The Barbizon: The Hotel That Set Women Free

by Paulina Bren

By 1932, twenty-six states had made it illegal for married women to hold a job, and in the states where it was not mandatory to quit work upon marriage, it was still mandatory to disclose one’s impending married status because it was considered outrageous for a woman to be taking a job away from a “real” breadwinner.

The rules were clear, and the expectations sky-high: women should be virgins, but not prudes; women should go to college, pursue a certain type of career, and then give it up to get married. And above all, living with these contradictions should not make them confused, angry, or worse, depressed. They should not take a bottle of pills and try to forget.

Super achievable, right? Nothing has changed, the expectations on women are still contradictory and impossible to achieve!

the assumption was that men were sexual and therefore blameless. Blame, in all sorts of ways, lay with women. Men got excited, and either women had to put in their best effort to prevent that from happening or else, if they failed, take care of his “pain.”

And again....what has changed?