Flappers In The 1920's

Throughout the ages women have been stricken with often male-made oppression in many forms on the long, difficult road to their eventual initiation into equal rights. Some aspects of women’s rights today were obtained by questionable means in the past. One such act of liberation by questionable means was the introduction of a class of women in the 1920s known as flappers. These flappers were the beginning of a new wave of sexually and intellectually liberated women. Women of this age wore short skirts and revealing clothing in addition to cutting their hair into bobs and smoking and drinking publicly. These women were also outspoken in many areas,

People did not like the flappers dresses. They "emphatically rejected the style beginning in the 1920s because it did not show the curves of the female body." Their dress was a "boxy shape that hung straight from the shoulders and fell in an unbroken line just below the knees." This type of dress "looked best on flat-chested, small-hipped androgyne who has come to typify the freewheeling, emancipated, working 'Mew Woman ' of the world." Women were "no longer constrained by corsets and long skirts, nor by the discomfort and time it took to dress oneself in such styles." Their dresses had a "loose cut and shirt hemline [which] allowed women unprecedented freedom of movement." Their freedom of movement allowed them more room to dance up closely to men and change the thoughts on women. (Makela)

Flappers were not only being written about, but they surfaced in the new silent film industry emerging out of Hollywood. One of the most famous Flappers was the silent film star Clara Bow. Often called the “It girl, Bow was thought to have ‘it,’ a quality of open sexuality, innocence, and fun that was the very

Flapper: Flappers were northern, metropolitan, single, young, middle-class women. Many held steady jobs in the changing American economy. The clerking jobs that formed in the Gilded Age were higher than ever.The number of phone operators increased as phone usage increased. The consumer-oriented economy of the 1920s saw an increasing number of department stores. Women were needed on the sales floor to cope with the most precious customers — other women. But the flapper was not all work and play was involved. By night, flappers engaged in the active city nightlife. They would frequently visit jazz clubs and watch vaudeville shows. Speakeasies were a common destination, as the new woman of the twenties adopted the same attitude as a man. Ironically,

The Roaring Twenties also know as a new era which was a great time for a revolution.We think of this “New Era” as a freedom for women. Now women were “breaking down the spheres of Victorian values (Zeitz). ” In 1920, the powerful women 's rights movement gave the women right to vote after so many years. Now they started to become more independent and had less restriction put into them.This time period gave rise to the flapper girls who smoke, drank, and had sex as they pleased.Many women became rebels, where they started to wear short dresses and tight bathing suits which exposed their skin, and put makeup on. All these actions taken were considered immoral and disrespectful. The early 20th century was a battle between modernism and

During the 1920’s, women pursued economic independence and a freer lifestyle. They began wearing jewelry, feather boas, and bobbed hairdos. Fitzgerald uses Jordan Baker as an example of how women acted with a sense of power during this time.

From coast to coast people were reading the exploits of a new type of woman called flapper. Prior to World War 1 Victorian ideals still dictated the behavior of American women and girls. Frederick Lewis Allen describes the traditional role of women. Women were the guardians of morality. They were made of finer stuff than men. They were expected to act accordingly. Young girls must look forward in innocence to a romantic love match which would lead them to the altar and to living happily ever after. Until the right man came

Some women of the 1920s rebelled against being traditional. These women became known as flappers and impacted the post-war society. People in the 1920’s couldn’t make up their minds about flappers. Some were against them and some were with them. Therefore, some people in the 1920’s loved and idolized flappers, I on the other hand, believed that they were a disgrace to society. These women broke many rules leading young women to rebel against their families.

The flappers, that began flourishing during World War I, by the 1920’s had become a prominent character with their very own defining characteristics. Around the time of the WWI woman were closer than ever before to gaining women’s rights, giving women the confidence they needed to make change happen(2 2). By the time the war ended, flappers had gained an image of “slender woman in short straight dresses, long beaded necklaces, and bobbed hair, drinking gin and dancing the Charleston (1 167)”4. The flappers were the new woman of the era that were opinionated

Moral reformers had hoped to curb rebellious behavior, but a reverse effect resulted from the semi-private nature of speakeasies. Saloons had been exclusively for men beforehand, but prohibition marked a new era and speakeasies were heavily frequented by women. The new generation of young cosmopolitan women, dubbed “flappers,” brazenly flaunted their newfound

Frederick Lewis Allen, in his famous chronicle of the 1920s Only Yesterday, contended that women’s “growing independence” had accelerated a “revolution in manners and morals” in American society (95). The 1920s did bring significant changes to the lives of American women. World War I, industrialization, suffrage, urbanization, and birth control increased women’s economic, political, and sexual freedom. However, with these advances came pressure to conform to powerful but contradictory archetypes. Women were expected to be both flapper and wife, sex object and mother. Furthermore, Hollywood and the emerging “science” of advertising increasingly tied conceptions of femininity to

The Roaring Twenties also know as a new era which was a great time for a revolution.We think of this “New Era” as a freedom for women. Now women were “breaking down the spheres of Victorian values (Zeitz). ” In 1920, the powerful women's rights movement gave the women right to vote after so many years. Now they started to become more independent and had less restriction put into them.This time period gave rise to the flapper girls who smoke, drank, and had sex as they pleased.Many women became rebels, where they started to wear short dresses and tight bathing suits which exposed their skin, and put makeup on. All these actions taken were considered immoral and disrespectful. The early 20th century was a battle between modernism and

In the 1830’s, the ideology of a true woman was to be morally and physically pure, godly, and beautiful (Dilkes-Mullins). Although the Flappers were very beautiful women, their questionable behavior put them in a category that was not considered a true woman characteristic. However, over time the appearance and ideology of the Flapper was accepted by mainstream America. The women were gaining their independence by having their own jobs as clerks and spending their money as they saw fit.

At the start of the 1920s, a new woman emerged. She drank, danced, smoked, and took risks. She didn’t hide her legs behind thick stockings, and she put on as much makeup as she desired. Her voice was loud, her personality anything but conservative. She was known as a flapper. These woman were known for many reasons; such as, their social influence, their behavior, and the way they dressed, but how did they fill these categories?

You have more knowledge about the Roaring 20s and the people than you think you do. Coco Chanel, a fashion designer contributing clothes impacting the era. Clara Bow confidently embraced her sexuality though she was surrounded by controversy. Norma Talmadge was a successful movie star and film producer that is a department mostly run by men. These women were all flappers and contributed to feminist movement during the Roaring 20s. As this became the Jazz Age, flappers became a name for women after WW1, as the women wanted to be free and have fun with themselves. They wore makeup, started wearing clothes out of the ordinary, smoked, danced to modern jazz music, and lived in the moment causing controversy around that time.