The new woman of the 1920’s is automatically portrayed as a flapper, but there is much more to the new woman than just the assumed image that every woman was a flapper. More women were becoming educated. More women were focusing on themselves and on sexual relationships with their partners or husbands. Staying home and having children was starting to no longer be the norm. Women also gained the right to vote. During this time women gained a lot but also faced many challenges and discrimnation.
In the 1920’s college educated women were no longer pioneers. There were two and even three generations of graduates of women’s and coeducational colleges and universities. Women were becoming part of professional areas that women had never been a part of before. The new professional woman was a vivid and widely publicized image in the 1920’s. However most employed women were still non professional lower class workers. Middle class women remained largely in the home. The decade began to redefine motherhood. John B Watson and
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Women began to drink, smoke, dance, wear seductive clothing and makeup, and attend lively parties. While the flapper is not all of the focus on women in the 1920’s it does play a role. Modern women found a liberated lifestyle in being able to express themselves through hairstyles, dress, speech, and behavior. Middle class women and working women were beginning to fill jobs in industry and service sectors. At night these women would go to nightclubs and dance halls in search of excitement and companionship. Some women shunned marriage entirely. Women began initiating divorces and during this time the divorce rate rose rapidly. Some women even became secretly romantic with other women, this was known as a Boston marriage. Even though women were branching out and coming into themselves they got portrayed as simple provocative