Did Flappers Change Women's Rights?

Introduction:

In 1929 English novelist Virginia Woolf wrote “The history of England is the history of the male line, not of the female. Of our fathers we know always some fact, some distinction. They were soldiers or they were sailors; they filled that office or they made that law. But of our mothers, our grandmothers, our great-grandmothers, what remains? We know nothing of their marriages and the number of children they bore.”[1] But that was all about to change and one day the lives of women in the 1920’s would be very well known.

 The 1920’s was an era of change, the war was over and it became an era of freedom and fun for most. Art movements such as Art Deco and Jazz music became popular, as did smoking, drinking, dancing and socialising, for women to, people in the twenties were in many ways care free until the Great Depression hit in 1929.

One of the biggest changes in the 1920’s was women, their personalities, rights, roles in society and probably biggest of all their fashion and style. But what caused all this change for women was it just society and the law, or did flappers and their new way of life and carefree attitude change women’s rights?

A flapper was not just an outfit or a look, it was a lifestyle to, it was a fight for equality and a right to live a life the way women wanted to.

Before the 1920’s women had very little rights and were seen as second class citizens to men, but that all changed after World War I. Gloria Swanson, popular silent film actress and fashion icon said of women in the twenties, “Perhaps the greatest change (in the twenties) was in women – the world’s view of her, her view of the world. There was a new spirit of freedom, a new morality.”[2]

Without the worry of War people’s lives returned to normality and they were able to focus on other things, such as what was wrong with society and what needed to change.

Economy was strong in the 1920’s and it was a time of luxury and greed, not something that people had every really experienced before especially whilst living through a war.

The twenties didn’t just mark the end of World War I though; it also marked the birth of the Flapper, and a new way of life for women.

Flappers were probably one of the biggest contributors to the change in women’s rights; they lived a life that no women had ever lived before.  It was a care free life, which meant women didn’t just have one role in life, to be a wife and a mother, but to be whoever or whatever they wanted to be.

A flapper was a woman who wore excessive amounts of make-up, danced on her own or in groups, drank alcohol and smoked in public and treated sex as a casual thing, she didn’t care what other people thought, it was acceptable for men to behave this way, why was it not acceptable for women?

But the most famous part of a flapper was her look, from her distinctive hat to her shoes, the whole point of a flapper’s style was its ‘boyish nature’ or it’s ‘masculinity’, the look consisted of a boyish straight up and down silhouette, nothing like previous years were women had to wear corsets and have tiny waists, instead women “Fasted, dieted and exercised” [3]to achieve their new body shape. The look also needed flappers to have a flat chest, short, bobbed/cropped hair and a hem line that started just above the knee.

Even though this helped women with their fight for equal rights not all women liked the look or lifestyle of a flapper, but the look was so popular and fashionable that older more respectable women ditched their corsets and joined the flappers in a more conservative flapper style.

But overall the look of a flapper was about looking strong and powerful, but beautiful too.

Life for women changed in other ways to, for the first time women were allowed to vote and to drive, women were becoming more and more independent and did not need to rely on men and in turn men developed a more relaxed attitude, songs with titles such as “Masculine Women, Feminine Men” and “We Men Must Grow A Moustache (It’s The Only Thing Women Can’t Do)”[4] poked fun at the rise in women’s rights.

Art deco an art movement which started in 1925 and lasted until 1939 consisted of very talented and successful artists and although it was not truly appreciated “until long after its heyday”[5] it has always been a very popular and well known art movement. One of its most popular and well known contributors was oil painter Tamara De Lempicka, as famous for her art as she was her personal life, she was a very talented artist who came to be known as “The most fashionable portrait painter of her age”[6] who also went on to win many awards. This was another woman who in her own way contributed to the fight for equality. She showed just how important, talented and successful women can be.

Acts such as the Equal Rights Amendment 1923 did their part in fighting for equal rights, but it was women themselves who also fought hard for equality. But no women fought harder then black women, the 1920’s was also their chance to break free and change their place in society.

Like flappers and their fashion statement, black women also used an art movement as their choice of weapon, jazz.

Jazz music was originally founded in the 1920’s by African Americans in America and one of its most popular singers was an African American woman Bessie Smith, another talented and successful woman from the 1920’s.

The art movement jazz and the fashion statement ‘flapper’ both went hand in hand, not just with their popularity and successfulness in fighting for equality, but because the birth of jazz brought on the birth of the dance craze the ‘Charleston’, a popular dance preformed by flappers, that divided people, some loved it and couldn’t stop dancing it, whilst others found the Charleston “Offensive” and “Neurotic” [7]and possibly just another way of flapper women showing off their independence and new social status.

However music and dance were not the only forms of entertainment available in the 1920’s, it was an era of fun and fun was what they had. They went to the theatre to watch plays, to concerts to listen to music; there were silent films, night clubs, and fancy restaurants.  People in the twenties knew how to have fun “Dining out in restaurants every night was the rage. You chose your restaurant for its cabaret and its dance floor, so you didn’t waste a minute before, during or after dinner.”[8]

Women really had changed and so had their lives, they were no longer second class citizens, they were strong independent women, who intended to enjoy every minute of their new found freedom.

