In contrast with the previous decade, when women have just begun to stand up for their rights, the following period was not much of a favorable. As the 1930’s began with the depression, millions of American citizens, among them women were homeless and hungry. Some of them, avoided the stark deprivation, however still struggled to get by - “We didn’t go hungry, but we lived lean.” – as people often said during those hard times. Women received a clear message from the media – as getting a job was enormously hard, and so was its keeping, they were supposed to stay at home, not in the workplace. Female individuals, who had a job, were viewed as stealing it from men. “The eras male anger against female job competitors was articulated by the jobless Jim Brogan in the 1935 Detroit auto industry novel Conveyor: What chance had he of getting a job? There were thousands of men – and women too – just praying for a job … guys from Kentucky and Tennessee … And them women too” .
For the majority of women, letting go of their independence was not their own choice. Employers let their women workers go, or simply reduced their wages. When there was a job opening, it was a man, rather than a woman who was hired. The relationship status of the woman (whether she was single, or married) often dictated the chances of her
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Married couples were often forced to postpone their desire to expand their family, as they simply did not have money to feed their future children. Women got an enormous pressure from the media. “Movies, radio programs, magazine, books, and even government posters advised a woman how to dress, please her husband, raise her children, and cook her food” . There were also occasional cases where women were advised not to get a job, however, usually the job was in domestic service – like housekeeper, maid, dressmaker, babysitter, waitress, cook