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The 1920’s sparked a revolution of changing culture in America, one of them being women. Women were known to work domestic jobs, if they even worked at all; many women were expected to stay home to tend to the children and household (Goldin,). Accompanying the culture changes a transformation in values and morals became evident. Soon women’s mindsets, roles, actions, and appearances began to change; this was attributed to the flapper (Benner,). While each of these characteristics burst on the scene in the 1920’s, the biggest attribute to the revolutionizing of women during this time is the changing culture. The role of the women in the years leading up to the 1920’s hadn’t changed much. Most women were expected to stay home and work domestically by cleaning the house, and taking care of the children (Benner,). Men expected their wives to have dinner ready on the table for them when they got home and a drink prepared for them (Benner,). Many women didn’t have jobs unless they were unmarried, single mothers, or very poor (Goldin,). Several of these women were hired as mill girls in lived in the factory of at home until they got married (Goldin,). Most women didn’t go to college to earn degrees and were intensely …show more content…
Many women began to read newspapers because women were getting tired of living such submissive lives; they wanted to become educated and make something of themselves other than wives and mothers (A Smile) . Women in this time also began to smoke cigarettes as it was seen as a sign of sophistication (A Smile) . It became suitable for working girls to live away from their families (Benner,) . Because of the changing culture, women found themselves gaining confidence and not caring what others thought (Zeitz,). Women’s right to vote was ratified in 1920 and gave way to the development of independence of women, in turn allowing women to break away from societal ideals (Doughty,)
From coast to coast people were reading the exploits of a new type of woman called flapper. Prior to World War 1 Victorian ideals still dictated the behavior of American women and girls. Frederick Lewis Allen describes the traditional role of women. Women were the guardians of morality. They were made of finer stuff than men. They were expected to act accordingly. Young girls must look forward in innocence to a romantic love match which would lead them to the altar and to living happily ever after. Until the right man came along they must allow no male to kiss them. Flappers did the opposite. Flappers danced the Charleston, kissed their boyfriends while they played golf and sat behind the wheels of fast cars. The liberated usually young female disdained the traditions of her mother and grandmother before her. Flappers would smoke and drink alcohol, she cut her hair and wore short dresses. They also changed their views on courtship rituals, marriage, and child rearing. With these they could have the same freedom as men could. The time period also saw a highly physical change in women’s lives like how they dressed and looked. For the first time in American history women could choose to be free from long hair and voluminous clothing. Before the women changed they wore very restrictive clothing consisting of long skirts with layers of petticoats over tightly laced corsets that produced an hourglass figure with wide hips and a narrow waist.
Some people hated this idea of the Flapper and they blamed the war for these women’s new behaviors. After World War I, young women and young girls started to act free and go against their families. “Some people in society blamed the war for triggering this rebellion of youth and they claimed it had upset the balance of the sexes and, in particular, confuse women of their role in society and where they truly belonged” (Grouley 63). Some people hated the idea of the flappers and these women had become. These women, the flappers, in the 1920s felt free after the 19th amendment was passed. “Since the early twentieth century, the sexual habits of these American women had changed in profound ways” (Zeitz 21). Flappers drank, partied, and had romantic evenings with men. All of which were illegal for women. In addition, they were an embarrassment to society and they were able to get away with anything. “Flappers were a disgrace to society because they were lazy-pleasure seekers who were only interested in drinking, partying, and flirting” (Dipalo 1). For instance, Flappers went to clubs, drank, and hung out with men and were too lazy to do anything. Therefore, one consequence of the war was the creation of a new woman and this led to a movement like no other.
The 1920’s was a period of extremely economic growth and personal wealth. America was a striving nation and the American people had the potential to access products never manufactured before. Automobile were being made on an assembly line and were priced so that not just the rich had access to these vehicles, as well as, payment plans were made which gave the American people to purchase over time if they couldn't pay it all up front. Women during the First World War went to work in place of the men who went off to fight. When the men return the women did not give up their positions in the work force. Women being giving the responsibility outside the home gave them a more independent mindset, including the change of women's wardrobe, mainly in the shortening of their skirts.
In the 1920's women's roles were soon starting to change. After World War One it was called the "Jazz Age", known for new music and dancing styles. It was also known as the "Golden Twenties" or "Roaring Twenties" and everyone seemed to have money. Both single and married women we earning higher- paying jobs. Women were much more than just staying home with their kids and doing house work. They become independent both financially and literally. Women also earned the right to vote in 1920 after the Nineteenth Amendment was adopted. They worked hard for the same or greater equality as men and while all this was going on they also brought out a new style known as the flapper. All this brought them much much closer to their goal.
As progressive era reforms advanced from the 1880s to t 1920s, women took on a significant role in political change with specific regard to the ratification of the 19th amendment and social conditions with emphasis on women’s reproductive rights and restraint from alcohol.
