Lives of Women

• Positives:

  • During WW1, Women made up 20% of the workforce in work places such as factories and steel mills.
  • During the 1920s, the amount of women in the workforce increased, despite the fact many left their positions once the war ended and men returned to their jobs. 2 million women joined the workforce but they still continued to only make up 20% of its total.
• New electrical items such as vacuum cleaners meant women had to do less house work.

  The range of work women could do also increased during the 1920s, in one study women were found to be in 537 of all 572 jobs available.
• Only 12% of married women had jobs by the end of the 1920s, but it was found that more married women than before continued with their work: the number of married women in the workforce increased from 1.9 million at the beginning of the 1920s, to 3.1 million by the end.
• Most women worked in jobs seen traditionally as 'female'. Mainly paid service work, while this wasn't true for some who moved into more diverse jobs, it was true for the majority.

  Only two women were in the House of Representatives, part of the central government, in 1928.
• Some young women became flappers. They wore shorter skirts, cut their hair short, smoked, and danced at clubs + dancehalls.

  Flappers changed the image of women in society.

  Clara Bow became known as the 'It Girl'.

  More women went out on dates without male chaperones, wore more make up and perfume and some even had sex before marriage.
• However, only some women were flappers, e.g. single working class women who were still young, middle class college students or free-spirited upper class women.

  Few were from ethnic minorities and many flappers gave up their freedoms and settled down when they were older.
• The proportion of women who attended higher education as opposed to men actually fell in the 1920s.
• Negatives

  Most women were expected to remain home and spend their time cooking and cleaning and raising children.

  If young women went out they were expected to be accompanied by a male chaperone the majority of the time.

  Ethnic minority women still worked in the lowest paid jobs, often as domestic servants.
• In December 1927, the average women earned around $12 less than a man per week.

  When women were granted the right to vote, they mainly voted the same as their husbands, rather than pushing for the advancement of women.
• Divorce rates rose from 10% to around 17%, which is neither positive nor negative, but it did say something about women's independence free from their husbands.