Flapper
FLAPPER
FLAPPER. The nickname of the new female urbanites in America during the 1920s, "flapper" literally made reference to the unstrapped buckles of their shoes. While society appealed for "normalcy," the flapper practiced anything but as she sported makeup, a bob hairdo, and a tight-fitting dress to frequent the nightlife offered in the speakeasies of the big cities. Her behavior drew as much attention as her taboo attire, and a defining element of her womanhood became drinking, smoking, and a forward demeanor that included premarital intercourse, as the flapper strove to reshape gender roles in the Roaring Twenties. This entailed an assault on the Gibson Girl, the ideal of femininity in the Gilded Age. Measuring the flapper's success at overturning this convention depends on recognizing that leaders of the burgeoning woman's movement, such as Carrie Chapman Catt and Margaret Sanger, did not consider themselves flappers. This fact highlights the "new woman's" upper-class status more than her pervasiveness in society, and a penchant for comfortable living more than a desire to make a social statement. No matter, the flapper's symbolism outlasted her flare.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Latham, Angela J. Posing a Threat: Flappers, Chorus Girls, and Other Brazen Performers of the American 1920s. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 2000.
Matthew J.Flynn
See alsoClothing and Fashion ; and picture (overleaf) .