Women had jobs and worked - but usually for a fraction of the wages of the menfolk
“Fraction” implies a small fraction. In the 60’s Australian public service wages for women were, if I recall, at least 50%, and I think possibly higher. My mother was also a doctor (qualified in the late 50’s) and went into private practice on account of this, and in private practice she just charged the AMA recommended rates, which weren’t gender based.
I’ve known other women doctors from this era, and they tell similar stories. I’ve also learned that doctors, as a group, are not any more sensible or reliable on social issues than the general population. They tend to be workaholics and also extremely conscious of peer-group status and money. They also tend to adopt “fashionable” causes, such as feminism, LGBT rights, etc. because they are too tired and busy to think through complex issues. They love to tell stories about themselves.
My mother has told me about career advice she had received
once in the '50s to not go into physics as that was “not suitable for a woman”. She told me this in the context of complaining about “sexism” in years past. I asked her whether, apart from this
optional advice, there was any actual discrimination preventing her from going into physics in the late '50’s, as a women and with a government scholarship, and she admitted there wasn’t. Yet we allow rampant
actual discrimination against men in academia these days.
A particularly daft female doctor relative of mine (paediatrician) rails about the “wage gap”, insisting that women are paid
much less than men for the same job, even though this has been illegal for decades and also, for decades, wage parity has been scrupulously observed by industry. Even the Australian government feminist bodies admit that unequal pay in like-for-like jobs almost never happens - yet feminists, such as this 70 year old
doctor, regularly promote the myth that it does.
