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The government passed laws to eliminate the woman worker from her job. "From 1932 to 1937 federal legislation prohibited more than one member of the same family from working in the civil service. Designed to combat nepotism, the law in fact discriminated almost exclusively against women. In nearly every state, bills were introduced to restrict the employment of married women, and at times whole cities embarked on crusades to fire working wives." To evade these laws women lied about their marital status in order to attain jobs. .
Women who had married were forced to resign from their jobs. This was evident with teachers, they married and were forced to resign, and when they eventually returned to the workforce, the promotion positions were occupied by the men.
The late 1930s the United States entered World War II when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour. The government then started to take measures to strengthen national defence capabilities and employers began to respond to the increasing demand for war materials. By the mid-1942 employers were willing to hire women in 70 percent of the anticipated semi-skilled positions and 63 percent of the professional and managerial openings. This was due to a large media surge, which began to portray women as being able to work at a man's job. Thus came the encouragement for not only single or women from a lower socio-economic bracket to work, but middle and upper class married women to join the workforce also. Not only were women employed; but also they were employed on jobs requiring a higher degree of technical skill. .
As soon as the war was over, the advertising altered its tone and again portrayed women to be at home, in an attempt to free jobs for the men returning home from the battlefields.
The life of a woman before the 1960s was extremely difficult, being denied basic rights, trapped in the home her entire life and discriminated against in the workplace.