"Although I was a female, I had a man's ability to earn a very good living. I knew that because my services as a reporter and writer were sought by the then most distinguished newspaper in New York. It was a mark of ability to be asked to join the staff, a mark of special ability if you were a woman, because in those days very few women could get a job on a newspaper anywhere. Yet because of my sex I had to accept a salary hardly more than half that of any of my male colleagues. Moreover, I was given to understand that I could never hope for a raise. Women, the managing editor explained to me, were accidents in industry. They were tolerated because they were temporarily needed, but some day the "status quo ante" (woman's place is in the home) would be restored and the jobs would go back where they belonged, to the men."