The Oppression Of Women In The 1920's

652 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Women in the 1920's

There was a multitude of differences in the women who lived in the 1920’s, varying from physical and mental differentiations amongst them. Women visiting speakeasies during the Prohibition Era challenge the way women were being portrayed. Women can defined themselves as different type or just say they are proper women. With that said, "proper women began to see saloons as hotbeds of vice, where not only drinking was encouraged, but also gambling, prostitution, dancing, and tobacco use” (Weiser). During the 1920’s women were seen as prostitutes and worthless people. Women began to do all these supplementary things to try and show that they were capable of doing things that relate to men. To prove they can handle men things they would …show more content…

“The fashionable women were drinking socially is not greatly surprising, but that they would stir themselves to become active in the movement to repeal prohibition is, since their…” (Rose 112). Prior to the Prohibition Era, women’s place was at home, now they were involved in the movement against prohibition by going to speakeasies. “Priced well above other women’s magazines, Vogue courted a small readership of fashionable, well-to-do women…. its reader should be drinking cocktails..” (Rose 111). During the prohibition era magazines, such as Vogue, portrayed ideal women as women who drink cocktails. Women going to speakeasies would not be challenging the way women are portrayed in things like magazines. Not only that but women that were being shown on the covers of the fashion and lifestyle magazines drinking cocktails were seen as uneducated and no had no self respect. “Prior to the amendment, women drank very little, and even then, perhaps just a bit of wine or sherry” (Weiser). Even though, women were perceived socially they were still frightened on how ignoring the fact that they were not able to buy nor sell alcohol. Challenges how women were “making the bootlegged liquor much more palatable, millions of people who didn't like the taste of beer, wine, or hard liquors found cocktails irresistible, turning men and women alike, into "criminals” by the thousands”

Show More
Related

  • Domesticating Drink By Catherine Murdock Analysis

    812 Words  | 2 Pages

    Alcohol has always been a part of feminine culture, but it took a dramatic shift in the early 20th century. In the book, Domesticating Drink, Catherine Murdock argues that during this period, women transformed how society drank and eradicated the masculine culture that preceded this shift. Murdock draws from a few different sources to prove her argument, such as: etiquette manuals published after the turn of the century and anecdotes from the time period. She provides many interesting and unique perspectives on how drinking culture evolved, but she shows a clear bias towards “wet” culture and also makes very exaggerated claims that turn her argument into something that is nearly impossible to completely prove.

    Read More

  • The Role Of Women In Slacks And Calluses

    772 Words  | 2 Pages

    One of the things that the women went through was alienation by other women, who were deemed as “true” women or respectable women. The alienation was not because of money or race, not even religion, but because the women of the factory wore slacks. A working class woman was seen as less of a woman because a woman during those times was expected to stay at home and play house because of society’s view on gender roles. Plus, the women who worked at factories wore slacks, which was a big taboo during those times also. Women who wore skirts

    Read More

  • Bootlegging Mothers And Drinking Daughters Summary

    1286 Words  | 3 Pages

    There were many instances throughout the article where it is seen that young females begin to rebel by doing things they once would not have done previous to prohibition. Speakeasies became a place where young women had established their freedom and independence. Not only were they able to drink around men, but they could smoke and many females even decided to cut there hair into bobs. Speakeasies became mysterious and thrilling which resulted in the incline of the female presence within the establishments. It is due to the fact that many young women were participating in the action of chasing the thrill of drinking outside of their homes where the social norms began to change. In the article is it brought to light that prohibition brought on the idea that everyone had to taste alcohol because they became curious as to why it was against the law to consume it. When someone is told you cannot do something, it becomes all the more fun to go out and actually be able to do it once you have the chance to. Mothers began to fear that their daughters were becoming more frivolous instead of settling down and starting

    Read More

  • Antebellum Reform DBQ

    716 Words  | 2 Pages

    During these times, domestic violence was commonplace and many blamed alcohol as the culprit. Reformers also noticed that alcohol decreased efficiency of labor and thought of alcohol as a menace to society because it left men irresponsible and lacking self control. One reformer, named Lyman Beecher, argued that the act of alcohol consumption was immoral and will destroy the nation. Document H depicts the progression of becoming a drunkard from a common m...

    Read More

  • Global Competition And Manifest Destiny On The Cusp Of The 20th Century

    1396 Words  | 3 Pages

    Before the 20’s it was not acceptable for women to drink but by the late 20’s that changed for young Americans. It signified the equality and acceptance of women as equals, at least in college campuses and the youth.

    Read More

  • Prohibition and Repeal 18th & 21st Amendments

    751 Words  | 2 Pages

    Prohibition was the eighteenth amendment. It prohibited the production and consumption of alcoholic beverages. People would have never thought of “excoriating” alcohol until the 19th century (Tyrrell 16). During this time widespread crime and dismay arose. Some beneficial things did come out of this period of chaos such as women were able to prove themselves as people their temperance movements. During this time many things happened that led to Prohibition’s strongest point and to its fall. Prohibition proved to be a failure from the start,. Prohibition was scarcely adhered to and also widely defied but out of this women had a chance to voice their opinions and prove themselves.

