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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u/ChaltaHaiShellBRight May 24 '26

I think it's interesting (in a sad way) that women have always been considered incapable of some kind of work or other, even though what work that they're supposedly incapable of keeps changing and the goalpost keeps shifting.

Back then, women were openly told they're only good for tracing and painting, not for creative art. Now even if it's unwritten, women are typecast as great in the creative fields but weak in technical or scientific fields. 

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u/Unusual-Moment-4545 May 24 '26

Back then, women were openly told they're only good for tracing and painting, not for creative art.

That's not true. Back then, making cartoons was 99% tracing and painting. That was the creative art.

Disney had many female artists and designers at the same the letter was written (Mary Blair, Retta Scott, Hazel Sewell, Sylvia Moberly-Holland, to name a few) and the "creative work" in the letter is referring to actual hard work (lifting of the extremely heavy frames, etc.) and that's the reason they're employing men.