Can I ask a question about women's history.....a bit embarrassed that I don't understand it

[susannahmoodie]

I'm reading a book at the minute set in 1920s....there are a lot of references to women having to give up work when they got married. I know this happened, a lot later than the 20s to I think but I don't really get why- what was the rationale behind the idea that you couldn't be married and work at the same time? Also was it related to social class?

Sorry for being ignorant....

Me too.

However, I've just been told that there are no women on the internet, by a man who almost believes that. So I may be lying. Or male. Or both.

So many interesting responses and anecdotes here, thank you! Am v interested in further reading do thanks for the recommendations!

Yes I was much better at exams too.

My dm left work when she had me in 1979, my parents weren't able to use her wage for a mortgage application, even though she earnt more than my dad, the assumption being that she may have a child and give up work at any time. Later she used to job share or work weekends because there was no childcare available for her to have a full time job.

My dgm was a nurse and had to give up when she married I think in 1950. She tells me how lucky she was that the expectation was she gave up work and raised children, but she worked at 5am marking up newspapers before dgf went to work, then went out to do an evening shift at the nestles factory when he came home! Poor woman must have been exhausted, and very poorly paid no doubt, but she feels sorry for me having to go to work. By contrast my great granny in the 1920s and 30s didn't work and had a maid, the difference between the middle and working classes were so extreme.

This book written in 1924 gives a very interesting angle - it's about a father who has to stay at home following an accident and the mother who then goes out to work;

The Home-Maker

Several of the Persephone titles are about women who work or make their way in business.

My mum had to leave her job when she got pregnant with me.. mind you it was at a nuclear power station, so possibly for the best!

DMIL was encouraged to leave hers (secretarial/project management) in the 70s too.

There was another thread on examples for DPs who didn't get why feminism was such a big deal - I think that this thread is an eye opener there - it's all so recent that this was done to women. Call the Midwife horrifies DP (he doesn't like to watch it) because he can't believe all the things that were done to women. The Christmas Special this year with the unmarried mothers home (and the lobotomised, sterilised woman) was very much an eyeopener for him - he'd never have dreamed that these things were done to people (women), and I think it's slowly sinking in why I care so much. It's so close, it only happened 50 years ago.

I haven't read the entire thread so don't know if this has been mentioned - but just in case - in the early 20th century there was not access to reliable contraceptives for most women, so once married children usually followed quite quickly. Unless families could get help with childcare, motherhood and running a household was considered a full-time job in itself. With two World Wars and an economic depression in the 30s there may have been anxiety about jobs for men to support families - people still wanted families and there were less men available.

I have an ex-colleague who has just retired, so is 60 I think, who had to give up her job working as a bank teller when she had her first child. She was allowed to go 'on the bank' to do temp shifts , but not allowed to hold down a full time, permanent job.

So this would have been in 1979/80. A wee bit later than the 20s...

didn't RTFT.

In 1987 my then boss told me that she (not he) would not consider a job share for me on my return from maternity leave and that I should look for a "little" part time job near home. This was in a higher education establishment housing a notable women's library and my boss's predecessor was married into the most famous family involved in women's suffrage. I left and got a part time job - a mile away but still 30 miles from home.

It doesn't matter that you didn't rtft - all comments are relevant :)

I'm crap at exams (I crack under pressure and can't retain or recall information/detail) and I'm crap at coursework (have an inability to write and explain and analyse information)
I'm great at learning stuff and doing stuff practically - but I also lack the imagination to expand and extrapolate (so briefs such as "design and make a table lamp" are beyond me - I can make the table lamp but i can't design one.)

My Great Aunt worked in a chemical factory during WW2 and married in 1948. She was allowed to stay there as she was so good at her job, my mother still has a letter from the company about it. She never had children though.

Women were thought to be suggesting their husband could not provide if they worked which was considered shameful.

But I agree with the irony up thread. That women were expected to leap into jobs the second the economy/ start of war demanded it and then leap back home and declare it was all they ever wanted to do the second governments expected it.

I think governments still, to a degree, feel that the role of women is something they should be able to dictate as and when it affects the economy in a way they would not with men.

In 1990 my FiL asked if I was going to give up my job when we got married.

When I married in 1976 ( in research) I was given a cookbook by the (very large) company - all women got one (!) and put onto a married womans pension. And this company was very good - it was around that time that equal pay came in, and all the women got a massive payrise