Conflict Resloution

We as modern American women are walking in the path that the women of the 1920s paved for us. The youthful flappers' challenged norms yet some women were still carrying out traditional values. The idea that women were making progress towards equality with men was a severe understatement. They carried the country through wars with their efforts and ambitions and still were treated as second class citizens. With the resources from lecture and Leuchtenburg's Perils of Prosperity, I will explore the dynamic contradiction that the era of the 20's portrayed.

American had the Gibson girl which was ideally the perfect woman. Passive and obedient she would wait until a proper young man formally paid her interest with intentions for marriage. During World War 1 almost a whole generation of young men had died in the war, leaving nearly a whole generation of young women without possible husbands. These young women had decided that their young lives shouldn't be wasted waiting for a man to begin living. They radiated with independence and sexuality, a significant leap from they Gibson girl that packaged her body in concealing dresses and projected rock solid dependence.

With suffrage achieved in the 1920s , the contradictions of feminism led to conflict with the feminist. While women were fighting for their rights politically, flappers were just living life and having a good time with no worries. The flapper encouraged smoking, something only men can do at the time, demanded that they be able to dive Henry Ford's automobiles and mastered the art of dating. Ð'... "The naked flesh of the lower limbs of respectable women was revealed for the first tome since the fall of RomeÐ'..." (Leuchtenburg p. 174)

The males of this time were threatened and shocked that these young women are entering the workforce and now able to care for themselves. Not only granted the right to vote, these women were making names for them selves. These pioneering women broke the norms of men initiating sex and gave women the opportunity to gain control over their bodies and their lives. Women like Margaret Thatcher gave women a new sense of freedom through the development of birth control. This freedom also added stress not only to men but to family roles. Once women knew how to be independent they began so in marriage as well. They demanded from their husbands that their needs are met and that meant that divorce became prevalent during this age.

This new idea of the flapper was not sought be all however. Especially in the southern states, the flapper image was appalling. While the flapper socialized in speakeasies, dancing and drinking to the music of black musicians, the KKK were rampant in lynching and murdering African Americans. It seemed as though the country was so divided. At one end of the spectrum women were living it up, listening and respecting jazz and the other side trying hard to conserve