NEW DEAL WOMEN

Question 1

Give context statement

Answer 1

• Period where the govt showed willingness to tackle social and economic problems and began to move away from their earlier laissez faire approach

Question 2

Ways federal govt positively impacted rights

Answer 2

• Many women in govt - Francis Perkins Secretary of labour, Mary Dewson director of womens division of democrat party
• 1933 federal emergency relief act - allowed homeless women to seek refuge in city shelters
• New deal explained many govt departments and women represented in these jobs
• 1935 social security act - alleviated family stress by introducing welfare benefits for poor families
• 1935 aid to dependent children helped women with children but no husband to work
• 1934 wheeler Howard act - gave native Americans formal political rights and training as domestic workers
• 1933 White House conference highlighted plight of women during Great Depression
• 1936 works progress administration - employed 460000 women

Question 3

Ways women themselves positively impacted rights

Answer 3

• Women played role in new deal administration and 1st female cabinet minister appointed
• Social justice feminists pushed for national legislation (child labour, supported Roosevelt aims) - Florence Kelly said they should regulate industry as whole not just set up regulations for women
• More women in work in 1940 than 1936
• Women got some benefits - not because Roosevelt wanted to help them, this was just a side effect of other legislation
• Working class women benefitted from labour legislation/unionisation - middle class women influenced social welfare administration
• Middle class women got involved in politics
• Eleanor Roosevelt pushed for women’s division within federal emergency relief administration - leader Ellen Woodward required all states to appoint women to work on it
• 800000 women joined unions by end of 1930s

Question 4

Other ways rights were positively impacted

Answer 4

• 1936 - 80% in poll said married women shouldn’t take jobs from men/single women -> good as it is an issue of practicality not sexism

Question 5

Ways federal govt negatively impacted rights

Answer 5

• Some women involved in new deal administration but big decisions made without them - women seen as tokenistic
• 1973 farm security act - didn’t help rural women who had all domestic work on top of farming for half the year
• Built in inequality in pensions - lots of new deal legislation relied on assumption men worked and women stayed home
• Influential women on advisory boards in new deal accepted inequalities - more radical national womens party had little influence
• Nira and fair labour standards act upheld pay differentials between genders - female teacher earned 20% less than male
• 1935 aid to dependent children - reserved for white women, humiliating process

Question 6

Ways women themselves negatively impacted rights

Answer 6

• Wtul (womens union) in conflict with male unions - campaigned for 8 hour day and minimum wage, felt it was their job to negotiate it
• Women still didn’t have social justice - discriminated against mothers/married women to boost male employment
• Black American women suffered racial discrimination in social security
• Women still found it difficult to vote

Question 7

Other ways rights were negatively impacted

Answer 7

• Women workers lost out when there was greater competition for jobs
• Having the right to vote didn’t mean women were treated equally in social, economic or sexual sense
• Men jobs prioritised - falling wages hit domestic workers most, unprotected by trade unions
• No attempts to secure equal pay in labour legislation
• Failure of states to act upon welfare legislation led to discrimination against women