How have women’s roles in the animation industry, in America changed since the 1940’s?
This essay will aim to discuss the animation industry and how women’s roles have changed over the years. Exploring how the change in times and how society viewed women all those years ago will show how the roles of women were affected within the industry.
Looking at and comparing different women working within the industry will also give a better understanding of this element and will include relevant case studies to back up the findings. The focus will be on women who worked with animation studios and not ones who were freelance animators. This will be vital to the relevance of this essay, as it could be argued that such women went through entirely different circumstances which are not relevant to this essay. One such example is Lotte Reiniger, who was self-employed and was a big name in the female world at this time.
This essay will also compare how female roles have evolved between then and now, looking at the contrast between back then, where only painting and outlining cells was allowed, to now where it could be argued that they are seen as equals. It will also discuss whether or not the social norms of the time and idealisms had an impact on the roles women could have, as well as discussing the differences in times and whether it has changed significantly or only slightly, and as to why this is.
Gender Roles
Gender roles are defined by what the public imagine a particular gender (male or female) to be or be perceived as. These roles are given based on our biological sex. “The term “gender roles” refers to society’s concept of how men and women are expected to act and behave”. (Boundless) Roles which need strength and dominance are seen as masculine, whereas roles which are caring and nurturing are seen as feminine. (Boundless)
History
During the 2nd World War, women were needed to take up more jobs that were not the typical ‘female’ roles the originally had, thus freeing up more men to fight. Women started working in the factories to help build resources that would be used in the war, and had also taken on the typically ‘male’ roles while the men were fighting. “ The blurring of the gender roles were acceptable because it helped the war effort” (David White) This blurring of roles was allowed when society needed it, so the country could still grow and have a future, but once the war was over this was reversed once more, and women were pushed out of the roles that had had to take over.
This essay specifically looks at America and so does not account for all of the other countries that were in the war, as the countries all had different situations. For example Great Britain where the women still had to work even after the war because too many of the countries population had been killed in the war. Great Britain’s total deaths during the war was 495,000 estimate, compared to America who had a total of 413,000 estimate. These figures are similar but when the size of the country is taken into consideration Great Britain is smaller than America and so it had a bigger impact on them. (World War 2 Info)
By the 1950s the men had returned from the war, while women were pushed out of the workplace. This resulted in many women returning back to their original ‘housewife’ duties. Women had adapted their roles in society and the workplace for the war but were then being forced by that very same society to revert to the past and just go back to their homes.
Women were not seen as the money makers in the family; instead, society saw them as the home makers. Stay at home mothers were expected to look after the children, clean the house and cook the dinner on time all whilst looking presentable for their husbands, who went out and earned the money. “Women were expected to marry and start a family rather than seek new employment” (David White). The social norms of the time were for women to stay at home and be submissive while men were dominant and in charge of the household. This was encouraged by most of society. An example of this can be seen through the advertisement of the era.
Figure 1^
The picture has been taken from neatdesigns.net
The above example of the advertisements show how ‘happy’ women should be while doing the cleaning and staying at home to cook. This was instilled with the help of the men who encouraged this. They did not want to be seen as less of a man if their wife worked and earnt more money than them, and having a wife at home was a way to assert their dominance.
Contemporary Society
Today, this is a completely different story and women are seen more as equals and have similar jobs to men, although they are still not payed equally. “Women in the labor force increased their numbers at an extremely rapid pace in the past 50 years. …,… The number of women in the labor force rose from 18 million in 1950 to 66 million in 2000, an annual growth rate of 2.6 percent.” (Mitra Toosi) (Monthly Labor Review, May 2002, page 15) These changes can be attributed to the fact that since the 1950’s, there had been the Civil Rights Movement and the Women’s Rights Movement, that opened up opportunities for women to work out of their homes. Women were also being seen more of as equals to males in the political sector, which was an improvement compared to how it had been many years ago.
Another factor that helped women become a bigger part of the work force was that society started to accept women being something more than just a ‘housewife’. Other reasons for women to experience such a big change in the work force include:
“• Women remained single more often.
• Of those who married, many did so later in life, and the median age at first marriage increased substantially.
• Women elected to stay in school longer, achieving higher educational attainment than in the past and pursuing better paying careers.
• Women postponed childbirth to older ages and had fewer children than in previous decades. As a result of improved child care, women tended to enter the labor force even before their children started school, and they were able to maintain a longer job tenure than in previous periods.
• Women got divorced more often; this in itself increased their labor force participation rate.”
(11 Kingsley Davis and Pietronella Van den Oever, “Demographic foundations of new sex roles,” Population and Development Review, September 1982, pp. 495–511.)
