Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
The changing role of women during World War One
The changing role of women during World War One
Women in WW2 affect modern society
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: The changing role of women during World War One
It is no secret that no matter how much women continue to strive in the workplace, politics, etc., inequality will always persist. Throughout American history, the oppression of women has caused an adverse effect on humanity. Some men believed that embracing women as worthy of equal opportunities was a threat to them, as all the rules would be changing. However, the 1900s witnessed a change in that trend, as women started to fight and stand up for their rights. Women have stood on the frontline of this conflict, but at the end of the day they are only requesting “The power or privilege to which one is justly entitled” So, how did women’s role in society evolve from 1919 to 1941? 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... ... middle of paper ... .../socialstudies/mbrotsos/ush/10ushandouts/20s/newscast/changing%20roles%20for%20women.pdf Moran, Mickey. “1930s, America- Feminist Void?” Loyno. Department of History, 1988. Web. 11 May. 2014. "Women and Work." Women and Work. WESTGA EDU, Web. 11 May 2014. http://www.westga.edu/~hgoodson/Women%20and%20Work.htm Right." Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, Web. 06 May 2014. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/right BBC News. BBC, Web. 06 May 2014. http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/mwh/usa/1920srev2.shtml "Working and Voting — Women in the 1920s." American History USA RSS. Web. 11 May 2014. http://www.americanhistoryusa.com/working-voting-women-1920s/ "Societal Roles and Expectations through the 1940's-50's." : Role of Women during the 1940's. Web. 13 May 2014. http://americanhistory1940-50.blogspot.fi/p/role-of-women-during-1940s.html
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.
After World War I America became the world’s center for trade. The economic center of the world moved from London, England to New York City, New York, United States of America, and more specifically Wall Street (Buhle, Mari J, Czitzrom, Armitage 848). Due to women, the 1920’s marked economic and social change in America. Women took over men’s jobs during the war while their husbands were overseas, and once the men came home the women wanted to keep their positions. To show gratitude to these women Congress passed the 19th Amendment on August 18th, 1920 which prohibited any United States citizen from having the right to vote based on sex. This change in women’s social status led to more workers in the factories, which were usi...
The 1940s provided a drastic change in women’s employment rates and society’s view of women. With the end of the Depression and the United States’ entrance into World War II, the number of jobs available to women significantly increased. As men were being drafted into military service, the United States needed more workers to fill the jobs left vacant by men going to war. Women entered the workforce during World War II due to the economic need of the country. The use of Patriotic rhetoric in government propaganda initiated and encouraged women to change their role in society.
The role of women in society was unchanging. It was quite remarkable how stable their role remained for so long (135). While still recovering from the Depression, Europe managed to mark the beginning of the biggest war in history. They first took over Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. And after Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese, the United States entered the war. The main transformation World War II made for women in American society was there were man...
The New Morality in the 1920’s was represented by a shift in cultural values. On one hand the minorities and social vulnerable groups gained more equality and social recognition, and on the other hand people holding the traditional values fearing of this sudden change formed their own groups to resist it, among which the most notable one was the Ku Klux Klan. When the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified on August 18, 1920, American women finally gained their suffrages, the legal rights to vote. With this achievement accomplished, in the following decade, American women moved forward and gained even greater roles in society. The feminist ideal known as the New Woman was popular in the 1920’s. Symbolized by an image of women dressed practically, living independently and freely, it manifested sexual liberation and the coeducational system. Flappers, young women with free thinking, casual manners, new fashions a...
The war brought challenges, new jobs, new skills and lots of opportunities for women. Women were needed for jobs that were traditionally deemed for males only. According to Mathis (1994), government propaganda was responsible for much of the change in society’s acceptance of women in
Neither man nor woman can survive and continue to thrive without the other. Procreation is the most basic and vital contribution to the world’s growing population. Although both sexes are equally important in maintaining population growth, women were treated as the inferior sex throughout history. In the 1920’s, women began to emerge from the depths of oppression and created a culture of resistance: the feminist movement. The perseverance of the feminist women gained traction toward the equality of women which greatly impacted the role of women in history. Was the feminist movement successful due to right timing? Could women prior to the 1920’s be just as successful in shifting from a gender hierarchy system to a more lateral gender system?
During the 19th century, in eastern America, men were the heads of families and controllers of the work place, while women had little power, especially over their roles; particularly upper class women due to the lack of necessity for them to work outside the home. “Men perpetrated an ideological prison that subjected and silenced women”(Welter, Barbara). Their only responsibilities were to be modest, proper women who took care of themselves and did not stray from the purpose of motherhood. They were to remain in the home scene and leave the public work to the men; trapped in their own households, they were expected to smile, accept, and relish such a life. Barbra Walter also agrees that women were imprisoned in their homes, and were merely good for maintaining the family, “a servant tending to the needs of the family”(Welter). Many women's emotions, as well as minds, ran amiss from this life assignment and caused them to stray from the social norms set up by tradition. The narrator in Charlotte Gilman's story, The Yellow Wallpaper, is a victim of such emotional disobedience and rebelliousness. As well as the rebellious women in the poem The Woman in the Ordinary, by Marge Piercy.
Schneider, Dorothy. American Women in the Progressive Era 1900-1920. New York: Facts on File, 1993.
By the 1920s, the United States of America was beginning to gain a reputation for equality and social democracy. This was a period of significant change for women. The 19th amendment was passed in 1920, giving women the right to vote, and women began to pursue both family life and careers of their own. In the political and business worlds, women competed with men; in marriage, they moved toward a contractual role. Many accounts attributed numerous characteristics to the “New Women” of the 1920s: their manners and morals differed from those of previous generations. Though social commenters saw measures of emancipation, they still believed social equality had not been reached and women were still not being treated as equal. Social Scientists
Walsh, Kenneth T. The 1960s: A Decade of Change for Women. 12 March 2010. Web. 09 April 2014.
However, when the war was over, and the men returned to their lives, society reverted back to as it had been not before the 1940s, but well before the 1900s. Women were expected to do nothing but please their husband. Women were not meant to have jobs or worry about anything that was occurrin...
This was the start of a new age in the history for women. Before the war a woman’s main job was taking care of her household more like a maid, wife and mother. The men thought that women should not have to work and they should be sheltered and protected. Society also did not like the idea of women working and having positions of power in the workforce but all that change...
The history of the 20th Century showed abrupt shifts to more radical and conservative lifestyles, with the Great Depression in the 1930s to the Swinging Sixties because of the libertine attitudes that emerged. Women slowly won back their rights as citizens, as in 1948 Cambridge University finally bowed to the public pressures and admitted women to its degrees and then 1950-1960 saw women teachers, bank managers and TV newsreaders. The struggle in those 30 years had a great impact on women across the world, and I believe may have changed the perception of women.
During the 1950’s and 1970’s the greatest change for women was politically due to the fact that women were given more privileges. Women had wanted to become equal to men for so long and now they had their chance to become the same.