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Body Image Of Women In The 1920's

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A quote from Amy Heckerling, an American film director, states “Body image - what we’re supposed to look like - is made so unattainable that all girls are put in this position of feeling inferior.” From the beginning of time, society has created a quintessential image for the way they desired women to look. The media influences women of the current idealistic body image they should maintain. The ideal body type varies as time goes on and is defined by the historic events that are occurring during that specific time period; we see these body statuses to become more elaborate and noticeable in the 1800s to the 1900s and they change every couple of decades post the 1900s. Women’s body expectations, for the most part, originate from a well-known …show more content…
The battle for suffrage was finally over. The 19th Amendment passed in 1920 giving women the precious right to vote. Women began attending college and advanced in the society and started to gain equality. Flappers took over in the Roaring Twenties; most of them “smoked, drank, danced, drove cars, listened to jazz, and reveled in casual sex.” The flappers has an unmistakeable look to them. The flappers were “trendy women with bob haircuts and slender, lean builds.” (Spivik 1) Unlike the modest gibson girl, the flappers dresses rose to the knee; showing their independence and to prove that they only needed to please themselves. They became the image women idolized in that time period, but no trend lasts forever. Soon after in the 40s and 50s, things took a turn. As The Great Depression came to an end, a person's weight was a sign of prosperity and health. In the post war era, Marilyn Monroe was the most iconic female figure. She was the pinnacle of beauty during these years and still remains one of the most attractive girls in American history. She was thick and leggy and embraced all of her flaws. Ironically, society shamed skinny girls in the same way mass media shames fat figures today. Contrary to today's time, they had advertisements announcing how to gain weight rather than losing

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