Only really bad (really bad!) for those with fine aspirations that were blocked. My MIL died proud that in this era she'd been the first woman theater manager in the nation who was allowed to contract with the big studios to show their first-run movies -- contracted under her own name, not some male fronting for her.
I made $0.13/hr as a waitress plus (good) tips and wasn't legally able under NV state law to work overtime (excuse that it encouraged overworking underpaid females), but we were expected to work overtime at regular rates anyway. But it was a good job.
And doing it on airplanes was a glam job pretty women literally got 4-year degrees to qualify for; they all understood at that time that they'd age out of it in a few years and have to find new jobs, that their special qualification for this elite job was on a short timer.
It's not that I didn't understand perfectly well at 17 that I and the rest were being discriminated against, I was wired egalitarian liberal. But also, and this is big: That was still America's era of liberal-dominated government and labor culture. In those days I could support myself modestly on what I made as a 17-year-old HS dropout, certainly better than so many these days. The same for those with the sense to take some office classes.
Compared to today, after 40 years of conservative domination and exploitation that's rolled labor in wage respects to back to before the New Deal, we made significantly than our counterparts today and were far better protected by regulations on business.
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