Social Roles: The Flapper's Movement

In modern day society, every person has designated roles, otherwise known as social roles. Social roles are expected behaviors of what is accepted and excepted from an individual. Social roles reflect on how we present ourselves to our individual identity and to other people in a society. The accepted and excepted behaviors of men and women in society are different and these are known as gender roles. Throughout the course of history, there exists an inequality amongst male and female rights. To exemplify, it was only until 1920, less than 100 years ago, when females were granted the right to vote in the United States. Around the same time in history, women started to assert themselves by drinking, smoking socializing and casually approaching

During and before this movement, known as the Flapper’s Movement, women were criticized because it was normal for only males to be so expressive, not females. Females were expected to be conservative. Feminism is the movement that aims to correct the inequality in rights amongst man and woman. Feminism is the movement of gender equality. In comparison to the 1920s and even further in history, women have more rights in the modern day 21st century; today women are able to vote, drink, smoke, casually express their sexuality, etc. Although this gap of inequality has shrunk throughout the course of history, the feminism movement is currently still in action and inequality still exists. Multiple sources indicate this inequality of rights is a result of the differing roles of males and females. Masculinity commonly relates to the strength and emotional stability a man holds in his life. Based on a study Eva E. Reed, a professor in the School of Counseling and Social Services at Walden University, conducts, noting in her journal “Man up: young men’s lived experience and reflections on counseling”, the study consists of six males

Rita M. Gross, an American Buddhist feminist, writes in her article, published in the Cross Currents magazine, “What Went Wrong? Feminism and Freedom from the Gender Roles”, “Instead of freedom from the prison of gender roles, we have gained freedom from both the virtues and the defects of the female gender role while we-both woman and men as well as the entire culture-have become ever more enamored of the male gender role (Gross 9)”. Gross expresses females have leveled their equality by disproving females being associated with weakness, females have revealed they are strong enough to do what men can. These actions then reveal there are faults in the female gender role. However, the same has not been reciprocated on the male side, so both men and women are redirected into following the masculine role. Therefore, the progression of feminism is only halfway complete because the masculine role is in need of reform. Without an evaluation of the male gender role there is “. . .confusion between maleness and the human norm has limited men from understanding their experiences specifically as men (Gross 20)”. Before feminism, men had rights and power over women. Today while the movement is intact, women are asserting this “masculinity” just as men are, so the movement is currently a fight for power rather than purging both genders from