Every time I go back to my instincts – my trends-be-damned personal style, my very public political beliefs, my gender-bending accessories and even my tendency to fall for “men’s drinks”* in men’s bars while flirting with too many men – I am newly surprised at how, obviously, I should have been twenty in the twenties.

“Flapper in the 1920s was a term applied to a “new breed” of young Western women who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior. Flappers were seen as brash for wearing excessive makeup, drinking, treating sex in a casual manner, smoking, driving automobiles and otherwise flouting social and sexual norms.”

Oh, yeah. That’s me. But isn’t it also almost every twenty- and thirty-something woman I know these days?

And damn, ladies, I love that I can say that. So many of us are telling our current social and sexual norms to go to hell, having new discussions on monogamy, marriage, kids, and how they fit in (or don’t) with what we want for our lives, and deciding that we can wear whatever the hell we want, regardless of body type or size, and screw the rules. More of us are choosing to drink bourbon, or go vegan, or become stay-at-home moms despite whatever popular culture says. Fuck yeah!

In every generation, fashion reflects the struggles and triumphs of the period. It was no different in the twenties, and flappers were leading the way. In a period of such opulence (history reminder: this was just after World War I and before the Great Depression) women focused on their power at home. Their boyish hair and forays into speakeasies were a symbol of their equality with men, and their resistance to being treated like the “fairer” sex.

One of the first women to toss aside social norms was Coco Chanel: along with popularizing tanned skin, she was also one of the first to wear trousers and cut her hair short!

“Changes in fashion were signs of deeper changes in the American feminine ideal. The short skirt and bobbed hair were likely to be used as a symbol of emancipation. Signs of the moral revolution consisted of: premarital sex, birth control, drinking, and contempt for older values. Before the war, a lady did not set foot in a saloon; after the war she entered a speakeasy as thoughtlessly as she would go into a railroad station. Women had taken to swearing and smoking, using contraceptives and raising their skirts above the knee and rolling her hose below it. Women were now competing with men in the business world and obtaining financial independence and, therefore, other kinds of independence from men.

The New Woman was pushing the boundaries of gender identity, representing sexual and economic freedom. She cut her hair short and took to loose-fitting clothing and low cut dresses. No longer restrained by a tight waist and long trailing skirts and the need for a man’s help at every turn, the modern woman of the 1920s was an independent thinker. [...] The flapper epitomized the prevailing conceptions of women and her role during the Roaring 20s. [...] She refused the traditional moral code. Modesty, chastity, morality, and traditional concepts of male and female were seemingly becoming invisible. The flapper was making an appeal to authority and was being attached to the impending “demoralization” of the country.”

And, of course, that’s exactly what’s happening now. Though contraception has become a free preventative prescription under health care reform, right-wing religious groups are still wringing their hands over dirty, dirty women having dirty, dirty sex. As more and more of us consider the idea of non-monogamy and how it relates to feminism, the same religious right groups are comparing multiple sex partners to sex with animals. Us crazy ladies (and the men, too) are being told that all of that sex and red lipstick is demoralizing our country. Sound familiar?

That being said, my new short bob haircut, orange-red lipstick and certainty that men and women should be treated equally, in and outside the bedroom, want to congratulate you on being a part of the resurgence of the flapper – twenty-first century style.

Quotes from Wikipedia, which was a surprisingly accurate and concise source. Emphasis mine.
*Bourbon, whiskey, beer…I tend to like ‘em better than wine or mixed drinks. Lindsay loves gin, which is probably also considered a “man’s drink” by polite society. Hm.