Freedom And Equality In The 1900's

When people hear and talk about freedom and equality, they think about The United States of America. This is the first thing that comes up into their mind because this is a couple of things that America value. Freedom and equality is what America conducts in now, but throughout the 1900’s this was not the case. All genders back then were not all equal, in fact, women back then had the littlest of freedom and equality. Sometimes the women would make a stand for their gender, and sometimes the women would let the society control them. Two women who decided to make a stand for their sex were Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucretia Mott when they started the Women’s Suffrage Movement in 1913 (Table 1). This movement was created because women in the 1900’s wanted rights to own property, vote, and receive higher education. Eventually in 1920, the nineteenth amendment passed
giving the women the right to vote in their own country, but were still being discriminated against until another historical event happened. The women being discriminated against in the 1900’s showed the harsh pathway that The American Dream gave in the twentieth century. Another historical event that showed the bitter pathway of the American Dream in the twentieth century was the Civil War.
The women in 1920 gained the right to vote when the nineteenth amendment passed, but other than that, women still had minimum rights. When the Civil War started, only men were able to fight for their beliefs on abolishing slavery or keeping in throughout America, not the women. So, the women took advantage in the oppurtunity that the war gave to them. Since all the men had left for the war, only women were in the communities, and that allowed them to start gathering loot for their family, and running the small businesses that their husband would start. The way that the women did the male jobs was fascinating because they were not accustomed to it, but still did them in an acceptable manner. This later then “demonstrated the future power of women rights” in the twentieth century (Pinsker). Although what the women did at home during the civil war helped gain them respect, they still had to face the hardships of The American Dream because they had little to zero right during the
time. Throughout the book The Great Gatsby, author F. Scott Fitzgerald exemplifies the lack of respect for women in the 1900’s. What Fitzgerald exemplifies is the opposite of The American Dream. Throughout the book, Tom views the women as objects and not people, and treats them with no respect. One way that Tom disrespected Daisy in the novel is when he cheated on her with Mr. Wilson’s wife, Myrtle. Also, Daisy was forced into marrying Tom even though she did not love him because they had to marry a man who was powerful during that time due to their limited amounts of rights. Daisy was forced into marrying Tom because women needed a man with money, and a man who offered a prestigious name to the family. F. Scott Fitzgerald exemplifies the untraditional American Dream with the lack of respect for women in his book The Great Gatsby. The 1900’s was a period in history that we Americans are not proud of, and a time that we wish we could take back. During this time we led women into the harsh pathway of The American Dream, not the Dream that everyone thinks about when they hear the word America.