Women's Rights In The 1920s Essay

Before the 1920s, women typically never left the house did domestic chores to provide for their husband. However after the end of the 1910s, radical thoughts for women suffrage advocated for until the issue was put on hold during the break of World War I. President Wilson’s ignorance towards the fight for a woman’s right to vote didn’t stop woman suffrage associations such as the NWSA. Women suffrage was protested continuously until it grasped the federal government’s attention. When the 19th amendment passed, the women’s role in the political world dramatically shifted at the local, state, and federal level. Due to this new sense of political freedom women were given, the roles of American women in the 1920s varied between the “New Woman”

Women were able to advocate for social welfare, education, better wages, and equal rights legislation. After the 19th amendment was passed, suffrage organizations encouraged women to be active in politics. Many women became active in politics due to the League of Women Voters Association created in 1920. Increased participation among women resulted in both political parties, Democrat and Republican, becoming interested in lobbying for women’s issues and gaining women’s votes. This newly gained attention opened up political opportunities for women during elections. Women became officeholders, elected in the U.S. House of Representatives, and legislators at the state level. In 1922, Florence Ellinwood Allen of Ohio became the first women to be elected in the state Supreme Court (A). This is an example of how women grasped political influence in all types of political levels: state, federal, and local. But, not all women were granted these opportunities in the American government until the Equal Rights Amendment was advocated by Alice Paul in 1923. The Equal Rights Amendment sought to guarantee equal rights for all citizens regardless of sex. Similar to the 19th Amendment, the Equal Rights Amendment focused on legal consequences between men and women in terms of property, employment, and divorce. In addition to the Equal Rights Amendment, new amendments were passed to protect American

Young women were transforming their style and image. The political cartoon “Something on the Hip” demonstrates how the “New Woman” is now wearing pants, drinking alcohol, and smoking cigarettes (C). This carefree persona of the New Woman differs tremendously from the Traditionalists’ style of clothing, which was much more conservative. The “New Woman’s” attitude towards sexuality changed as well. Openness related to sexual awareness also allowed women to recognize that their gender submission, which had dominated the generations that came before, was no longer necessary. Modern women became more independent, tired of being pushed around by men. Sexual independence significantly altered a woman’s role in society to a high extent because women no longer submitted to the conventional role of depending on a man. Along with the new mass-consumption economy in the Roaring Twenties, the era brought new innovations that shifted women’s attention to social life. Social life consisted of new products, fashion trends, and sexier images of women. Less modest hemlines, new body images of health, and hairstyles transformed the image of what a beautiful woman was supposed to look like during the 1920s. Political success with the passage of the 19th amendment and the increased independent leisure time of the “New Woman” challenged the traditional role prior to the