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The Woman In The Roaring '20

The woman in the roaring ’20s
In the 1920s, a new woman was born. She smoked, drank, danced, and voted. She
cut her hair, wore make-up, and went to parties. She was giddy and took
risks. She was a flapper.
Before the start of World War I, the Gibson Girl was the rage. Gibson Girl wore her long hair loosely
on top of her head and wore a long straight skirt and a shirt with a high collar. She was feminine but
also broke through several gender barriers for her attire allowed her to participate in sports,
including golf, roller skating, and bicycling. Then World War I started. The young men of the world
were being used as cannon fodder for an older generation's ideals and mistakes. When the war was
over, the survivors went home and the world tried to return to normalcy. Unfortunately, settling
down in peacetime proved more difficult than expected. During the war, the boys had fought against
both the enemy and death in far away lands; the girls had bought into the patriotic fervor and
aggressively entered the workforce. Both the boys and the girls of this generation
had broken out of society's structure; they found it very difficult to return. Women were just as
anxious as the men to avoid returning to society's rules and roles after the war. After World War I,
many American and European families needed to replace the incomes of the family fathers lost in
battle; women often accepted jobs and moved outside the home. The change was reflected in the
media: the garçonne-look portrayed the ideal woman as an androgynous, working woman that had
reached equality with men while simultaneously possessing the appeal of the femme fatale.
Pantsuits, hats and canes gave women a sleek look without frills while avoiding the fickleness of
fashion. In the age of the Gibson Girl, young women did not date, they waited until a proper young
man formally paid her interest with marriage. However, nearly a whole generation of young men had
died...