Ad of Women fulfilling the roles of men during WWI

“The Great Gatsby” written by F. Scott Fitzgerald was a book that distinguished between “old money” and “new money.” “Old money” were from people that inherited money or had money from years ago, whereas “new money” meant people that recently earned money and were trying to fit in. To better distinguish the old vs. new, this was done geographically. For instance, East Egg was old money and West Egg was the newly rich. One can assume that the story took place around New York City, however the West Egg and the New Egg were part of Long Island. Jay Gatsby is a man who has new money, he is also a man who respects women. However, he creates conflict upon Daisy’s marriage. Daisy and Tom Buchanan are married but they are not happy. Tom is of old money and despises Gatsby due to how he flaunts his money. This novel connects the to evolution woman by illustrating how women were free to an extent by partying and living a lavish lifestyle, if you were rich of course. But most importantly it’s the concept where Daisy and Gatsby are reestablishing their connection. And one which can ruin the marriage between Daisy and Tom but that does not seem to stop them from true love. Women were definitely not as open like this in the 1700 or 1800’s. They were more conservative, dancing and partying were done but not in such a way. Instead, they had balls, dinners, and other events that was more of peaceful and showed class. But overtime class had changed, the value of money, people partying, consumers did not care. They were living life because they had just successfully come out of WWI. Most importantly, the women had changed meaning, now they have experienced characteristics of the gents. This was because during WWI most of the men had to go and fight the war so who was left to produces, tanks, ships, and weapons? Women! Women took over jobs that the men would normally do. Once the men came back everyone went back to their own roles, but that does not mean women could not do them. It just meant that women had other priorities, which was kind of established by society, which was to take care of the kids, the house, and her husband.

The quote that struck me was when Daisy states in Chapter 1, “I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” She says this because Daisy is speaking from her own experience, that women are not valued for intelligence. The women that were of youth during that time period were to be thought as pleasure seekers since they just followed what society had told them to. However, make no mistake, this was only distinguished by the upper working class women. Meaning this was only possible to them and not to any other women, because for them everything was a luxury, time, food, cleaning, or not cleaning, etc. But getting back to Daisy’s remark she herself was not given of any value by her husband thus, resulting a continuation of women being suppressed by society to an extent.