Flapper Girl Research Papers

The 1920s denotes the existential era for young women to show their efforts towards modification in how others perceived them. Thus, the essence of the flapper girl was created. The typical flapper girl existed as a rebel, determined by specific characteristics: short haircut, increase of makeup on the cheeks, short skirts, and low-cut tops. This rebellion was the young women's way of proving to themselves and men what they were able to accomplish. (Reinsch, Ole). The undertaking of this trend was self-willed, or as Dick Hebdige refers to it, hegemonic in nature. Hebdige mentions, "Style in subculture is, then, pregnant with significance. Its transformations go 'against nature', interrupting the process of 'normalization'" (Hebdige, Dick).

Flapper girls did interrupt the process of "normalization" through the rebelling against their innate innocence. The mythical essence of the style trend of flapper girls in the 1920s is a useful representation of Dick Hebdige's Subculture: The Meaning of Style through the trend's consumption of sexuality, deviation from the norm, and myth analysis.
The flapper girl's main goal was rebellion. Young women looked at their new rights through the eyes of consumerism, for prior to this time, women married early, were not free, and relied on their husbands. At no point were these women allowed to be self-reliant (Reinsch, Ole). Sexuality was focused around the brawny male figure: forcing women to act as if they did not have their own sexuality as well (Ross, Sara). The natural sexuality that occurred before this time period was "a kind of inevitable reflex of all social life - that particular sets of social relations, particular ways of organizing the world appear to us as if they were universal and timeless" (Hebdige, Dick). Sexual values are set by our society and seemed to be immutable prior to the 1920s, however, the flapper girl changed this. Women that represented the flapper girl nation wanted to be seen as sexually desirable, not innocent and prudish. These women fought, through their new look, to change the patterns of sexual behavior to encompass a modern sexuality outlook (Ross, Sara). In other words, they became consumed how their efforts changed the way sexuality was incorporated in their society. Flapper girls, through the efforts of consumerism, chose a rebellious, flashy change in dress. This change of dress was easy to spot, allowed women to be noticed, and made them feel attractive. The ability to feel attractive and noticed through the public eye produced a change in how society was constructed.
The social construct of women considerably changed in the 1920s. The style of the flapper girl can be seen as a subculture due to its aspects that were against the mainstream. The flapper girl morality shows a relationship struggle with power. The power that these women struggled with was the concept of living in a male dominated society, where the women just purely existed. A struggle with power is reinforced through Hebdige's use of Marx and Engels ideas through, "The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas" (Hebdige, Dick). Through the typical American culture, women felt useless and, therefore, felt the pressure to join the flapper girl movement. During the 1920s, women became able to vote, which allowed for more political input. This contemporary change influenced women's ability to discuss economics and education, giving them more social power. Women's emancipation also led to a feeling of social prestige because they were given a more complete adoption into American culture (Freedman, Estelle B). Flapper girls deviated from the norm, and in a sense rejected their societal values. Families held standards for their daughters, and when they turned to smoking, drinking in speakeasies, and changing their appearance, a change in culture formed. The change allowed women to be seen as more than just an object that belonged to their husband. This new culture for women was a historically situated circumstance that showed how mutable American culture was. Moreover, the flapper girl's essence showed a practical view through the ever-changing culture they lived in.
The transition of these women and their appearances from the traditional norms function as myth analysis, due to how their appearance and actions revolved around their emotions of rebellion.

The myth of women prior to the 1920s style endured as innocent, pure, and dainty with duty to their role as house-wives. However, through myth analysis, these women denaturalized the concept of women in that era: through rebellion of their clothing and actions, they changed the norm to exist as an arbitrary construction of womanhood. Subsequently, the flapper girls used the thoughts of feminism to explain how their actions changed womanhood. Flapper girls wanted to show that feminism was evolving and that they were no longer only house-wives. They showed how their new culture would become nature. Feminism functions as the ideology behind the flapper girls and their cultural style change. The emphasis on feminism showed how the essence of the flapper girl related to seeing gender as a double-sphered system (Rupp, Leila J). This movement emulated the revolution of morals and mannerisms. This relates to the evolution of the punks in the 1970s in England. Dick Hebdige referred to the punks as a form of chaos through style. The punks wore their hair in quiff-styled cuts, wore leather jackets and vivid socks, and seemed "out of time" (Hebdige, Dick). The relation between the American flapper girl of the 1920s and the British punks of the 1970s correlate mostly through the dramatic change in

appearance, but also through the efforts to rebel on the norms of what was expected of them. The flapper girl imitated their wishes through participating in "masculine" activities. The punks danced to a different tune of music, used drugs, and defied their parental wishes (Hebdige, Dick). The flapper girls highly related to the punks through myth analysis of their social norms and appearances.
The appearance of flapper girls mirrored their collectively driven wishes through sexuality differences, societal changes, and myth analysis. These effects produced a sense of a myth through their style change because their inner drives shaped how their subculture functioned. Women who chose to pursue the flapper girl subculture changed themselves to possess more influence among the social powers of society. These women found out that through them having this strength, they were able to receive political and economic influence. In some sense, flapper girls were an act of a change in culture, however, for a majority of women, it was rebellion. The cultural trend of the flapper girl is useful to examine due to their nobility and determination in a "man's world".

Works Cited
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