“They were smart and sophisticated, with an air of independence about them, and so casual about their looks and clothes and manners as to be almost slapdash. I don't know if I realized as soon as I began seeing them that they represented the wave of the future, but I do know I was drawn to them. I shared their restlessness, understood their determination to free themselves of the Victorian shackles of the pre-World War I era and find out for themselves what life was all about.” Colleen Moore captured the essence of women in the 1920’s astonishingly. Many women found life tedious, dull, and boring, so they decided to make a change. These women were generally known as “flappers.” Flappers were young women who flouted the everyday standards of women. With their new style, behavior, and political views, it was clear that this was the new age of women.
Flapper girls in the 1920s were women who changed the way they dressed by wearing shorter skirts, changed they way they lived by partying more often, and by taking these actions changed the way women were viewed in America.To some people in the 1920s the opinion they had on flappers was the “Flappers are a disgrace to society because they are lazy pleasure-seekers who are only interested in drinking, partying, and flirting”(Issues and Controversies in American History, 1). Negative opinions formed towards them because changing so drastically in such a short amount of time was threatening to society.
The 1940’s were a turning point for women in the workforce. Women were perceived to be the weaker sex by society and faced social prejudices in efforts to become part of the workforce. The common belief was that women were intellectually inferior to men, incapable of making decisions regarding their household, and should not work outside of the home. Their job was to maintain the home, raise the children, and be supportive wives of the working husband.
Throughout the nineteenth century, gender roles were increasingly characterized by a division of activity into separate spheres for men and women. Men moved freely between home and the outside world, however, women were largely restricted to the home and remained financially dependent upon a man. While this situation offered women more power within the home, that power was very limited in scope. As the twentieth century neared, more and more women began to challenge the societal expectations placed upon them. Many Americans began to fear that the family was disintegrating due to "a declining birth rate, a rising divorce rate, and efforts of a growing number of women to break out of their separate sphere of domesticity by obtaining a higher education, joining women’s organizations, and taking jobs outside the home" (Kellogg and Mintz 1937). As this progressive movement gained momentu...
The 1920’s was the decade that introduce the wild side of the women youth. These young women were often middle-class and held steady jobs, but once the sun went down, their wild side emerged. They were labeled as flappers. These women were trying to break out of the habit of being entrapped in the austere standards given by society. They were young and rebellious, and wished to stray from the fundamental beliefs of how women should act and look like. Their goal was to escape the fate of the “socially silenced women in the Victorian age” (Flappers). F...
The 1920s, a time full of corruption,crime,manipulation,deception and society being dominated by one gender. There were people who were able to do anything because their economic status granted them power above all. On the other hand, there were people who couldn’t achieve this status so they used others to gain what they desired. Women in the 1920's are objectified by men and always being represented as weaker or powerless, women are shown to be manipulative and deceiving towards men with the exception of the non-wealthy because they depended on men to acquire wealth. In the 1920s, men had power and wealth and almost all women were dependent on men for economic purposes.
Women of the 1920s developed a new mindset as a result of embracing flapper-dom, while some presented an attitude apparent in many women today. Although the idea of defying social norms enticed the foolish women to become reckless and irresponsible, a few resourceful individuals took advantage of the change and pursued a more independent route. The individualistic motivation that women extracted from flapper-dom during the 1920s was a stepping stone for a more bright and promising future.
Women’s role in society changed quite a bit during WWI and throughout the 1920s. During the 1910s women were very short or liberty and equality, life was like an endless rulebook. Women were expected to behave modestly and wear long dresses. Long hair was obligatory, however it always had to be up. It was unacceptable for them to smoke and they were expected to always be accompanied by an older woman or a married woman when outing. Women were usually employed with jobs that were usually associated with their genders, such as servants, seamstresses, secretaries and nursing. However during the war, women started becoming employed in different types of jobs such as factory work, replacing the men who had gone to fight in the war in Europe. In the late 1910s The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) had been fighting for decades to get the vote for women. As women had contributed so much to the war effort, it was difficult to refuse their demands for political equality. As a result, the Nineteenth Amendment to the constitution became law in 19...
During the war, men were sent to the battlefield while women stayed behind and gradually entered the workforce. Women had to leave their tradition of home making behind to substitute the men’s job that were left vacant. During the war, both the men and women of that generation had broken out of society’s structure. As a result of the lengthy war, they found it hard to settle back into life before war and were also reluctant to adopt those rules again. Modernization freed their thoughts and people wanted a less rigid and more liberated life. These led to the rise of flapper girls.
During the Great War and the huge amount of men that were deployed created the need to employ women in hospitals, factories, and offices. When the war ended the women would return home or do more traditional jobs such as teaching or shop work. “Also in the 1920s the number of women working raised by fifty percent.” They usually didn’t work if they were married because they were still sticking to the role of being stay at home moms while the husband worked and took care of the family financially. But among the single women there was a huge increase in employment. “Women were still not getting payed near as equally as men and were expected to quit their jobs if they married or pregnant.” Although women were still not getting payed as equally it was still a huge change for the women's