# McDonald's early policy - we don't hire women **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 16, 2020, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-early-policy-we-dont-hire-women/925717 "2020-11-16T17:05:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2021, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-early-policy-we-dont-hire-women/925717/21 "2021-06-14T22:50:18Z")
Car hops _are_ wait staff. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2021, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-early-policy-we-dont-hire-women/925717/22 "2021-06-14T23:14:01Z")
I read “we don’t hire girl carhops” as “we _do_ hire boy carhops.” ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2021, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-early-policy-we-dont-hire-women/925717/23 "2021-06-15T05:01:27Z")
My mom worked at McDonald’s two years before the feds passed The Pregnancy Discrimination Act. She was pregnant with me at the time, and McDonald’s fired her as soon as she started to show. ---
**Author:** ![oldoaktree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ccd318/32.png) [@oldoaktree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oldoaktree)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2021, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-early-policy-we-dont-hire-women/925717/24 "2021-06-15T05:10:15Z")
name me one company that did not do this at some point in history. or racially, or lgbtqlly. or religiouslly. Can i not have a big mac because 60 years ago they didnt hire woman? ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2021, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-early-policy-we-dont-hire-women/925717/25 "2021-06-15T05:23:13Z")
It was about 1975 before I ever worked in a place where a woman was considered eligible to do my job. And women remained anomalies well into the 80s. Today, the career field is dominated by women. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2021, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-early-policy-we-dont-hire-women/925717/26 "2021-06-15T05:27:11Z")
> [@oldoaktree](#): > > Can i not have a big mac because 60 years ago they didnt hire woman? Maybe I missed it, but I haven’t seen anybody in this thread saying anything like that. ---
**Author:** ![oldoaktree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ccd318/32.png) [@oldoaktree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oldoaktree)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2021, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-early-policy-we-dont-hire-women/925717/27 "2021-06-15T05:33:20Z")
ok, my misunderstanding. i thought the point of the thread was to single out McDonald’s as some Misogynist corporation. What was the point of the OP? ---
**Author:** ![oldoaktree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ccd318/32.png) [@oldoaktree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oldoaktree)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2021, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-early-policy-we-dont-hire-women/925717/28 "2021-06-15T05:39:11Z")
and again name one company that didn’t do this at some point in history ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2021, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-early-policy-we-dont-hire-women/925717/29 "2021-06-15T06:01:30Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > McDonald’s early on didn’t do Drive In or Drive Thru, it only did walk up. As was mentioned upthread the stores were glass boxes, you parked, and stood in line. The thing that made them famous is even huge lines would churn through customers in a couple minutes, then you took your food away and ate elsewhere (in your car, at home, a nearby bench etc.) [Dick’s Drive-In](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick's_Drive-In) of Seattle still operates on that same business model today. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2021, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-early-policy-we-dont-hire-women/925717/30 "2021-06-15T08:27:07Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > My mom worked at McDonald’s. She was pregnant with me at the time, and McDonald’s fired her as soon as she started to show. i wonder if you can ask her about how she felt about being fired? It was standard practice at the time, and was socially acceptable, so it would not have been a big shock. But even if it was expected, how did she feel about it?. Can she honestly and accurately remember her feelings on that day 45 years ago? We all naturally, let our memories be shaped by our life experiences and our current ethical values, so it may be very difficult to accurately remember how we acted and felt in a previous era when our values were different. But I’m curious–since this is a very specific event in your mother’s life,and she may remember the day it happened. Does she remember it as painfully unfair, (like we would say today), or did she just accept it as “the way things are”?. I’m always interested in learning history from the most direct source–somebody who lived it. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2021, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-early-policy-we-dont-hire-women/925717/31 "2021-06-15T11:07:07Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > i wonder if you can ask her about how she felt about being fired? Unfortunately, she died in 2016. She did of course find it totally unfair, and it was one of several stories she shared to illustrate how much worse it was to be a working woman in the 70s than in the 00s. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2021, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-early-policy-we-dont-hire-women/925717/32 "2021-06-15T12:35:12Z")
