Women protesting for their right to vote
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August 26th, 1920On this important date, the 19th amendment was ratified. While individual states granted women the right to vote, the 19th amendment guaranteed the right to women nationwide. However, although women gained the right to vote, they were still allowed little political freedom. What's worse, with the right to vote, women lost the one unifying cause they had, leading to many dropping out of government activities and politics in all ways. Of course, the younger generation would not follow in the footsteps of their parents; they were going to live life to the fullest with the newly found consumerism.
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Who Flappers Really WereFlappers were known for smoking, a habit normally indulged by men only.
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We see flappers as a sort of fun loving girl, who's alright with being a little rebellious. While this is a fairly true view of them, they were a big part of the women's movement. Flappers didn't really care about the right to vote, for that's what their mothers were doing. Instead, they went about redefining the cultural norms. Flappers wore makeup, smoked, and wore scandalously short dresses. Chopping off their hair, they dared anyone to tell them
Looking at our new cultural norms, we can see just how much the flappers influenced our way of thinking. While smoking has decreased, it's because of our knowledge on the health problems it created. Makeup is not something only "ladies of the night" wear. It's acceptable for women to drink, and while they certainly didn't mean to support the suffragists, it forced men to begin to accept women as equals, rather than inferiors.
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