How Feminism And Consumerism Fueled The Rebellion Of The Flappers

In the 1920s, a new female figure emerged. Teenage girls wearing bolder outfits, thick makeup, and short hair. They engaged in wild jazz dances like the Charleston and Black Bottom, drove automobiles and rode bikes, chain-smoked cigarettes, and drank like men.

These girls pushed the limits between the sexes by their behavior and appearance. It wasn't ignored since it was a project of emancipation and a sort of teenage resistance.

Flappers and backfish

Numerous nick names were used for the young girls. Backfisch, which translates to "fried fish" in German and refers to fish that are too small to be cooked, was a term used in Norway. La garçonne, a French proverb, was also used to refer to "boy girls" or "bachelor girls."

The term "flapper" was well-known in the US. The concept of a baby bird fluttering while learning to fly gave rise to the word. The unrestrained flapper is prominently featured in literary female characters, particularly those in writings by author F. Scott Fitzgerald. Hollywood movies frequently featured the naughty flapper stereotype.

These words all had a condescending quality to them. Flappers, bachelorettes, and backfish were exempt. They still hadn't fully developed into an adult.

The erratic years

It was all about "The Jazz Age" in the United States and "Les années folles" in France. The wild years were the 1920s. the period of youth restlessness.

The popular and catchy jazz music was divisive. It was linked to the "lost generation" in the US—young people who were raised in the years following World War One. Above all, it was a representation of multicultural society, which was criticized harshly by many.

Jazz was called "Negro music," a racial slur. The Norwegian economy professor Knud A. Wieth-Knudsen dubbed it “one of the numerous future degenerations”. According to Jazz's testimony, man was regressing to the animal stage of evolution, the speaker claimed.

The finish is in sight.

While girls bopped their heads to the music, the critics predicted a crisis and the end of culture.

Wieth-Knudsen, an anti-feminist, was concerned that young girls spent their "best youth on the cinema, jazz, and flirting." Girls worked at telegraph offices, stores, and offices.

The girls worked for their own money, but the professor felt that they lacked economic acumen. Their "compulsion to imitate styles and a craving for enjoyment" most described them.

Men who were serious and pessimistic believed that party culture, materialism, and changing gender roles would cause families to break apart, society to degenerate, and the white race to disappear.

Weekly magazine Allers pleaded in 1926, "Call the young back from the smoky, jazz-pulsing premises, and allow the home, with its love, coziness and warmth give them a different air of body and soul.”

The feminism of the bad girl

"You hear the sheerest smocks and the liveliest outfits without a second of worry or uncertainty," said one advertisement in the United States that capitalized on the idea of the freedom-seeking flapper. Driving, dancing, and walking can all be continued for hours. You approach every circumstance with confidence. It's called Kotex.

Women's sanitary towels didn't become widely used in the general population for many years.

"They have the bravery to live without morals or principles; they're like evil demons; tough as nails; smart as crooks. An American flapper novel declared, "No one can keep reins on them.

Consumerism

The notion that women should sustain society's standards by practicing moderation and virginity was rejected by flapper feminism.

The flappers were the ultimate consumers, and the rebellious youth that these girls represented celebrated consumerism. Shopping served as recreation and amusement. Money was in and out.

It goes without saying that few people could actually live this way, particularly in Norway where the economy was unstable during the 1920s.

However, in the 1920s, girls became more brash and flashy, embarking on an emancipation project that predicted our consumerist world.