World War I: Catalyst for the Feminine Revolution

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Wars are often followed by change; World War I was no exception. World War I is sometimes credited with starting the feminine revolution. The young women of the 1920’s were considered new and rebellious. In appearance and attitude, the women of the day broke the mold society had created in the previous decades. When the war started, the Progressive Era women had to take over the jobs of men to fill the void the men left behind, and as a result, they learned to be independent. The conservative, upstanding women of the Progressive Era were considered the moral guardians and protectors of the home. Their appearance and dress of the time was conservative, dark, restrictive, and modest, adorning themselves in respectable apparel. The wives of middle-class …show more content…

Although traditions were changing, one traditional standard remained unchanged: the goal of most young women was not a career, but marriage. With the new profoundly different lifestyle of the Flapper, came changes in the way traditional marriage was viewed. The wife's role was viewed more as a somewhat equal partner, rather than the traditional subservient role they had previously filled over the last 300 years. Advertisements used the image of the Flapper in advertisements professing marriage to be the highest possible achievement for women. Compounding the pressure from advertisements, advancement for women in the workplace was limited, and only about 10% of white, middle-class women actually worked outside of the household. When in fact, the image of the freewheeling Flapper was more of a symbol than a …show more content…

This led to major objective differences between the goals of the League of Women Voters and the National Woman's Party. The League of Women Voters primary goal focused on the education of women, with the goal for them to become good citizens and play a critical part in advocacy, but would not be exclusively focused on women's issues. The League of Women Voters wanted women to be viewed as individual citizens who were educated on the political issues while remaining nonpartisan. Whereas the National Woman’s Party's primarily focused on ending female apartheid and legal gender discrimination, and as a result, started the campaign in 1921 for the Equal Rights

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