    Read More

  • Speakeasies In The 1920s

    1466 Words  | 3 Pages

    Speakeasies lasted for over ten years (“Facts”). The Prohibition was considered a joke to most Americans. In 1929, the party had to come to an end. The stock market crashed and closed a lot of speakeasies. Law enforcement found the hidden saloons and put people out of business. On December 5, 1933 President Roosevelt favored the repeal on the Prohibition, and the Twenty-First Amendment officially repealed the Eighteenth Amendment. The war between people and the law was officially over. The word “saloon” disappeared from the English language and so did “speakeasies”

    Read More

  • Prohibition Dbq

    1152 Words  | 3 Pages

    The real reason the Prohibition Act was passed is not because the Legislation had voted for it, but rather the large amount of supporters it had. 33 out of 48 states had already passed the laws within 1920. The direct support was mainly coming from the South, which the number grew from 1820’s to 1840’s. These groups mainly campaigned against the outcome of drinking alcohol. Woman’s groups were behind many temperance movements for they were targets of abuse due to drunken husbands. Many times drinking was blamed upon the economics and the changes it has undergone.

    Read More

  • Freedom of the Flapper

    1614 Words  | 4 Pages

    Many flappers were working, single, white, middle-class women. They held jobs in the post-World War I era’s booming economy as clerks, telephone operators, and sales people. However, it was these women’s activities once the work day was over that the flapper lifestyle became famous for. These young and vibrant women were determined to have a good time; they frequented jazz clubs and speakeasies (prohibition was in full swing during the flapper’s era). The flapper participated in activities more commonly associated with men at the time, such as smoking and drinking.

    Read More

  • The American Prohibition of Alcohol in the 1920's

    650 Words  | 2 Pages

    The prohibition movement was aimed primarily at closing saloons. Saloons were the brewing companies place in retail business, selling alcohol by the glass. In the early twentieth century, there was one saloon for every one-hundred fifty or two-hundred Americans. This competitiveness forced saloon keepers to find other ways to make money. By the 1920's saloons had become houses of gambling and prostitution, not the innocent, friendly bar we associate the word with today (Why Prohibition?). The prohibition advocates found such establishments offensive, and sought to revoke their licenses.

    Read More

  • Forbidden Love in The Great Gatsby

    1346 Words  | 3 Pages

    The intention of making the manufacturing, transportation, and sale of liquor illegal was to improve the lives of all Americans, to protect families, individuals, and society as a whole from the dangerous affects of alcohol abuse (Burns). This caused many faith driven Americans to rethink their morality and the def...

    Read More

  • Women's Role In 1920

    1173 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Prohibition in the 1920s

    569 Words  | 2 Pages

    which were places that women went to enjoy a cocktail. As the eighteenth Amendment states "No person shall, on or after the date. when the 18th amendment to the constitution of the United States goes into effect, manufacture, sell, barter, transport, import, export. deliver, furnish or possess any intoxicating liquor except as may be required. authorized in this act (Constable, The Fabulous Century).

    Read More

  • The Success and Failure of the Prohibition

    978 Words  | 2 Pages

    Prohibition originated in the nineteenth century but fully gained recognition in the twentieth century. The Prohibition was originally known as the Temperance Movement. In the 1820s and 1830s, a wave of religious revivalism developed in the United States, leading to increased calls for temperance, as well as other reform movements such as the abolition of slavery (“Prohibition”). These reforms were often led by middle class women. The abolition of slavery became a more important topic of debate until after the Civil War. By the turn of the century, temperance societies were a common thing throughout the communities in the United States (“Prohibition”). Women advocated the unity of the family, and they believed alcohol prevented such a thing. Drunken husbands only brought about negativity to the home, and women could not support that behavior. Suffragists, in their pursuit for voting rights, also sought to eliminate alcohol from the home. Small-scale legislation had been passed in several states, but no national laws had been enacted. On January 29, 1919, the Eighteenth Amendment was ratified by Congress; it banned t...

    Read More

  • The Women of the 1920's

    1142 Words  | 3 Pages

    "On both sides of the Atlantic they'd been struggling against the kind of rigidly sexist culture that meant a women could be arrested for smoking a cigarette while walking down a public street" (Judith 1). The women of the 1920's were independent, demanded equality and lived with bold depravity which is considered a flapper. These women'as lives were not all fun and play; women had to work, often as maids in private homes, but, throughout the decade they could branch our to other jobs. " By 1920, there were more than 650 colleges that admitted both men and women, and more than seven percent of American women between the ages of 18 and 21 attended college" (Jordan 1-2).

    Read More

More about The Oppression Of Women In The 1920's

Open Document