WOMEN IN THE 1920’S

Suffrage and Prohibition

• First federal vote in 1917 Military Elections Act

• Many women joined the Women’s Christian Temperance Movement to make change happen

• This gave women a new active lobbying/political role when women had very little

The Famous Five

• 1918 women given the right to vote

• 1921 first women elected to govt. Agnes Macphail

• A group of 5 women: Emily Murphy (first female judge), Nellie McClung (teacher), Louise McKinney, Irene Parlby, Henrietta Edwards fought for the right for women to sit in the Canadian Senate.

• Under the law women were not considered “persons”.

• Many women (and men) felt this was wrong so they took the battle to court. This case was famously called “the Persons case”

• The highest court in

Canada ruled…

…women were NOT persons!

• The Famous Five appealed to the highest court in the British Empire and in 1929 it ruled women were indeed “persons” under the law

• 1930 Cairine Wilson was the first woman appointed to the Senate

Flappers

• Flappers made their debut just after World War One

• They were called “Flappers” because of their open galoshes which made a flapping sound when they walked (or their dresses or braids from younger girls in WWI)

• In the 1920’s Flapper” was used to describe bold young women who dressed and acted unconventionally

• Some women were more forward. They danced and drank all night. They had sexual partners before marriage.

• Many women smoked cigarettes or drank alcohol because it was considered socially unacceptable for women to smoke.

• Flappers were rebelling against social norms imposed on women.

Many Flappers took part in a radical new fashion:

• Dresses that barely came to their knees

• Short hair (“bob” or “shingle”)

• Wore more makeup

Dancing the Charleston was frowned upon by stuck-up old schools

• Not all women were flappers.

• Women still filled “normal” roles in society like moms, nurses, teachers, secretaries, etc.

Other Rights: Birth Control

• Distributing birth control information was illegal in the 1920s/1930s; people could be imprisoned for up to two years.

• This discouraged women (and men) from asking about birth control information.

Other Rights: Divorce Rights

• 1925 women gained the right to divorce if their husbands committed adultery

(before this only men could divorce for this reason)

• Near the end of the 1920s, flappers were starting to lose their popularity

Why?

• 1929 stock market crash.... The Dirty Thirties or The Great Depression

• For women the struggle to survive the depression became the most important thing in their lives

• Flapper women got regular jobs, became wives and moms. They were ‘integrated’ into normal society

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