Women In The 1920's

At the start of the decade, society and the way people lived changed drastically. Women specifically were viewed in a different way. Before the 1920s, women were portrayed as the “typical housewife”. Women were supposed to stay home, cook, clean, and raise the children. During the 1920s, women were changing the culture and the stereotype of a “typical housewife”. Women began to go

The Roaring Twenties! Economic Boom! Social and Political Change! It was a period of of new behaviors, attitudes, and freedoms, with prosperity making way to most Americans.

The years following the Civil War and Reconstruction was an era somewhat gilded. The Second Industrial Revolution came about with new inventions, and revolutionized how factories and jobs were worked. Factory workers in this time period were working in poor conditions and had no power whatsoever. Often they were abused and their wages were cut very low. The mass immigration also did not favor laborers as it made them so easy to replace. In order to fight back laborers would join labor unions in order to protest; however, during this time the labor unions were not that affective during 1875 and 1900 because although they had their efforts many of them would not work to their advantage; efforts would give them a bad reputation, go out of

The 1860s to 1920s was known as the gilded age in the United States of America. Immigrants moved to the U.S. to have a better life but when they arrived, they an unexpected situation. In the gilded age, Robber barons or business owners made a tremendous amount of money. Most of them accomplished this by using monopolies and trusts which led them to gain power and money. While money was flowing in the United States, the lower class population lived in tenements, where diseases would spread fast and comfort was not available. Workers had to work more than twelve hours a day and they could lose parts of their bodies in the machines and therefore get fired. Children worked as much as their parents did. They were in a position of

Women “changed the rules”. The Flappers was a new ideal for some women. Many women rejected the model of behavior from the 19th century and tried to

A flapper was a fashionable young women who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, and listened to jazz. During the 1920s the social norms for women fashion was to wear long modest dresses and long hair. Women also got the right to vote when the 19th amendment was ratified. This was a time of newfound independence for women. many women had taken on new jobs during World War I and weren't ready to give up their independence.

The reputation and culture of women changed substantially with the emergence of the Roaring Twenties. Gone was the traditional, and sheltered All-American girl who aspired to a housewife. It was seen as inappropriate for these women to even show their ankles out in public. The new “Flapper” girl was a young woman who wore short and relaxed dresses, used makeup, smoked cigarettes, drank alcohol, and attended glamorous parties (Document 2a). Flappers were liberated and bold, and were the complete opposite of the traditional American housewife. The Flapper girl

The women of the 1920’s were first introduced to society as a generation that spent most of their time cleaning, cooking, and nurturing their children. However, as the “Roaring 20s” came to impact the

Women were seen as domestic servants and did not have a say in decisions. This is contrary to the Roaring Twenties, where many women began changing norms that society had set forth by wearing makeup, short dresses, smoking and drinking in public. The norm was to cover up the body, perform domestic work, remain abstinence, and follow what the man said. These women became known as flappers. However, the stereotypical housewife emerged in the 50s where she is to speak in a low voice to not disturb her husband, tend to children, and know her place.

Around the beginning of the 20th century men and women had very specific gender roles. Women in the past were usually looked at as the homemaker types. Very few women had jobs of any type during this

From the end of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century many economic changes occurred, from booms to busts, but all effected minorities less favorably.

After the Women’s Rights Movement began, women started wearing what they wanted, acting like they wanted, and socially expressing themselves in their own way instead of the traditional female role. Women that expressed themselves like this were called flappers. “The flapper—with her short skirts, short hair, noticeable makeup, and fun-loving attitude—represented a new freedom for women” (Blee). There have been innumerable amounts of styles that women have gone through, some good and some

The Great Depression reversed this trend causing women roles in the household enhanced as they were able to balance the house work and make ends meat. Women worked many hours in the 1930’s regardless of not receiving very much pay. Between 1931 and 1941 in Toronto alone women of 14 years of age and above increased from around 91,780 to 111,334 (Srigley, 2005,pg 121). Women who attempted to find work in any shape or form risked the humiliation of society as they were mocked of occupying jobs and money away from men. In the article “Will Women Lose Their Jobs ?” by Norman Cousins, he suggested that “Simply fire the women, who shouldn’t be working anyway, and hire the men.

Most women in the era were stay at home moms and wives, “... women became full time homemakers. Women were now expected to stay at home and take care of the kids while the husband went to work to financially support the family” (Kgeorge). Women were found unfit for the workplace and forced to give up their jobs to men coming back from World War II. Women who felt the freedom and empowerment of a job when the men were at war felt displaced when the men came back, “...as women were forced out of their wartime occupations and into the domesticity of the new American nuclear family, many women felt disenfranchised.

Unfortunately, women have been held at a disadvantage for much of human history. We have been seen as vapid and less worthy than our male counterparts. We have been denied jobs and education, being told that a woman “should stay home and take care of her husband and children”. Even today, we are paid less than men doing the same job as us. Today’s female experience is better than, say, that of a woman in the 1920’s.