Inequality In The Great Gatsby

While in today’s time, women are still pushing towards equality from what a male has, in the 1920’s women had the same agenda. Many females expect the hardships from what comes with being a woman and in order to change, they try and find their own way in life. Thesis: A divine social life and inequality are a few prospects throughout The Great Gatsby which portrayed life for women in the 1920s.The transition into a more modern era gave women perks in finding themselves. The crucial manifestation of inequality in that time made women feel incompetent within themselves and what they do. In order to deal with the fact of not being free, certain women found themselves going against the characterized ‘norm’ and showed themselves off as sexual

They listened to jazz and danced with abandon in new, modern styles. In many ways, flappers came to epitomize the 1920s and the dawn of modernism.” ("Women and the Modern World.")The more modern generation that had begun in the early 1920s still had its ups and downs between a female and male perspective. Yes, women were able to do things more freely, but there are many things that these women still faced that distracted them from a free flowing party lifestyle. While many men worked to support their families as the females or mothers would stay home and take care of the house, they still made up a small percentage of the workforce. “In 1920 women composed 23.6 percent of the labor force, and 8.3 million women older than the age of fifteen worked outside the home.” ("Ellison”) Women were still expected to stay at home to take care of it while the men went out to work. Passed laws let women have more flexible roles outside of the home environment and give them a sense of freedom. Laws as the 19th amendment or ‘’women’s suffrage’’ allowed women to vote in general elections divided the inequality of male and female in the early 1900s. “Their efforts were parlayed into a national campaign to amend the US Constitution, which culminated in 1920 in the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, giving women the right to vote.”("Women and the Modern World.") women had been given the right to vote through women’s suffrage (19th amendment).

Daisy lived through the party scene and a wealthy upcoming while she searched for love and affection. She is a prime example of how women were and how they acted with the freedoms given to them. ‘’Through this twilight universe Daisy began to move again with the season; suddenly she was again keeping half a dozen dates a day with half a dozen men, and drowsing asleep at dawn with the beads and chiffon of an evening dress tangled among dying orchids on the floor beside her bed.’’ (Fitzgerald 85). With the freedom that a women had possessed, gave women the choice to do what they pleased. The women would start to party almost every night and hook-up with men they accoutered in short time frames. Daisy, in The Great Gatsby partied almost every night and hooked up with other men while Gatsby was away in War. She framed the real worlds activities and portrayed the actions of women in that time. "What'll we do with ourselves this afternoon?" cried Daisy, "and the day after that, and the next thirty years?" (Fitzgerald 63) The way Daisy follows the sight of wealth and a good, set future shows the aspect of how women were in the 1920s. The women wanted to find a man with money to set them up for their own future. Even if she did not truly love the man, she still would get married for the benefits. The unfaithfulness in that time was strong and the love was weak. While not every female was like that, it was the thing of the time.