Women's Roles In The 20th Century Essay

The 20th Century proved to be a time of development and change in the lives of women across the world. However, despite some of the biggest events in the world’s history, which include, World War II and the Great Depression, some of the changes that women faced were not as revolutionary and fast paced. In fact, sometimes it seemed as if women were sent backwards instead of progressing further. The issues of birth control and reproduction, women in the work force, and suffrage are all issues in which women’s roles in the world drastically changed during the 20th century. In Europe, the first birth control clinics started popping up in the 19th century. During this time, the US also began to ban information regarding contraception and abortion via the Comstock Laws. However, the American birth control revolution really began in the 20th century, with a lot of help from Margaret Sanger. Although many women were practicing certain forms of contraception, the ability to control their family size and reproduction was mainly left up to the husband. In Sanger’s work “My Fight For Birth Control,” she discusses her role in

While the suffrage movement began mainly in the 19th century, it carried on and grew well into the twentieth century. Alice Paul and Lucy Burns helped found the National Woman’s Party in 1916. Their main goal was to create a constitutional amendment allowing women to vote. Their tactics included demonstrations, suffrage parades, political campaigns in the few states where women were able to vote, and hunger strikes. Meanwhile, in Europe, British women over 30 gained suffrage in 1918. It was not until 1920 that the 19th Amendment passed in the United States allowing women to vote. While this was a large victory for women, suffrage was a traditional issue for women of color. Black women were still unable to vote. Evans