Blog #11

Textbook: Chapter 8
1. It was appropriate to speak about “New Woman” because the women in the 1920’s were different than those in prior decades and these woman played a large role in influencing society. They lived new lifestyles, and as each new decade appeared, a new and more independent type of woman was revealed. The 1920’s had first brought a new change with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment which allowed for woman’s suffrage. Woman had been involved in politics in which they organized their own parties and even influenced the Democratic and Republican parties with some of the women’s issues which these parties recognized. Some woman were elected into politics such as those few elected to Congress. These new changes did not only appear in politics. As woman lived in this new era, a “New Woman” was introduced to the world. She was a “flapper” girl who did not care about what society thought of her. She was a rebellious type of girl strutting her short dress and rolled stockings. She made use of the new culture with her consumerism and her love of materialistic goods. She was the symbol of a “New Woman” in a new era.

2. Even though women were beginning to enter the world of politics in the United States, these women had experienced difficulty during their service. While in politics, women had always been expected to carry out the women’s issues and therefore gave them a limited amount of power in politics. It had become harder for women at the end of the 1920’s because many of these women had different goals and ideas of how they would carry out these goals, which caused a division between these women. An example of this was of the articles that argued for the ERA and the article that argued against the ERA. These women had different beliefs which made the bond between them weaker and made it difficult for them to carry out their agendas.

3. As the Great Depression was occurring in the 1930’s, citizens throughout the nation were fighting for a way to survive. Woman had gone through great difficulties in order to keep their children from starvation. They had lost their crops in droughts and were forced to migrate west in order to find new resources during their fight for survival. The image shows the hardships that these women had endured. The stress deep in her eyes show us the troubles this woman had to overcome. Her hand on her cheek while looking out into the horizon proves to us that she is nervous and unsure of what the future might bring. She sits there and ponders, worrying about her children as they rest themselves on their only source of strength, their mother. Her hair, beautifully brushed to the side, giving herself that feeling of being a young girl again; but still she is woman, a mother of thirty-two with wrinkles streaming away from her sorrowful eyes with each wrinkle telling a story of her hardship. She is a young caring mother colorful at heart, captured in a moment of grey, who has lived a lifetime.

4. The experiences of people during the Great Depression had been different because of the gender roles that existed. Many had believed that the women should work in the home even though many women had already begun to enter the workforce in the twentieth century. They believed that unemployment was and should be a problem for the men and not the women. The women in the home were able to keep the home together with their cooking and housecleaning while the men walked the streets with nothing to do. In a psychological aspect, the unemployment for men would take away their masculinity which would cause a disruption in the relationship of the families. Men had deserted their families and birth rates had declined.