Another way in which women proved they were equal to men was by both being independent and earning their own money or by earning more money than them.

Since women in the twenties were seen as very stylish, elegant and beautiful and the twenties was very fashion orientated, many women were seen as style icons. These women made couturiers realize that their clothes would look and sell better if they were worn by actual real women instead of mannequins and fashion illustrations, and with “The technical improvements in photography” [9] this made it even easier to advertise in magazines such as Vogue but also “Resulted in the reduction of the number of fashion drawings”[10] this also helped to make models more popular with couturiers.

So these well known couturiers such as Coco Chanel started to advertise their garments by using these beautiful women to wear their clothes. These women would either be paid with money or were allowed to keep the clothing they were given.

The women that couturiers chose were mostly well known and loved actresses such as Gloria Swanson and well known high society ladies such as Lady Diana Cooper, however some couturiers started to employ ‘ordinary’ women to model and advertise their clothes for them, this helped couturiers to boost their sales and also provided women with a new source of income and the start of a new career, a new type of career for a new type of woman.

Although this career wasn’t totally perfect, actress/model Gloria Swanson said of modelling for Coco Chanel “When Coco Chanel berated me for putting on five pounds excess weight, I created the first panty-girdle, in rubber, to make her exquisite creation mould perfectly.”[11]

So even though women were fighting hard for equality they were still women and they still cared about their appearance, they have insecurities about their bodies like everybody else, a problem that people still have today, even men, a small example of equality and the successfulness of the flappers fight.

Conclusion:

The strong, brave women of the twenties fought back very hard for all the “Years of suppression by the so-called dominant male” [12]that they had suffered, they fought hard for a life they wanted and rightly deserved; however their fight for equal rights successful but by no means over sadly ended in 1929 when people all over the world were hit by the great depression, people could no longer afford luxuries and in time the flapper girl and her carefree, party lifestyle died out.

Gone but certainly not forgotten, the flapper girl and her spirit will always be remembered and was even re-incarnated in the 1960’s.

 Even in the sixties women still had to fight against sexual discrimination, the sixties was a fight for peace and feminism was a big thing to.

One of the most famous fashion statements in the sixties was the invention of the mini skirt by fashion designer Mary Quant; this was seen as the era that changed fashion forever, the era that changed fashion the most before that was the 1920’s.

Other similarities between the 1920’s and the 1960’s are a very well known model, Twiggy. Models like Twiggy were very popular in the sixties, just like models had become very popular in the twenties, also Twiggy was very well known for her ‘boyish’ look, just like a flapper she had a straight up and down silhouette, short, cropped hair and a flat chest, so once again the ‘flapper’ look made a re-appearance just in another form.

So even though women in the 1960’s were still fighting for equal rights, they may have had an even bigger fight to fight were it not for all of the hard work from the women of the 1920’s.

Men and women may now be equal in many ways, such as equal pay, paternity leave so women can continue to work, it is now even more common for men to be a ‘house husband’ and stay at home to look after the children, whilst women can work and achieve the career that they want, something that again may not have been possible were it not for the women of the twenties.

But there are still some cases of sexual discrimination, though not as many as there used to be, however in life when one problem is ‘solved’ there is usually another to replace the last and homophobia is one of those problems that have become bigger then sexual discrimination, again it is a fight for equal rights, however this time it is also men that are fighting for equal rights.

Who knows if gay people will ever be able to live a care free life with equal rights, however one thing is for sure, if it wasn’t for the women of the 1920’s people today would probably not be living the life that we are living today and for that we own these women a lot, women that were once flappers, so there for it was flappers that changed women’s rights.

By Robert Stratton

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[1] PURVIS J and others.  Women’s history, Britain, 1850-1945, an introduction. UCL Press ltd, London. 1995. Pg 1

[2] HALL C. The twenties in Vogue. Octopus Publishing Group, London. 1983. Pg 7

[3] HALL C. The twenties in Vogue. Octopus Publishing Group, London. 1983. Pg 13

[4] Wikipedia (no date). Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring_Twenties (accessed November 22nd 2010)

[5] Kerr G. Art Deco. Pulteney Press, Bath. 2009. Pg 6

[6] Kerr G. Art Deco. Pulteney Press, Bath. 2009. Pg 11

[7] HALL C. The twenties in Vogue. Octopus Publishing Group, London. 1983. Pg 80

[8] HALL C. The twenties in Vogue. Octopus Publishing Group, London. 1983. Pg 50

[9] BATTERSBY M. Art Deco Fashion. Academy St Martin’s Press, London, New York. 1984.  Pg 95

[10] BATTERSBY M. Art Deco Fashion. Academy St Martin’s Press, London, New York. 1984.  Pg 95

[11] HALL C. The twenties in Vogue. Octopus Publishing Group, London. 1983. Pg 7

[12] HALL C. The twenties in Vogue. Octopus Publishing Group, London. 1983. Pg 7