WOMEN IN THE 1920’S
WOMEN IN THE 1920’S
Suffrage and Prohibition
• First federal vote in 1917 Military Elections Act
• Many women joined the Women’s Christian Temperance Movement to make change happen
• This gave women a new active lobbying/political role when women had very little
The Famous Five
• 1918 women given the right to vote
• 1921 first women elected to govt. Agnes Macphail
• A group of 5 women: Emily Murphy (first female judge), Nellie McClung (teacher), Louise McKinney, Irene Parlby, Henrietta Edwards fought for the right for women to sit in the Canadian Senate.
• Under the law women were not considered “persons”.
• Many women (and men) felt this was wrong so they took the battle to court. This case was famously called “the Persons case”
• The highest court in
Canada ruled…
…women were NOT persons!
• The Famous Five appealed to the highest court in the British Empire and in 1929 it ruled women were indeed “persons” under the law
• 1930 Cairine Wilson was the first woman appointed to the Senate
Flappers
• Flappers made their debut just after World War One
• They were called “Flappers” because of their open galoshes which made a flapping sound when they walked (or their dresses or braids from younger girls in WWI)
• In the 1920’s Flapper” was used to describe bold young women who dressed and acted unconventionally
• Some women were more forward. They danced and drank all night. They had sexual partners before marriage.
• Many women smoked cigarettes or drank alcohol because it was considered socially unacceptable for women to smoke.
• Flappers were rebelling against social norms imposed on women.
Many Flappers took part in a radical new fashion:
• Dresses that barely came to their knees
• Short hair (“bob” or “shingle”)
• Wore more makeup
Dancing the Charleston was frowned upon by stuck-up old schools
• Not all women were flappers.
• Women still filled “normal” roles in society like moms, nurses, teachers, secretaries, etc.
Other Rights: Birth Control
• Distributing birth control information was illegal in the 1920s/1930s; people could be imprisoned for up to two years.
• This discouraged women (and men) from asking about birth control information.
Other Rights: Divorce Rights
• 1925 women gained the right to divorce if their husbands committed adultery
(before this only men could divorce for this reason)
• Near the end of the 1920s, flappers were starting to lose their popularity
Why?
• 1929 stock market crash.... The Dirty Thirties or The Great Depression
• For women the struggle to survive the depression became the most important thing in their lives
• Flapper women got regular jobs, became wives and moms. They were ‘integrated’ into normal society
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