20th Century Women

The roles and expectations of women have varied through cultures as well as time, itself. Often some women held greater power and importance in governments whereas others hardly had a voice. As time has progressed, there have been many things that have changed for the female sex. However, there have also been many things that remained the same, including the fact that women in the 20th century had more advantages in health, involvement in war and politics, and legal rights. Firstly, the living rates for women getting out of the process of childbirth between 1800 and 1900 had been gradually going lower, especially due to advances in medicine, thus proving a higher advantage for women later on. Though it’s naturally expected for many deaths

Often women’s bodies weren’t able to handle the strain of childbirth, or there were complications to which no solutions had yet been used regularly, such as the cesarean section. If it had not been the act of bringing a child into this world that brought death upon the mother, it would have been puerperal fever which “affected, on average, 6 to 9 women in every 1000 deliveries, killing 2 to 3 of them with peritonitis or septicemia” (Loudon). Modern science hadn’t yet reached the conclusion that this had been a simple bacterial infection, worsened by epidemics. During the 1800’s, it had become the most common cause of death in women after birth, being at fault for over 50% of mortalities. In contrast, the amount of women suffering through childbirth had fallen due to the popularization of the cesarean section at the end of the 1800’s and beginning

Earlier in this essay there was information regarding the fact that one of the leading causes for death of women in the 19th century was the process of natural childbirth, however, “the second leading death among women remained fire” (Volo). It makes no sense at first, but due to the large amounts of fabric worn by women, and the fact that candle flame was one of the only sources of light, it tended to occur a lot. Among the few who tried to take the fashions of women into their own hands, mostly for safety issues, Amelia Bloomer was the one to speak out best. Having been a suffragette and an advocate for women’s rights, “she is best known for advocating a dress reform that included looser tops and short skirts with a pair of pants underneath” (“Amelia Bloomer”). It is clear to see that in any historical film or image that the outfits women wore were rather large and didn’t leave room for much movement. The ambition to change this was later put down with the arguments of the 4 virtues (domesticity, piety, purity, submissiveness) having been violated. In contrast, the women of the 20th century had more reign over what was worn. While previous fashions were restrictive and generally conservative, it was in the 1920’s that “women began to liberate themselves from constricting clothes for the first time and openly