1930's Gender Project

Adenira, Arow, Darren, and Jeshad

 • Masculinity

Definition of • Shift over time

Masculinity in
the 1930's "The Great Depression caused millions of American males
to feel emasculated by their incapacity to provide for their
families" (Armengol). 
 • Femininity

Definition of • Shift over time

Femininity in the
1930's "Even when the path is nominally open — when there is
nothing to prevent a woman from being a doctor, a lawyer,
a civil servant — there are many phantoms and obstacles,
as I believe, looming in her way" (Woolf).
Factors Contributing •  Culture and entertainment
to during the 1930s
Definition/stereotypes • Female role models
 Timeline:
• Great Depression
• "In 1920, women were about 20% of all persons in the labor force." (Dept.
of Labor) "According to the 1930 census 24.3 percent of all women in the
country were gainfully employed. The 1940 census did not post dramatic
changes in the numbers of working women: 25.4 percent of all women
Factors Contributing to over the age of fourteen worked." (Donegan)
Definitions/Stereotypes • WWII
• "Wartime gender changes for women are encapsulated by one of the
most popular icons of the war, Rosie the Riveter. For many Americans,
Rosie is a strong and self-assured woman. She was one of 19 million
women who worked for wages during the war, five million of them for the
first time." (WWII Museum) 
• Theodore Roosevelt (New Deal)
• The New Deal created a multitude of agencies that provided over 10
million jobs for the unemployed, whose wages saved millions of families
from destitution. Unemployment was reduced to 10%  by 1942." (Living
New Deal)
 • Armengol, Josep M. "Gendering the Great Depression: Rethinking the Male Body in
1930s American Culture and Literature." Journal of Gender Studies, Vol. 23, no. 1, Jan.
2014, DOI: 10.1080/09589236.2012.750237. Accessed 1 Feb. 2021.  
• Donnegan, Anne. History 18.2. Santa Rosa Junior College, 2017,
https://canvas.santarosa.edu/courses/24761/pages/women-in-the-1930s-and-
1940s#:~:text=Working%20Women,in%20domestic%20or%20personal%20service.
Accessed 1 Feb. 2021. 
• “Gender on the Home Front.” National WWII
Museum. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/gender-home-
Works Cited front#:~:text=World%20War%20II%20changed%20the,to%20social%20and
%20cultural%20norms. Accessed 3 Feb. 2021. 
• “History | U.S. Department of Labor.” DOL,
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/wb/about/history#. Accessed 5 Feb. 2021.
• “What Was the New Deal?” Living New Deal. https://livingnewdeal.org/what-was-the-
new-deal/. Accessed 3 Feb. 2021.
• Woolf, Virginia. Professions for Women. The Death of the Moth and Other Essays, 1931.
• Gould, Stephen J. Women's Brains. Natural History, 1978.