Flapper Vs Suffragettes

Women’s suffrage began early on, in the mid 1800s, and only came to fruition in 1920. Suffragettes formed groups to fight for their rights, and the passage of the nineteenth amendments demonstrate the success of these groups, including the National Woman’s Party and the National American Woman Suffrage Association on politics. Progressivism was at it roots, a group movement, and the passage of this amendment signifies the inherent triumph of Progressivism. Goals of the Progressives were simple when simmered down: “Progressives sought to improve the conditions of life and labor and to create as much social stability as possible” (Link and McCormick 182). The accomplishment of female suffrage improves the female condition of life and betters social stability, as well as extends democracy.

Women’s rights activists gave their movement the title “the women movement”. These women wanted to expand their professions out of the house and into higher paying jobs. They spread their belief that women’s unique homemaking traits would make society more humanized. Women’s clubs through the late nineteenth century began taking a stand on public affairs. These reformers started working more outside of the house in jobs such as consumer protection and housing improvement.

In the 1800’s women didn’t have half the rights that they do today. They were not educated, couldn’t own property, and were passive to men. Susan B. Anthony helped lead the women’s suffrage movement and in 1852, dedicated her life to fighting for women’s rights. Without Susan B. Anthony, that women gained after her death wouldn’t have been accomplished for a couple more decades. Understanding the beginning of the movement, the involvement of Susan B. Anthony, and the involvement of others is important in extrapolating how the rights of women have evolved.

She believed that large families were a cause of poverty in poor communities. Sanger persuaded middle class women by arguing that they should feel free to enjoy the pleasures of sexual activity without being afraid to get pregnant. Flappers were known to willingly experiment more since they were using birth control. Over all, many people judged flappers and questioned their reasoning. People believed women were threatening men since they were doing what only men would do, for example, smoking, drinking, going out etc (USHistoy.org Staff).

Flappers were women that pretty much went against the rules or didn’t do what women were usually known for doing before this time period or personal freedom. These women known as Flappers broke the traditional role

Both of the associations led by very powerful women wouldn’t stop until they could see the bigger picture where although you were a different gender you were treated equal as men and had the same rights. Now although the women’s suffrage amendment didn’t pass until 1920 it provided a many of us women with very strong role models and women that were very powerful in their own way trying to accomplish one goal

Women Suffrage movement began more active after 1894. For example, “In New York City, Josephine Shaw Lowell and Mary Putnam Jacobi formed the Woman Municipal League." (Dubois, 189) This organization was primary focusing on the corruption of public. “By the early 1900s, moreover, the spirit of political reform in New York City spread beyond the elite.”

One journalist noted it was common to see "women smoking in hotel dining rooms, bare female legs on the public beaches…taking the lady's arm instead of letting her take yours." Some feminists saw the flapper as consumer conformity; women using their freedom to compete for a husband. Women reformers thought the flapper threatened the family and went against all the women’s rights movement had stood

In the beginning of the book, Zelda Sayre is introduced to an example of what the bolder type of women was. She would later be known as the first american flapper, but in the earlier years she just was just one of

Women began working outside of the home rebelling Victorian principles. Flappers were not politically motivated. This culture was more about rebelling authority and free spirit. This lifestyle strangely empowered the women’s movement leading to a woman’s right to vote. Such unrest, change, and free spirit only lasted a decade.

Flappers In the 1920’s, a new woman and following a new era was born. Women were no longer scared to express themselves or to act different. They smoked, drank, and voted. They cut their hair, they’d get all dolled up and do their makeup, and they went to parties.

“Like all other women I thought that there couldn’t be much improvement in the same old task of washing dishes.” This quote by Christine Frederick in 1912 speaks so much truth about the way women lived before the 1920s. Many women had believed that they were sought out to stay at home and be the regular housewife that the American people portrayed them to be. None of them probably believed that they would soon get the privilege to vote, have a job, or to even dress a little less modestly. They would soon come to the realization that their way of life would be changed when the 1920s came rushing in.

After the Civil War, women were willing to gain the same rights and opportunities as men. The war gave women the chance to be independent, to live for themselves. Women’s anger, passion, and voice to protest about what they were feeling was the reason of making the ratification of the 19th amendment, which consisted of giving women the right to vote. One of the largest advancement of that era was the women’s movement for the suffrage, which gave them the reason to start earning

Suffrages chose to take a more militant style approach to capture the attention of the government in a way that could not be ignored. They became a public nuisance in terms of publically demonstrating their frustration through actions rather than words. In “Freedom or Death,” Pankhurst speaks on behalf of the suffrage women, “we were called militant, and were quite willing to accept the name. We were determined to press this question of the enfranchisement of women to the point where we were no longer ignored by the politicians” (Pankhurst, 2). Though militant had a negative association, the suffragists prided their actions fighting for an honourable peace.

Issues of sexual authority are often closely intertwined with a contest for political as well as imaginative power. (Berry 1995) In the Elizabethan age, this association became increasingly problematic with the rise of Queen Elizabeth I and her dual virtues of chastity and political power. By embodying this curious conjunction, Elizabeth created for herself a literary cult that perceived “The Virgin Queen” as both an ideal and a threat.