1920s Gender Equality

While major strides have been made in the past century in the area of gender inequality/sex discrimination; gender inequality continues to be a major focus of concern. Some of the crucial accomplishments, in the arena and the overall climate on women’s equality, were attained because of the women’s movement of the 60s and 70s. Some of these changes can also be attributed to anti-discriminatory practices against minorities such as the abolition of slavery and the amendments giving minorities the right to work and vote. These amendments, of the late 1800s, brought about the right to vote for women in the 1920s through the ratification of the nineteenth amendment, which is considered an iconic event in the effort to obtain women’s equality. Women’s …show more content…
This allowed women to begin to prove their capabilities and branch into careers that were deemed "too much" for women. With the shortage of people for the workforce, the government began to promote women to join the workforce, using propaganda such as Rosie the Riveter. The Rosie the Riveter poster created a huge vision for women, from the design to the meaning, this propaganda played a huge role for women. The design of the Rosie shows a muscular woman worker, wearing a bandana on her head. The muscles associated with the woman gave a woman a sense of strength, for the reason that muscles were usually associated with male power, catching the attention of woman throughout the United States. The poster also included the text, "We Can Do It". These words were important because Rosie was actually a real woman, who was an aircraft assembly worker. Rosie and the words gave women at the time something they could relate to and gave them the empowerment to join the …show more content…
She had hoped that by giving this speech, which focused on how gender discrimination on the workforce was real and unfair, in front of the House of Representatives, that a change would become realistic. Starting her speech with, “Young woman graduates from college and starts looking for a job, she is likely to have a frustrating and even demeaning experience ahead of her", Chisholm explains that women have a difficult time looking for a "dream" job. She backs up her claims by stating," Why is it acceptable for women to be secretaries, librarians, and teachers but totally unacceptable for them to be managers, administrators, doctors, lawyers, and Members of Congress". Chisholm also explained that women were seen as not having the ability, skills, and being too emotional to hold a high positioned job, which is the reason for the preference of men in these positions. The speech finally concluded with the statement," What we need are laws to protect working people, to guarantee the, fair pay, safe working conditions, protection against sickness and layoffs, and provision for dignified, comfortable retirement. Men and women need things equally. The reason that Chisholm is a huge influence to women 's rights is because her speech perfectly voiced what many women felt and what was happening in the real