YE OLE FLAPPER

A symbol of young women's freedom and independence, the flapper redefined how a new generation of women expressed femininity. Lively and full of energy, she was single but eligible. She dared to shorten her skirts (at first just to the ankles, eventually up to the knees) and bob her hair in a short cut - like a boy's, but longer.

Just as the flapper rejected her mother's long hair, she also discarded Victorian fashions, especially the corset, which accentuated women's curves. Flappers preferred to be slender, even if it meant dieting or binding their breasts and wearing restrictive undergarments to create appear thin, flat-chested, and long-limbed.

Cultivating a flapper image and adhering to modern beauty standards also involved purchasing and applying cosmetics. Wearing lipstick, rouge, and eye-shadow, flappers resembled prostitutes to an older generation.

These young women further blurred the boundaries between respectable and depraved by their public activities; swearing, smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, dancing, and dating were among her pastimes. Condemned by most of her elders, the athletic, independent, and sexual young woman nevertheless found affirmation-and pleasure-within a thriving peer culture (unknown)

What was meant to be the assertion the female personage turned out to be a different form of bondage which continues today. What started out to be freedom has ended up being a looseness of moral character. The extension of this looseness in many cases has led to the rejection of the former bond masters (men) and has established a new set of controllers (women over women).

The only thing that restrains this from becoming all out warfare between the sexes is that the natural order of relationships is still in the majority.
The driving force behind this ongoing process is succinctly stated by the words “The darkness of the soul and the rejection of the light that has come into the world.”

A poem written by feminist Dorothy Parker during this age;    

The Flapper By Dorothy Parker

The Playful flapper here we see, the fairest of the fair.
She's not what Grandma used to be, --

You might say, au contraire. Her girlish ways may make a stir,

Her manners cause a scene,

But there is no more harm in her than in a submarine.

She nightly knocks for many a goal, the usual dancing men.
Her speed is great, but her control, Is something else again.
All spotlights focus on her pranks, all tongues her prowess herald.
For which she well may render thanks To God and Scott Fitzgerald.
Her golden rule is plain enough -
Just get them young and treat them Rough!

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