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  • Essay / Employment, Relief, and the Breadwinner Ideal: A...

    Hollingsworth and Tyyska discuss women's employment in their article, both wage labor and work done outside the "workforce". of paid work”. (14). They also examine workplace discrimination against women based on gender and marital status. They argue that disapproval of married women working for wages during the Great Depression was expressed not only by those in positions of power, such as politicians, but also by the general public and labor unions. They suggest that the number of women in the labor force increased as more young wives remained in work until the birth of their first child and as older women entered the labor force in response to deprivation due to depression. Hollingsworth and Tyyska also give examples of work done by married women that was an extension of their domestic duties, such as babysitting working mothers' children or doing laundry. They also claim that some women took in boarders, sold extra produce from the garden, or ran makeshift restaurants outside their homes. Baillargeon also mentions the work women did in order to earn money to help care for their families. The women she interviewed did many of the same things Hollingsworth and Tyyska mentioned at home, only a few worked outside the home. In several cases, the women's husbands performed additional work in addition to their regular jobs. Srigley examines women's employment in terms of the effects of intersecting factors such as race, ethnicity, marital status, gender, and social class. She states that: “Anglo-Celtic rule created both privileges and disadvantages for female workers who had different access to employment. » Srigley states that: “Canadian feminist historians…. . . have paid far less attention to race than to gender as an analysis...... middle of article ......r 1998): 466-491, accessed February 23, 2014, http://web.a. ebscohost.com.libproxy. uwinnipeg.ca/ehost/detail?vid=4&sid=ad10fcc5-3639-419d-a39f 901114630 86e%40 sessionmgr4002&hid= 4106&bdata =# db=ahl&AN=1093421Katrina Srigley, “'In case you haven't noticed!' : Race. Ethnicity and wage employment of women in a city during a period of depression”, Labour/Le Travail, Vol. 55 (Spring 2005): 69-105, accessed February 23, 2014, http://web.a.ebscohost.com.libproxy. uwinnipeg.ca /ehost/detail?vid=8&sid=ad10fcc5-3639-419d-a39f-90111463086e %40 sessionmgr4002&hid=4106&bdata=#db=ahl&AN=44182314Eric Strikwerda, ““Married men should, in my opinion, be treated differently” : work, relief, and the unemployed on the Canadian urban prairies, 1929-32,” Left History Vol. 12, No. 1 (Spring/Summer 2007): 30-51, accessed February 23, 2014, https://pi.library.yorku.ca/ojs/index.php/lh/issue/current