Reword below
As the above shows, women have simply changed over the years. The world’s view has also changed and evolved over time, and in response to this, so did women’s roles. This, along with political and social changes have helped open ‘doors’ up for women and opened up what the community thinks about
It could also be argued that although womens rights and opportunities have changed over the years and they are more accepted into the workplace, it has not evolved enough, as women are somewhat still seen as ‘keepers’ of the household. They are still expected, to a degree, to clean and look after the children even if they have a job. There is still a gender expectation of women even in today’s times.
The Animation Industry
This chapter will aim to discuss the animation industry itself, looking into the roles and positions, women had in the workplace and why they had these roles. Was it for the same reasons as mentioned above or are there other factors involved? Many people have different and conflicting opinions to how women were treated and why they had the roles that they did.
To have a better understanding and back up these findings, a specific studio will be investigated. This studio will be Disney, without any of the other studios and sectors they have since taken over. Although the following discussion has not only been found to happen in Disney, these other examples will not be looked at, as the focus is solely on Disney.
The ‘girls’ which they were commonly referred to as, were young women, usually under the age of 25, who would work in the inking and painting departments at Disney Studios.
The inkers would precisely outline what the animators had drawn out onto cells, and then these cells would be given to the painter, who would flip the cells over and paint in between the line, using many different colours. They were required to work fast so that the paint did not leave streaks. Once they had finished painting the cells would then be photographed.
Although there were quite a few women in the inking and painting departments, there were virtually no women animators. “Women do not do any of the creative work in connection with preparing the cartoons for the screen, as that work is performed entirely by young men… The only work open to women consists of tracing the characters on clear celluloid sheets with India ink and filling in the tracings on the reverse side with paint according to directions.” (Culler) It was studio knowledge that women were not recruited for anything other than the ‘female’ roles and jobs (such as secretary, inkers, painters and cafeteria workers). This was due to society’s impact on women and the workplace. Society wanted to keep women in their homes and with their families, instilling from a young age that that was what they should do. Any women that did work, whether in industry or not, did not last very long.
In regards to working women in the animation industry, it was much of the same story. “Each time they were beginning to get good they’ve quit to get married or something. So now he’s thumbs down on girl animators.” (Rae, Vanity Fair) The ‘he’ referred to in the quote, from a past inker, is Walt Disney himself. He was known back then for having very specific views on women in the workforce and for not wanting to employ them in more important departments, because he thought that they would get married and leave to start a family. This accusation was backed up by just how many actually did get married. These beliefs were often shared by opposing studios. Although these instances were happened in many studios, it was surprisingly more common in Disney, as one studios press release stated “romantic paradise for young women … for the amount of romances and marriages far exceeds that of any other studio.” (Vanity Fair) Walt moved the inkers and painters to the other side of the building, away from the male animators to try and stop the relationships.
On the other hand, there did seem to be exceptions to this. “Though many of the women fulfilled Walt’s prophecy and put family above their careers, Rae married but continued working ad Disney off and on until the mid-60s.” (Patricia Zohn) Rae was an inker who worked in the Disney studios. These rare occasions could be compared to anomalies, which could be arguably a large contributing factor to why women were not often employed.
As the essay has previously stated, when the men were called to fight in the war, the women had to fill in their roles. BY 1944 Disney had started to make propaganda films, and two women from the painting and inking department were selected to work on Frank Capra’s ‘Why we Fight series’ (Zohn) This could be argued that women were allowed to work in different departments, but it could also be stated that since there were only two women out of the many working there. These could have just been anomalies and suggests that there could still have been more women who were animators and not just painters and inkers. “she was the first woman from our department who went into animation – who had made it.” (June, Vanity Fair)
Although the above is before and at the time of the 1950s, it is still relevant to this essay as it was not until after the 1950s, closer to the 1960s, that the industry started to really change. Women were treated unfairly compared to the men, especially in the animation industry. Women had lower pay “new girls were still only making $18 per week while top animators made $300 per week.” (Zohn) This is a massive difference in wages and solidifies the fact that the genders were not treated equally and fairly.
They were also treated unfairly with the amount of hours they were expected to do. To try and get the animations finished, ‘the girls’ in the inking and departments were asked to work long hours. “We would work like little slaves and everybody would go to sleep wherever they were.” (Keil) This was said by a former inker at Disney Studios. They would have to spend long days getting animations finished, while the male animators did not.
Along with the above, when the animations were being created and they needed more workers, so Disney would hire young women to help with the work. Many of the women they hired did not have to have any qualifications. The women they did hire, though, were women who looked ‘healthy’ “Marie Foley Justice found out later her application had noted her young, healthy looks, which, she quipped, indicated “They figured I could stand up under the over time”” (Zohn) This proves how overworked they were as Disney had to hire women who looked healthy so they could deal with the all the workload.
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