Roaring Twenties Argumentative Essay

The Roaring Twenties was a prime era for women. Because of the toils of many strong women, ideals were flipped on their head, to America’s benefit. In the late 1800’s, two women, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, quickly realized that women would not be able to share their political views unless given the right to vote. Because of the fact that women had basically no other societal roles besides housework, they were not respected during this time period. So the two women teamed up and spent the rest of their lives fighting for the women’s suffrage movement. Several campaigns, petitions and an arrest later, the 19th Amendment was finally ratified. However, this surprisingly did not have a great affect the lives of Americans

Despite this, women were able to make a huge impact on America through social reforms. Many young women went against the beliefs of their parents. Prior to the Roaring Twenties, America was in a Victorian era. Women wore dresses that were floor-length, their hair was long and premarital sex was almost non-existent. During the 1920’s however, some women became what are known as “flappers”. This was a special fashion that segregated that subculture of young women from the older generations. In order to symbolize their independence and rebellion, flappers wore dresses with a hem that stopped at the knee, they often bobbed their hair (cut their hair short), smoking cigarettes, driving cars and visiting speakeasies to drink bootleg alcohol. Not only this, but many people revolted against sexual taboos in this era. According to Newman and Schmalbach, “Some were influenced by the writings of the Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud, who stressed the role of sexual repression in mental illness. Others, who perhaps had never heard of Freud, took to premarital sex as if it were-like radio and jazz music-one of the inventions of the modern age… [Also] the use of contraceptives for birth control was still against the law in