Women's Suffrage In The 1920s

What is suffrage? Suffrage is the right to vote in political races. According to History.com Staff in the article “Women’s Suffrage”, up until August 26th, 1920 women lacked suffrage(3). Before then, women were expected by society to play a specific role. Women began pushing against these roles and expectations and making their own. Fashion helped women accomplish this change in the role they had to play in society. Women demanded a change in how they were treated by American culture. According to History.com Staff, the fight for suffrage began long before, including the use of fashion as a way to fight against the idea that women had to be a wife and mother who was focused only on her house and family. The first big campaigns for women’s

This was only one step in the plan of American women. They wanted more freedom and less judgement from society. According to History.com Staff in the article “The Roaring Twenties”, “the most familiar symbol of the ‘Roaring Twenties’ is probably the flapper: a young woman with bobbed hair and short skirts who drank, smoked and said what might be termed ‘unladylike’ things, in addition to being more sexually ‘free’ than previous generations”(1). Many women began working in traditionally male dominated jobs. They also became more independent. Along with women, young people in general were gaining more freedom in the 1920s. One factor to this was the increase in cars being bought. Cars were beginning to become safer and produced more. In “The Roaring Twenties”, “Cars also gave young people the freedom to go where they pleased and do what they wanted.(Some pundits called them “bedrooms on wheels”)(History. Com Staff, 2).

The Flapper Men were not the only ones affected by prohibition. By this time, society was becoming more permitting about women drinking alcohol. In fact, one big feature of the famous flapper icon was drinking alcohol. According to Jacqueline Herald in “Fashions of a Decade: The 1920s”, “Undeterred by the disapproval of adults, the younger generation was setting out to have a good time. The emancipated female painted her face and drank cocktails. She smoked cigarettes placed in elegant holders”(28). Women have gained many freedoms since the beginning of their fight for independence. They gained freedoms in fashion. Fashion has evolved since the 19th century allowing women to show more skin and eventually wear pants. They also gained freedoms to be independent, drink, smoke, and speak out. They no longer have to be submissive housewives, and can choose to pursue what they