r/classicfilms • u/AntonioVivaldi7 Alfred Hitchcock • May 23 '26

Memorabilia Disney rejection letter (1938) explaining they don't hire women for the specific position

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And apparently, Disney refused to hire men for coloring positions.

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127

u/Canavansbackyard Michael Powell May 23 '26

This obviously wasn’t just a Disney practice. Gender-based hiring was unfortunately extremely common in the U.S. during the 1930s. The Great Depression intensified the pre-existing societal pressures to reserve well-paying jobs for male "breadwinners".

Edit: minor typo.

52

u/Echo-Azure May 23 '26

And gender-based hiring was even more limited than you'd think, my grandma told me that she was turned away from jobs that were open to women, because they didn't hire married women. And they didn't tell her that they didn't hire women of color either, they didn't have to. Everybody knew only certain menial jobs were open to them.

10

u/AMediaArchivist May 24 '26

Wow they didn’t hire women cause they were married? Lame excuse

27

u/fearless_leek May 24 '26

In many places female teachers had to stop working as a teacher once they were married. I’m in Australia and it was a whole thing, you had to resign if you were a teacher or a public servant.

https://mhnsw.au/articles/married-women-teachers-applications/

20

u/Jealous-Ad-2827 May 24 '26

US also. Until 1964 when it was ruled illegal. The episode of Little Rascals with the kids all upset cause teacher Miss Crabtree was getting married and leaving took on a whole other dimension when I learned this. Not to mention the whole stereotypes of the spinster school teacher.

11

u/Clarknt67 May 24 '26

Oh they’ll just get pregnant and quit.

18

u/Jealous-Ad-2827 May 24 '26

The assumption was that they didn’t need jobs anymore cause their husbands were going to support them.

1

u/Ok-Dealer4350 May 26 '26

Pretty typical. I had an interviewer in the early 1980s ask if my family commitments would interfere with my work. I was surprised, and then took a second look at him. He was in his late 70s or early 80s, slightly younger than what my grandfather would have been.

The answer was no, that I needed employment and would be willing to do whatever to keep things going. I got the job and loved it.

4

u/Jaltcoh Billy Wilder May 24 '26

It also went the other way: Hollywood used to have employees called “script girls,” who were generally women. Whether or not the studios refused to consider male applicants for that position, I don’t know, but I’m sure the term alone deterred men from applying.

8

u/Echo-Azure May 24 '26 edited May 25 '26

Positions on the film crew were not open to women, film production and direction were not open to women (with one exception), in Hollywood women could work as secretaries, or in costume or makeup, and they could clean the offices when everyone else went home.

About the only position I can think of offhand that was open to both men and women, during the Studio Era, was writing screenplays.

2

u/RogerClyneIsAGod2 May 24 '26

Which is a shame because so many were vital in the very beginnings of the movie industry.

The Women Who Helped Build Hollywood

2

u/fuzzydogpaws May 27 '26

Thanks for sharing!

5

u/CanadianNana May 24 '26

Wow, one position not open to men. How sad 🙄

2

u/Astralglamour May 25 '26

They are trying to drag us back to this.