Walt Disney Studios actively sent out rejection letters to female artists in the late 1930s that explicitly stated women did not do any of the creative work in connection with preparing the cartoons for the screen.

A closer look

Walt Disney Studios actively sent out rejection letters to female artists in the late 1930s that explicitly stated women did not do any of the creative work in connection with preparing the cartoons for the screen. The aggressively sexist corporate policy mandated that women were only allowed to work in the ink and paint department, painstakingly tracing and coloring the frames drawn by the male animators. It wasn't until Mary Blair came along and practically redefined the entire visual aesthetic of the studio with her concept art for Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan that the executives finally realized their bigotry was hurting their profit margins. It is wildly hypocritical that a company built entirely on selling magical dreams of princesses to little girls refused to let actual women hold a pencil in the animation department for decades!