Have you ever thought about the ongoing challenges women who worked outside the home faced decades ago?
These women were trailblazers who paved the way for broader career choices in ensuing years. I have written stories about the lives of pioneer farm women but I wanted to find out what it was like for women who joined the workforce.
A Working Wife?
In a letter Mom wrote to Dad when they were courting in the fall 1946 she hedged the question “how would you feel about having a working wife?”. Read story (“When the King Was on the Stamp | Letters”) At the time, she was taking a business course and was questioning whether she would use the course if they married. I couldn’t find his letter in reply to that question, but Mom didn’t complete the program and never worked outside the home.
Babies started coming the first year they were married and she had more than enough to do raising five kids, cooking, doing laundry with no running water, tending the garden, milking cows, raising chickens and helping Dad. Now that I see that written down, it’s hard to imagine her having a full-time job outside the home on top of all that. She didn’t get her driver’s license until she was around fifty so merely getting to work would have been an issue.
Blazing The Trail | Women in the Workforce
Telephone Operators
As professional women such as teachers and nurses accepted employment positions in rural communities and married local farmers the idea of working women became more acceptable. Women worked as cooks, beauticians, waitresses, telephone operators, maids, seamstresses and sales girls. Hours were long, wages low, and there was no such thing as paid sick leave, subsidized daycare, worker’s compensation or government supported maternity leave.
Mens’ Roles
There was a stigma men faced in those early years that if your wife had to go to work then you as the man of the house obviously couldn’t provide for your family. Out of pride, some men refused to allow their wives to take jobs even when the family was financially struggling.
A way around - Even if women of the day didn’t work outside the home, many had side hustles that helped bring in money such as selling eggs, cream or produce, or taking in sewing or laundry. Every woman wanted to have their own bit of pin money to buy personal items for themselves or the kids.
In the 1950s societial expectations for women homemakers when their husbands came home from a hard days work included:
- have dinner ready
- prepare yourself by touching up your make up and adding a ribbon to your hair
- the house should be clean and quiet
- don’t meet him with complaints, let him talk first
Men years ago had set ideas of what women’s work was and most of them never got near it. They were raised to think that a woman’s true calling was to be a wife and a mother.
In the 1960s young people started to stay in school longer and married women found it easier to find employment. Two income families were common. Technological advances made household chores faster to do, and smaller families made it more logistically feasible for women to work.
The pressure brought on by the women’s movement of the 1970s resulted in improvements in benefits and wages.
Male and female roles in the family have changed significantly. Many men do laundry, cook, clean the house, and look after the kids.
Obstacles Along the Way
A lot of battles have been fought in order to achieve the rights woman have today. From where females started we have come a long way, after all, for centuries women were thought of as submissive and inferior beings, so we had a ways to go towards independence.
Employers figured out that they could hire women and pay them half the wage they paid men. Women were then criticized for taking jobs that some felt should have gone to male breadwinners.
It wasn’t only criticism from men that women had to deal with but also from other women who felt they were overstepping perceived boundaries.
The marriage bar was a term used to describe the practice where women were legally required to resign their jobs once they married. This was still in place in professions such as teaching until the 1950s. The thought process was that marriage equaled pregnancy and it was unseemly for a pregnant women to be working in a classroom full of impressionable children. Maybe the adults that felt that way were afraid that their kids would come home from school and ask where babies came from.
As an example, in the 1930s, rules teachers were required to follow included:
- not to marry during the term of their contract
- be home between 8 PM and 6 AM
- do not loiter downtown in any ice cream stores
- do not smoke cigarettes
- wear at least two petticoats
- dresses should be no shorter than two inches above the ankle
Years ago before the #MeToo movement women who faced harassment on the job would never have dreamed of saying anything. The sad part is that even today many women still don’t file a complaint when issues arise. I have talked a bit about this with my aunt who started working in an office in the 1960s. Some of the stories she recounts about things men she worked with said would definitely not be acceptable today.
