I am sitting in the city free employment bureau. It’s the women’s section. We have been sitting here now for four hours. We sit
here every day, waiting for a job. There are no jobs. Most of us have had no breakfast. Some have had scant rations for over a year. Hunger makes a human being lapse into a state of lethargy, especially city hunger. Is there any place else in the world where a human being is supposed to go hungry amidst plenty without an outcry, without protest, where only the boldest steal or kill for bread, and the timid crawl the streets, hunger like the beak of a terrible bird at the vitals?
We sit looking at the floor. No one dares think of the coming winter. There are only a few more days of summer. Everyone is anxious to get work to lay up something for that long siege of bitter cold. But there is no work. Sitting in the room we all know it. That is why we don’t talk much. . . . We look at the floor. It’s too terrible to see this animal terror in each other’s eyes. . . .
The girls are trying to get work. The prettier ones can get jobs in the stores when there are any, or waiting on table, but these jobs are only for the attractive and the adroit. The others, the real peasant, have a more difficult time. . . .
A girl we have seen every day all summer went crazy yesterday at the YW. She went into hysterics, stamping her feet and screaming.
She hadn’t had work for eight months. “You’ve got to give me something,” she kept saying. The woman in charge flew into a rage that probably came from days and days of suffering on her part, because she is unable to give jobs, having none. She flew into a rage at the girl and there they were facing each other in a rage both helpless, helpless.
Source: LeSueur, Meridel. “Women on the Breadlines.” 1932. Literature and Society: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, Nonfiction. Ed. Pamela J. Annas and Robert C. Rosen. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1994. 852-54. Print.
What is one of the themes in this piece?
A.Women have a much harder time getting work than men, but they are more patient.
B.Women are suffering, and there doesn’t seem to be any relief in sight.
C.Poverty, hunger, and unemployment lead to frustration and violence.
D.Any woman can find employment if she makes herself presentable.
