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Flappers In The 1920's Essay

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The new woman of the 1920’s is automatically portrayed as a flapper, but there is much more to the new woman than just the assumed image that every woman was a flapper. More women were becoming educated. More women were focusing on themselves and on sexual relationships with their partners or husbands. Staying home and having children was starting to no longer be the norm. Women also gained the right to vote. During this time women gained a lot but also faced many challenges and discrimnation.

In the 1920’s college educated women were no longer pioneers. There were two and even three generations of graduates of women’s and coeducational colleges and universities. Women were becoming part of professional areas that women had never been a part of before. The new professional woman was a vivid and widely publicized image in the 1920’s. However most employed women were still non professional lower class workers. Middle class women remained largely in the home. The decade began to redefine motherhood. John B Watson and …show more content…

Women began to drink, smoke, dance, wear seductive clothing and makeup, and attend lively parties. While the flapper is not all of the focus on women in the 1920’s it does play a role. Modern women found a liberated lifestyle in being able to express themselves through hairstyles, dress, speech, and behavior. Middle class women and working women were beginning to fill jobs in industry and service sectors. At night these women would go to nightclubs and dance halls in search of excitement and companionship. Some women shunned marriage entirely. Women began initiating divorces and during this time the divorce rate rose rapidly. Some women even became secretly romantic with other women, this was known as a Boston marriage. Even though women were branching out and coming into themselves they got portrayed as simple provocative

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The 1920 's is remembered and referred to as the "Jazz Age," or the "Era of the Lost Generation," which had its share of cultural conflicts between many groups and organizations. In the article of The New Woman and Politics of the 1920 's, by Lynn Dumenil, he explains how the "new woman" of the era also know as a "Flapper," was a symbol for women 's roles in society. The article states that "women 's participation in the workforce, and the political activism of these newly enfranchised citizens, offers a vehicle for broadening our understanding of the social, economic, and political developments of the era. " When the article mentions "women 's participation" this to me, became a major influence to changes in American politics, society and

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The first thing that comes to mind when I hear of the 1920s are flappers. I picture the women with bobbed hair, shorter flowy dresses exposing skin, galoshes, and cigarettes. Not only did women begin to dress and look a certain way, they began to behave differently as well. Throughout history, women were deemed to be inferior to men, and were treated as such. Society expected women to take on the role of a homemaker.

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The era of 1920s is known for flapper dresses, extravagant lifestyles, and reformation of women. Before this time, women were treated as property and did not have their own voices in politics and their personal lives. With the start of the 20th century, women yearned for a change. They wore shorter dresses, became more reckless, and took control of their lives. F. Scott Fitzgerald was a renowned author during the 1920s who provided commentary about the changes of women.

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Joshua Zeitz, an American author and historian writes about, the contemporary woman modernizing the new decade of the twenties. Flappers were the epitome of the twenties, the pushers against social norms, and the young rambunctious women who changed the meaning of what meant to be a woman. Zeitz includes quotes from the inventor of the flapper, F.Scott Fitzgerald “‘The flapper is growing stronger than ever; she gets wilder all the time ... She is continuously seeking for something due to increased her store of experience. She still is looking for new conventions to break -for a new thrills, for sensations to add zest to life, and she is growing more and more terrible’”, (Zeitz 7).

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In April of 1966, James Brown sang that “this is a man’s world”, however only four decades before women had been working to prove their value and social power, by challenging the social norms, and showing that it truly would be nothing with the women of the nation. Though, in reality, to what extent did they challenge the social norms of their time? There were limitations facing the women of the 1920s regardless they changed society for the better. Even before the 1920s, women were making a new name for themselves in society. The First World War was a pivotal moment for women’s social status.

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“Flappers” better known as a groups of young woman who wore skirts, had bobbed hair, frequently listened to jazz, and tended to use sexual behavior fairly often. The picture of the group of Flappers in Document L shows the specific styles of clothing and traits of the Flappers during the twentieth century(DOC L). In the twenties, the traditionalist viewed them in a negative way. If one was considered a flapper, it meant that she had many sexual encounters. Traditionalists didn’t want women to strive to be like that.

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(Hatton 2) Women in this era, were a far image from previous women. They turned the 1920s into a model of modern women hood by dominating the american cultural scenes. The flapper look was very different than what the women previously of the 1920s wore. Physically the women had bobbed hair, noticeable makeup, and flashy lipstick.

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While a majority of the “old-fashioned” people disagreed with the ways of flappers in this time, others saw it as a declaration of independance. “(…) the New Woman of the 1920s boldly asserted her right to dance, drink, smoke, and date—to work her own property, to live free of the strictures that governed her mother’s generation. (…) She flouted Victorian-era conventions and scandalized her parents. In many ways, she controlled her own destiny.”

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These new women were more rebellious and their values were no longer conventional but focused on getting a better job while the vote made them more influential members of society. The flappers were more independent, adventurous but most of all, they were modern (“Routledge”). The flappers attended more parties and they had more risque dances which they performed to the jazz music of the era. The prohibition created speakeasies, which were underground clubs that people could go to to drink illegal alcohol and listen to controversial jazz music. In these places, flappers would have “petting parties” where they would kiss men in public, which was not commonplace (“The USA: A Nation of Contrasts.”).

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Women also stated believing that they did not have to act as a woman were expected to act all the time. They believed they could drink, smoke, party, dance, wear make up and seductive clothes without any problems. These women were given the name of a flapper. Alcohol had a major influence on the 1920s. In January of 1920 the 18th amendment was passed.

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The image of the flapper was used in magazines and advertising and lead to the influence of mass consumer culture and media. This new image of the flapper “encouraged both the consumption of new products and new patterns of consumption and provided women with accessible routes to engage with modernity.” Since women started to gain rights such as voting and opportunity to gain jobs, women started to gain a sense of freedom and started to mix in with the new modern world they were entering in. As stated before, technology started to rise, and companies wanted to sell these new products. So, companies started to aim towards women in

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This was only one step in the plan of American women. They wanted more freedom and less judgement from society. According to History.com Staff in the article “The Roaring Twenties”, “the most familiar symbol of the ‘Roaring Twenties’ is probably the flapper: a young woman with bobbed hair and short skirts who drank, smoked and said what might be termed ‘unladylike’ things, in addition to being more sexually ‘free’ than previous generations”(1). Many women began working in traditionally male dominated jobs. They also became more independent.

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Despite this, women were able to make a huge impact on America through social reforms. Many young women went against the beliefs of their parents. Prior to the Roaring Twenties, America was in a Victorian era. Women wore dresses that were floor-length, their hair was long and premarital sex was almost non-existent. During the 1920’s however, some women became what are known as “flappers”.

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Not only did they obtain the right to vote, but contraception was becoming popularized. Women were becoming more progressive not only with their ideas, but with their fashion as well. They began to lose the drab and conservative clothing of the older times, and began to reach for the new and more revealing clothing. When most people think of the 1920s many think of flappers and how they help revolutionize women to who were are today. “The most familiar symbol of the “Roaring Twenties” is probably the flapper: a young woman with bobbed hair and short skirts who drank, smoked and said what might be

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These bars changed how women acted. Women now would drink, smoke and talk about sexual relations in public. This created the new women, or flappers. They generally had much shorter skirts, were more politically proactive, and had a good time. According to the fifteenth reading women even bobbed their hair or cut it rather short.

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