Though their primary role was as homemakers and mothers, there were working women in the 1930s (mostly single mothers, but, they were uncommon and widows who had to work to keep their family off of the streets.) However, no matter their situation, working women were frowned upon for "taking jobs away from hard working men." A woman in the workplace qualified only for low-paying factory jobs (a woman with a full education had the same job opportunities then as a man who had only made it through elementary school), and even then, made half as much as her male counterparts for doing those jobs. Even after working, though, a woman was still expected to do her "duties"--- cook, and clean, and care for the household.
There were small wins for women in politics at the time, though; with the 19th amendment (which gave women the right to vote), brought the first female member of Congress, Sandra Day O'Conellin 1932, and the first female member of the Presidential Cabniet, Francis Perkins, in 1938.
The victories were just that, though: small. In the 1930s, there were over 1,000 state laws discriminating against women. In eleven states, if a woman was working, her wages were controlled by her husband. "Protective" laws were made that ostensibly helped women, but, in actuallity not only questioned a woman's ability and right to be in the workplace, but made it harder for women to get jobs.
It wasn't just men that didn't seem to like womankind's progress; other women were against it too. Mrs. Samuel Gompers said: "A home, no matter how small, is large enough to occupy [a wife's] mind and time." She, along with many other women, called women working outside the home "unnatural", and The Women's Bureau went so far as to say that wives who held jobs outside the home were "ruining the integrity of their families". Even the new American Federation of Labor did not include women.
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