The Flappers of the 20s essays

The Flappers of the 20's essays Before the start of World War I, the Gibson Girl was the rage, she wore her long hair loosely on top of her head and wore a long straight skirt and a shirt with a high collar. She was feminine but also broke through several gender barriers for her attire allowed her to participate in sports, including golf, roller skating, and bicycling. In the 1920s, a new woman was born. She smoked, drank, danced, and voted. She cut her hair, wore make-up, and went to petting parties. She was giddy and took risks. She was a flapper. Teens of the 20's invented dating. It was a more flexible way of meeting and seeing each other that was not as supervised as it had been in the past. Previously, boys had to be courting a girl, they had to be committed, and girls had to be engaged to them in order to go out with them. Dating permitted people to see each other, discover each other without proclaiming an intent to marry. Petting was of course a popular and well received pastime for the youth. It allowed a girl to have erotic interaction without endangering herself with an unwanted or out of wedlock child. Petting could mean kisses or fondling, but it stopped just short of intercourse, and while parents equated petting with fornication, teenagers did not, and their peer group would still accept them and respect them. Intimacy and eroticism was explored within the confines of a majority of virginal women. In 1920s skirts were nine inches off the ground. By 1927, they were up to the knee. It wasn't just the long skirts that were done away with, it was also the undergarments; garters, petticoats, and corsets were no longer appropriate for the free wheeling times. Girls needed to be able to move, to dance, to swing and sway. Stockings were rolled, and the sheerer the better. Legs were more exposed than ever before, and freedom from restrictive underwear gave women more mobility and more stamina. Now ...