Essay On Women In The 1920's

During the early 1800's women were stuck in the Cult of Domesticity. Women had been issued roles as the moral keepers for societies as well as the nonworking house-wives for families. Also, women were considered unequal to their male companions legally and socially. However, women’s efforts during the 1800’s were effective in challenging traditional intellectual, social, economical, and political attitudes about a women’s place in society.

1919, the dawn of a new era, the era of war , and the era of women’s votes, this was also an era of elegance, but to some the era was not so kind. Young Lacey’s mother passed away in 1919, leaving her and her brother’s and sister’s to be raised by her aunt Caroline. Aunt Caroline insisted that the children attend a Christian church on Sunday’s, where she served on the missionary board doing charitable works. The church is where Lacey first laid eyes on Larry, seeing him Sunday after Sunday, wearing his loose fitting sack suit, belted high on his waist. Larry was the son of a freeman who stayed on the land that his father was given by his boss in Prince William County, Virginia. He inherited a field and a house that sat on forty acres of

Life in the 1950s was a time where when a women was married and has kids she would stay home taking care of the meals, and children. Men would be the ones to go out and find a good job that helps with money problems. Also sometimes married women would hire a nanny to also help around the house. In the 1950s men respected women more than they do today because women were supposed to be beautiful and elegant. Also men were able to be a gentleman around women.

During the first World War I women were left at home to try and figure out how they were going to care for their families. Their husband, father, and brothers were sent off to war. Many companies around the United States were left with production needs and little to no employees to do the job. In a time period, where women are expected to be confident and independent, they had to also realize they had little to no power in society. They had societal rules that they must stay at home to cook, clean, and care for the children. With the men who were prominent in their lives coming and going from war. These factors caused the birth of a new era. This is the era where women were emerging. Women were changing by being more independent sexually and expressing their emotions through music, poetry, and movies.

Bowles, M. (2011). American history 1865–present: End of isolation. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.

In the 1920’s birth rates dramatically decreased as women were given access to birth control and were educated on health care, allowing women to make discussions about their own lives instead of relying on their husbands. The women’s reproduction movement, led by Margret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, changed society’s view of women’s sexuality, educated women on healthcare and made birth control options more prevalent in the United States, which empowered women to get an education, dive into the work field, and rely less on men. Women were suddenly encountered in the 1920’s by a new freedom to explore life the way a man did without the fear of children holding them back, as written by Mary E. Williams, an American author, and writer

During the 1920’s many changes had occurred from the types of music to different types of attire. But the biggest change was the role of women. In this period women were starting to look a lot different than they did. They went from wearing really big puffy dresses to very simple clothing. They started to show a little more skin and wore loose clothes to hide their curves.

The first woman to attend a male dominated school was enrolled at North Carolina State University in 1921 (ncpedia.org). As the years went on, women began to attend a college with the opposite sex and earned their degrees. Lastly, women had the time to work or go out of the house if it wasn’t for time saving devices. These devices, the washing machine, the vacuum cleaner, and the iron, helped them complete the job at hand in a more efficient way. If it wasn’t for these immense changes, women would not be living the lives they have

The age of bootleggers, crime, parties, and alcohol held yet another group, one that was not as happy, they were the suppressed women of this era. Women in the 1920s were suppressed and tired of being looked at as, ‘just a pretty face that cooks and cleans’. They wanted to be more. Women of this time broke out of their stereotypical gender role, led a movement, and influenced the arts; these women were known as flappers. The world had continued to evolve, yet a woman’s role in society had remained the same.

When you think of the roaring 20’s, the first thing that comes to your mind is probably the flapper; a young woman with bobbed hair and short skirts who drank, smoked. In reality, not a lot of women in the 1920s did none of these things. They wanted to prove to people that they were responsible. A lot of rules changed during this time period. The 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote.

“A woman of 1920 would be surprised to know that she would be remembered as a “new woman.” Women of this time earned many new freedoms and opportunities in their lives with their involvement in the war efforts. Before this time, women were not able to work or go to school to earn an education. According to society, a woman's role was to get married and raise the children, which allowed no independence for women. Additionally, Females had no idea their life could change so immensely and have so much potential.

Up until the 1920s, women’s struggle for their right to vote seemed to be a futile one. They had been fighting for their suffrage for a long time, starting numerous women's rights movements and abolitionist activists groups to achieve their goal. “The campaign for women’s suffrage began in earnest in the decades before the Civil War. During the 1820s and 30s, most states had enfranchised almost all white males (“The Fight for Women's Suffrage” ). This sparked women to play a more emphatic role in society. They began to participate in anti-slavery organizations, religious movements, and even meetings where they discussed that when the Constitution states "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain

In the early 20th century society treated women as though they were not important, their duties were to have children, cook and clean for their husbands and much like children of this timeperiod, women were to be were to be seen but their voices not heard with regards to anything outside of the family. It

Feminism in the 1920s Women of the 1920s hiked up their skirts, bobbed their hair and changed society. The transition of women going from reserved and traditional to the sexy and well-defined style of flappers, caused some controversy on where women stood in society. This led to the fight for women’s rights and the modern take on feminism.

The advances in the 1920s toward gender equality, from suffrage to social freedom to education, all laid an important groundwork for the society we have today. These changes not only affected the 60 million women living in the United States at the time, but also all of the women that have come since. The progress towards political equality has led to greater gender diversity among politicians, with nearly 20% of women in Congress now, compared to 0% in 1920. This cultural advancement led to the more egalitarian society we have today. Women now own 30% of all private business and control 51% of American wealth, in part because of the educational and economic improvements made during this era. Ultimately, the relative liberation of the 1920s was not enough for the women who lived then; however, it set the groundwork for the egalitarian society we have today. Women in the 1920s had, as Collen Moore put it, a “…determination to free themselves of the Victorian shackles of the pre-World War I era and find out for themselves what life was all