The Flapper

"It's the Bees Knees!"

What is a Flapper?

"In the 1920's, the term "flapper" referred to a "new breed" of young women who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair,

listened to Jazz and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered "decent behavior".  The flappers were

seen as brash in their time for wearing make-up, drinking hard liquor and smoking."

~Wikipedia

 The Flapper and The Twenties

The twenties were a time of great moral conflict; a fight between the “old” culture and the “new” culture.  It was a time of changing ideas, values and the disintegrating American Dream.  Flappers encompass this idea of the struggles between the cultures.  They helped define "new culture" and in many ways shaped the modern woman.

Flappers were women of independence.  They weren’t afraid of social constraints; in fact, they defied them.  They lashed out at the traditional woman.  While the norm was for women to have long hair, they cut theirs off in a boyish bob.  The typical woman was curvy: they basically invented the bra to reduce the appearance of their busts.  They refused to be bound by corsets and pantaloons and the conventions of society. 

They fought against prohibition and the people who supported it.     They spent long nights dancing to jazz music in the many speakeasies that replaced cabarets and saloons.  They rouged their knees and brought attention to all the things the typical, "decent" woman wouldn’t.  They attended “petting parties” and celebrated their newfound sexual identity.    

Culture: Old vs. New

The Flapper and The Modern Woman

Today’s woman technically has any right that a man does.  She votes, wears pants, drives her own car, is in the workforce, participates in politics and so much more.  In the 1920’s, these rights were just beginning to come alive.  The suffrage movement, World War 1, and the changing of gender roles can all be accredited to the 20’s.

             The flapper worked hard to change the identity of the typical woman.  She wanted women to experience a freedom that they never had before.  She opened the door to a sexual revolution as well as a fight for women’s rights.  She created a different place for women in the world.  In many ways, she paved the way for today’s woman. 

             While I am thankful that I do not have to wear corsets and cover every inch of my body to be considered decent, I believe we have implanted our own ideals of what the typical woman should be.  Today’s society places emphasis on being thin with a large bust, long hair and clear complexions.  Little girls start dieting in elementary school, eating disorders are a fad, and MTV culture is idolized.

 In our society, the battle between the “old” culture and the “new” still exists.  While prohibition was overturned, we still battle religion and science, what is right and what isn’t.  The new MTV culture is ostracized by the more conservative culture of earlier times.  History is a cycle and times of conservatism and hedonism will continue to rotate.  The 20’s are a beginning of this cycle.  The Flappers were women who put it all out there, and wouldn’t be shut down by the more conservative women of the time.  The depression led to more conservative times, the Cold War, WW2, the conservative  50’s and 60’s, the wild 70’s, drug induced 80’s.  It is all a cycle, a pattern.