The Flapper’s of the 1920’s

Jenna Shumate

Mrs. Thompson

U.S. History

16 May 2017

The Flapper’s of the 1920’s

In the 1920s, a new woman was born.  She smoked, drank, danced, and voted.  She cut her hair, wore make-up, and went to petting parties.  She was giddy and took risks.  She was a flapper.  The most famous flapper was Clara Bow, she was the star of the movie “It” and soon became known as the ‘It Girl’.  Clara Bow once said “we had individuality.  We did as we pleased.  We stayed up late.  We dressed the way we wanted.  I used to whiz down Sunset Boulevard in my open Kissel, with several red chow dogs to match my hair.  Today, they're sensible and end up with better health.  But we had more fun”.  This quote from Clara Bow describes the new age of women in America that came about.  The image of a flapper was given through cartoon drawings created by John Held Jr in magazines published in the 1920s.  The print media defined the Flapper for the rest of the world, who did not understand why these women would disdain their mother and grandmother’s tradition.  Many flappers were described as a “young woman who danced, drank, bobbed her hair, showed skin, and had casual sex” (Sagert, p.11).  These women were normally around the age of 19, come from middle class families, and had little to no political knowledge.  The Flappers of the 1920’s had a large impact on the appearance and behavior of women in the United States due to their risky clothes, social freedom, and participation in casual sexual actions.

Flappers ditched their tight clothes and layers of undergarments for loose, short, and provocative outfits.  These women were seen to wear, “a bra, underpants, and silk stockings” (Lindop, 60), this was a major step down from the Victorian age clothing.  “Silky dresses showed everything under her knee and low necklines were common, many dresses were sleeveless and backless” (Lindop, 60).  As this new fashion took over “new fashionable dancers took advantage of mobility and flexibility that the clothes gave women” (Infobase).  “It is said that girls ‘parked’ their corsets when they were to go dancing” (Hall, 773).  The new, energetic dances of the Jazz Age, required women to be able to move freely.  Replacing the pantaloons and corsets were underwear called ‘step-ins.’  Many women adopted “short hemlines and bobber haircuts” (American) to show off their figures.  “To look more like a boy, women tightly wound their chest with strips of cloth in order to flatten it” (Hatton, 112).  The waists of flapper clothes were dropped to the hipline.  The hem of the skirts also started to rise in the 1920s.  At first the hem only rose a few inches, but from 1925 to 1927 a flapper's skirt fell just below the knee.  These new fashions and less clothes being worn caused, “knees became a sexualized body part” (Infobase) because they were never shown before.  The skirt comes just an inch below her knees, overlapping by a faint fraction her rolled and twisted stockings.  Flappers were also the first generation to wear makeup, lipstick, and eyeliner.  “Cosmetics industry grew as women start wearing makeup in large numbers” (Flappers).  Make-up was introduced for women to wear when they went out with men.   Many Flappers would do their makeup to match the ‘racy’ outfits they were wearing out dancing.

Women started exercising their social freedom, they wanted to have as much freedom as men of the time.  Flappers were known for having the “expectation that women could engage in the same social freedom as men” (Hanson, 50).  The flapper attitude was characterized by stark truthfulness, fast living, and sexual behavior.  Flappers seemed to cling to youth as if it were to leave them at any moment.  They took risks and we're reckless.  The flapper of the 1920s “smoked cigarettes” (Wells), which was previously only associated with men.  Smoking wasn't the most outrageous of the flapper's rebellious actions.  Flappers drank alcohol.  At a time when the United States had outlawed alcohol (Prohibition), young women were starting the habit early.  Some even carried hip-flasks full so as to have it on hand.  Many adults didn't like to see tipsy young women.  Flappers had a scandalous image as the “giddy flapper, rouged and clipped, careening in a drunken stupor to the lewd strains of a jazz quartet” (Hatton, 112).  Besides the probation, the 1920s was also the Jazz Age and one of the most popular pastimes for flappers was dancing.  As described in the May 1920 edition of the Atlantic Monthly, flappers "trot like foxes, limp like lame ducks, one-step like cripples, and all to the barbaric yawp of strange instruments which transform the whole scene into a moving-picture of a fancy ball in bedlam” (Baughman, 269).  For the Flapper generation, the dances fit their fast-paced life-style.  These social freedoms helped to create the new women, flappers tended to “take a man’s point of view” (Hooper).  Flappers wanted to break free of the social normality of the Victorian age, and create new women.

Flappers also had changed the view on sexual activities and how they viewed marriage.  Many Flappers “believed in a greater degree of sex freedom” (Allen, 234). These changes in the sexual and social climate suited flappers, who tended to avoid long-term commitments such as marriage and enjoyed flirting with multiple male partners. Flappers “declared that dating had an object other than marriage” (Infobase).  Most flappers claimed that there was nothing particularly outrageous about their behavior, since sexual aggressiveness in young men had been widely tolerated for some time.  In their view, they were simply working to eliminate the social “double standard” (Danzer, 441) that had previously enabled men, but not women, to engage in premarital flirtations and sexual activity.  Double standard was changed with the “political field leveled by the nineteenth amendment, women sought to eliminate social and sexual double standard” (Flappers); the women of the 1920s succeeded in eliminating the double standard.  As more women are having relationships for the fun of it the “divorce rates increased, legal access to birth control, and smaller family size” (Lindop, 102). Women also started to use birth control for the first time in the 1920s, because people started to have sex for pleasure instead of having sex to have children.  Many believed that the “discussion of sex should be free and continued” (Allen, 234).  Flappers often “read, talked, and thought about sex, and defied anyone who said no” (Allen, 234).  Although all these things changed the “views on courtship rituals, marriages, and childbearing still on women but changed some” (Hanson, 49), most of the responsibilities stayed within the women’s realm.  With this Flappers had always done sexual relations to please the man in their life, whether father or husband, but with the new women they “chose activities to please themselves not father or husband” (Flappers).  Since the women know chose to please themselves and not their husbands or fathers, “several newlyweds cheated on husbands” (Flappers).  Flappers redefined the way a marriage and dating should be to make it about pleasure and not about having children.  Women looked at sex as a reproduction system instead of a pleasure as well, the Flappers changed that view.  Flapper “flouted traditional sex roles” (Wells) and changed views on sexual activities.

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