> [@oldoaktree](#): > > What was the point of the OP? Just to chat about how things used to be? This is MPSIMS, after all. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2021, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-early-policy-we-dont-hire-women/925717/33 "2021-06-15T12:48:06Z")
> [@mixdenny](#): > > The reporter goes on, “Perhaps on the theory that the world’s best cook are men, McDonald’s is strictly a man’s world in the kitchen department too, without temper tantrums and tears - not even when the onions are peeled…” It’s stuff like this that makes me feel murderous. As if women haven’t toiled in the fields all day with a baby strapped to their backs since the dawn of agriculture, and then gone home and done all the cooking. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2021, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-early-policy-we-dont-hire-women/925717/34 "2021-06-15T12:59:19Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > It’s stuff like this that makes me feel murderous. > > As if women haven’t toiled in the fields all day with a baby strapped to their backs since the dawn of agriculture, and then gone home and done all the cooking. During WW2, women competently performed men’s jobs in the factories. When the war ended, there was an over-“correction” to established sex roles. Women stayed home and had babies, while men went back to slaying dragons and frying up bad hamburgers. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2021, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-early-policy-we-dont-hire-women/925717/35 "2021-06-15T13:04:06Z")
First World War as well! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2021, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-early-policy-we-dont-hire-women/925717/36 "2021-06-15T13:06:34Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I read “we don’t hire girl carhops” as “we _do_ hire boy carhops.” Whereas I read it as “girl carhop” is a single noun, with the two words inseparable from each other: Of course a carhop is a girl; what other kind could there possibly be? And the reason you hired them (at least, for the places that did) was because you wanted to attract those low-lifes who would come to flirt aggressively with them (and order a burger while they were there). ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2021, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-early-policy-we-dont-hire-women/925717/37 "2021-06-15T13:19:02Z")
> [@F.U.Shakespeare](#): > > When the war ended, there was an over-“correction” to established sex roles. Women stayed home and had babies And the vast majority of those women were very happy to do so. My mother was one of them. That’s what is so fascinating about studying history. Things have changed,and we are left with our jaws gaping in shock, wondering why those weird folks back then didn’t think like we modern, progressive people do today. Hmm…So how weird will we 21st-century-people appear to the modern progressive people of the future? What will they be shocked about? ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2021, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-early-policy-we-dont-hire-women/925717/38 "2021-06-15T13:22:42Z")
While it doesn’t specifically address the female employee issue, the recent movie with Michael Keaton as Ray Kroc–“The Founder” is actually a pretty good movie that deals with the early years of McDonald’s. It covers how the original McDonald’s brothers in California really fine tuned the individual restaurant concept of getting food out very fast, and Kroc basically ran with it and cracked the code on a successful franchising and national growth model. The movie portrays Kroc to be kind of a piece of shit, which as far as I know is fairly accurate to real life. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2021, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-early-policy-we-dont-hire-women/925717/39 "2021-06-15T13:44:28Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > First World War as well! At least, that time women were rewarded with suffrage in places like the US and UK. Post-WWII advances owed more to birth control than public policy. ---
**Author:** ![ZosterSandstorm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e0b2c6/32.png) [@ZosterSandstorm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZosterSandstorm)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2021, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-early-policy-we-dont-hire-women/925717/40 "2021-06-16T01:20:49Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > The movie portrays Kroc to be kind of a piece of shit, which as far as I know is fairly accurate to real life. It tunes that up to an absurd degree. I would have been way more interested in further explanation of how Kroc repeatedly chose to cut costs by lowering the quality of the food than in stuff like how he scammed the McDonald brothers out of a promised severance payment (which everyone involved says never happened and was made up from whole cloth for the film). It’s almost as if the movie was afraid to offend people who like current McDonalds food by placing it at the center of the story. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-early-policy-we-dont-hire-women/925717.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-early-policy-we-dont-hire-women/925717.md?page=3)