In 1920, the 19th Amendment was passed and women now had the right to vote. But also with the right to vote came a new sense of freedom todo things, which prior to this decade were forbidden. Young women in their teens and twenties began drinking and smoking, and new smoking rooms were built just for women. Women began to wear short skirts as opposed to long dresses, cut their hair short, wore popular makeup, engaged in premarital sex, and flattened their breasts. These women became known as flappers because it sounded like the sound made by the unbuckled galoshes they wore. These women attended speakeasies regularly and went out at night to have a good time, something that women didn't do prior to the twenties. Feminists were outraged at how these new flappers dressed and how they acted, but what outraged feminists the most was the whimsical attitude towards sex flappers represented. Parents were also among the people who opposed flappers as they didn't want their children to be exposed to these women at a young age for fear that their children might want to be like them.

Not all women were completely against the new fashions. Beauty parlors boomed with women going into them and hoping to come out looking as sexy as possible. By 1927, New York City had 3,500 of the salons, a huge number compared to the puny 750 shops which existed in 1922. The bathroom scale was constantly put into use and calorie counting became a fad. Margaret Gorman in 1921 won the 1st Miss America Pageant. As for the careless view for sex, well Americans began to warm up to that idea too. Sex came to be on nearly everyone's mind during the 1920s. Advertising
was filled with it, an the public responded well to these new ads. But it wasn't just advertising; books, movies, and plays began to fill up with sex. Condoms were sold at barbershops, pharmacies, and gas stations allowing for safe sex. With safe sex available, people started having premarital sex as they would not have to bear the burden of a child. Although there was some resistance at first, Americans views of flappers and their lifestyle warmed and many came to accept them and their ways.