Interesting Canadian Facts
- 1867 the first woman physician
- 1897 first female lawyer
- 1921 first woman elected to the House of Commons
- 1924 first woman to represent at the Olympic games
- 1929 women were declared as “persons” by law
- 1964 a woman could open a bank account without obtaining her husband’s signature
- 1970 women made $.57 for every dollar men made
- 1971 maternity benefits were added to unemployment insurance
- 1978 airline flight attendants gained the right to work once married and they could continue working beyond the age of 32
- 1987 combat roles in the Royal Canadian Air Force were opened to women
- 1992 first female astronaut
- 2009 was the first time that there were more women than men in the workforce
Effect of Historical Events
The Great Depression 1929 - 1939
In the years leading up to 1929 investors overeager to make a fast fortune bought stocks at a rapid rate using family savings or borrowed money. When word of falling stock prices circulated many panicked and sold off their shares for a fraction of what they had paid leaving themselves broke or with massive debt. The ensuing great depression was the most severe economic downturn in modern history. It started in the United States but had an effect around the world. Things spiralled as people spent less, so not as much product was needed to be produced which led to job losses and unemployment and so on. People who did have money in banks were afraid the banks would close so they pulled their cash out causing the banks to falter. There is some truth to all those old stories about people hiding their money in their mattresses.
The Dirty Thirties
To compound the financial heartache of the day a drought also took place. Once fertile farm and ranch land in the plains of the US and Canada dried up. Massive dust storms plagued the area.
The drought forced many families to abandon farming and seek employment in less effected areas of the country. It was a very different lifestyle than they were accustomed to.
World War II
Inadvertently, World War II changed a lot of things for women. It is significant to note that as members of the WAC (Women’s Army Corps) 150,000 women also served in non combat positions during the war. Female personnel did jobs such as: drivers, mechanics, clerks, radio operators and they packed parachutes. With men joining the war effort, women at home had the opportunity to step up and prove themselves in the working world.
When men came back from the war they wanted their jobs back and many expected the status quo to be the same as it was before the war. Things had changed though and women stayed and continued entering the workforce. With the postwar boom the government encourage women to work to fill vacant jobs.
The Vocabulary
In order to truly understand the history of women in the workplace one needs to be familiar with terms such as sexism, feminism, gender equity, wage equity and affirmative action.
My Personal Path
When I was a kid in the sixties and seventies, some of my friends' moms had jobs, but most did not work outside the home.
In high school, when I was struggling to choose a career path, nursing was at the top of my list. I chickened out on that one and chose an office education course instead. I will never forget the look on my brother's face when I told him I was going to be a secretary; he looked disappointed and said something to the effective that I would be someone’s gopher my entire life. I was insulted and indignant that he made such a comment, but I do admit that I thought about that comment many times through the years.
My parents were satisfied with my decision as I was getting married soon anyway. There is nothing wrong with being a secretary, I did the job for 37 years. Fortunately, women today are not expected to stick within traditional female careers of years ago.
Many times over the years, I heard people say “you’re just a secretary”, but worse than that, I heard myself say it in reply to questions about what I did for a living. It took me years to stop saying the word “just” in reference to my job description. If we belittle ourselves, how do we expect to stand up to other people who do it to us? I guess people in professional careers also have this issue; i.e. “you’re just a nurse, not a doctor”, or “you’re just an elementary school teacher, not a high school teacher”. The worst comment is, “you are just a stay-at-home mom; you don’t work”.
I took the government allotted three-month maternity leave with our first baby; that was changed to six months five years later when our son was born. The government pays mothers a part of their wage while they are off work, and some employers will top that amount up. Today, in Canada, maternity leave is twelve months, or the funds can be spread out over eighteen months.
When I started working as an Administrative Assistant (we were called secretaries then) in the early eighties, my bosses and their bosses were all males. Now women executives are common in the sector I worked in; my bosses were women the last years I worked there.
Conclusion
Whether through nature or nurture, we as women tend to be, I hate to say it, but a bit jealous, competitive or territorial by nature. I think we need to work on setting those feelings aside and try to lift each other up. On difficult days, reflect on the women who came before you and what they went through so that you have the freedom to choose whatever career path you want. Women in many countries are still demeaned and do not have the opportunity to choose a career or even work outside the home.
The struggle continues, wage gaps remain in some sectors, and there is still significant pressure on women to seamlessly balance work and family life. There are a lot of low-paying, part-time jobs with no benefits or security that are filled by women.
The women in my friend group have taken many career paths: teachers, nurses, office workers and business people. Let’s celebrate the women who have made, and continue to make, a lasting impact.
A familiar quote by Canadian author Jean Little that many of us gals have used -
“ A man can work from sun to sun,
But a woman's work is never done”.
Sorry guys.
I would love for you to share my story with your friends and family.
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