roles, instead of the opposite women were trying to achieve. Ironically, women’s Depression-Era contributions and strong identification with home and family may have helped lay the foundation for help everyone so desperately needed during The Depression.