Analysis of Women’s Role in the 1920’s

Women in the 1920’s A new era evolved in the 1920’s, a new style of women emerged with it. In the “Roaring Twenties” many women converted their lifestyle of being home makers who were in charge of cooking, cleaning and taking care of the children to women with short dresses, bob cut hair doos, a cigarette in her mouth and a drink in her hand. This new style of women who emerged with an older prositional style of dress became known as flappers. These women not only changed their appearance and mind set but brought changes to society, the economy, and the role of a typically women.

In the rebellious era of the 1920’s some young women began to declare their independence from the male figures in their life, these women were known as the flappers. A flapper was an emancipated young woman who embraced the new fashions and urban attitudes of the day. (McDougal 2003) Women in years before were very conservative, wearing ankle-length dresses, following orders from men, and their only job would be house cleaning and taking care of the children. These standards were not those of a flapper, flappers wanted to be viewed as equal to men.

Flappers did this by shortening their skirts to 1 inch above the knee, cutting their hair into bob cuts, smoke and drinking in public, talking openly about sex, swearing, binding their bodies to appear thinner, and buying make up. By wearing lipstick, rouge, and eye shadow, flappers resembled prostitutes to an older generation (Parker). Against many people’s views at the time, the flappers did not do all these crazy thing in order to get attention but to prove a point that women are just as free as men and want to be treated as such. “It is an injustice to both parents and child to bring an unwelcome baby into the world. (Dearborn, 88) This is the views many women had during the 1920’s, before it was socially accepted to use birth control. In decades before 1920 the birth rate had begun to decline but in the 1920’s the number of child being born dropped drastically due to the use of contraceptives and information of birth control. This decline was an after mass of Margaret Sanger opening the first birth control clinic in the United States and founding the American Birth Control League in 1921. (McDougal 2003) With birth control becoming socially accepted, women in the 1920’s took one more tep forward by going against the norm and began dating. Before when women were beginning to have the mindset of marriage they were “courted” by men, this means that men only pursued women they intended on marrying. When women began dating this opened the door for more sexual freedom to both men and women which was social unaccepted and unheard of by many people of the older generations which then caused chaos within the home life of the young flapper women. New opportunities arose for women in the 1920’s when women decided to leave the home maker position and step out into the real world by getting a paying job.

The ambitious women who went against the odds to go look for a job would get positions such as teachers, nurses, librarians, typists, clerks, and secretaries. By the end of the decade almost 10 million women were earning wages. This outraged men by making them believe that women would begin getting jobs over the men. Though women did not earn nearly as much as men during that time period, it was a big step in history for women to leave the home and start the evolution of working for money.