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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?

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Speaker 1: From house stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Caroline and I'm Kristin. So Kristen. Let's

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Speaker 1: blouse hip Hellen. Yeah, twenty ones can do. Wait. I

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Speaker 1: don't even know if that's one of the thing it

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Speaker 1: is nurts. You know what I hate on a date

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Speaker 1: A bunch of cherry smashes. Yeah, but a bunch of

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Speaker 1: my friends are biscuits though. Biscuits. Yeah, they don't like

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Speaker 1: cherry smashes. Okay, if people haven't guessed by now, we're

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Speaker 1: talking in slapper slang. Flapper eve yes, um of all

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Speaker 1: the slang. While you know, today's generation has text speak

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Speaker 1: like walls and uh, adorms, toasts, adorms, toasts, jelly uh,

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Speaker 1: we have nothing on flapper slang. Yeah, it really is

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Speaker 1: unrecognizable because at least tech speak, you kind of it's

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Speaker 1: abbreviations of things you can kind of figure it out.

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Speaker 1: But flapper speak, I mean they have dictionaries so that

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Speaker 1: people like us can understand what the heck they were

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Speaker 1: talking about. So why don't we explain a little bit

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Speaker 1: of what we were talking about. For instance, what is

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Speaker 1: let's blouse hip pound me that means let's go person

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Speaker 1: who likes to drink hooch um. And if you are

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Speaker 1: a biscuit, that means that you are a pettible flapper,

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Speaker 1: which means that people probably want to kiss you on

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Speaker 1: the mouth. But speaking of kisses on the mouth, if

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Speaker 1: you give cherry smashes, that means you have feeble kisses,

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Speaker 1: right and nerts means I am amazed starts I might

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Speaker 1: adopt that one actually, um. And uh, if you have

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Speaker 1: gotten a divorce recently, guess what you're out on? Borow

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Speaker 1: it's the bunk, which means I doubt that, Oh you

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Speaker 1: doubt that I'm out on pearl. Yeah, you're too young

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Speaker 1: for them. Uh. So today, yes, we're going to talk

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Speaker 1: about flappers and not just fringy Halloween costumes and Charleston,

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Speaker 1: but actually who these young women were and uh, what

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Speaker 1: was going on to to to spur these these zany

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Speaker 1: gals who talked in all this jib jam, all these

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Speaker 1: changes in society and in dress links and hair links

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Speaker 1: and everything. It came from a place and all of

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Speaker 1: this came about after World War One ended. Yes, Um,

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Speaker 1: all these terrible things were happening, um, but all of

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Speaker 1: a sudden, society started getting better. Um, even though so

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Speaker 1: many people had died in World War One and a

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Speaker 1: flu outbreak millions of people died. Oh yeah. In in

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Speaker 1: World War One we have a worldwide and estimated thirty

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Speaker 1: seven million deaths and injuries. And in the nineteen eighteen

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Speaker 1: Spanish flu pandemic right on the heels of World War One,

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Speaker 1: twenty to forty million deaths. So after this we see

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Speaker 1: this huge economic surge and significant social change. Yeah. And

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Speaker 1: kind of this notion for for younger people, um, whose

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Speaker 1: peers might have gone off to war and not come

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Speaker 1: back or caught the flu and not recovered. It's notion that, hey,

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Speaker 1: you know what, life is pretty short and unpredictable, and

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Speaker 1: we'd better have a dang all good time, right, And

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Speaker 1: not to mention that while all those men were out

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Speaker 1: at war, um, a lot of educational and employment opportunities

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Speaker 1: open for women, so they were they were jumping in

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Speaker 1: the game. Yeah. Uh. And we should talk about two

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Speaker 1: significant pieces of legislation the past in nineteen twenty, and

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Speaker 1: that is the eighteenth Amendment, also known as the Volstead Act,

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Speaker 1: which outlawed booze and kicked off prohibition. And then in

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Speaker 1: August of nineteen twenty, we have the passage of the

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Speaker 1: nineteenth Amendment give women the vote rights. All these crazy

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Speaker 1: things are happening. Women are running around voting. Alcohol is

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Speaker 1: driven underground. You have to knock on doors and they

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Speaker 1: open little split and you have to say a password

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Speaker 1: if you want booze wants a bathtub gin Yeah, sounds

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Speaker 1: like a stomach problem with happen or a good time

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Speaker 1: on the dance floor. That's true. But yeah, so other

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Speaker 1: things that were going on during this time. It really

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Speaker 1: affected the way people thought, hung out with each other, interacted. UM.

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Speaker 1: The first radio broadcast aired in nineteen twenty November. UM

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Speaker 1: and more and more people are going to the movies

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Speaker 1: each week, so you know, everybody's seeing these pop culture

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Speaker 1: representations of young people and it sort of creates this cycle.

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Speaker 1: But we'll get to that in a little bit. UM.

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Speaker 1: And thanks to and this is Man. These are quite

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Speaker 1: nice percentages in today's economic climate. The GDP at the

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Speaker 1: time was growing at a rate of four point eight

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Speaker 1: percent annually, and unemployment was hovering at a round three. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so a lot of people had more money than they

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Speaker 1: had previously had. They were earning a lot more money,

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Speaker 1: and more people were moving to cities. So you had

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Speaker 1: this rise of this young culture that had more money

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Speaker 1: and more leisure time because they had things like refrigerators

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Speaker 1: and vacuums, and they had far more mobility. Car ownership

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Speaker 1: from nineteen nineteen to nineteen twenty nine, ten years, jumped

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Speaker 1: from six point eight million to a hundred and twenty

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Speaker 1: two million. Suddenly people had cars, and that was a

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Speaker 1: huge force behind this, uh, the emergence of teenage culture

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Speaker 1: and flappers, as well of women being able to get

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Speaker 1: behind the wheel and drive off to who knows where,

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Speaker 1: maybe park for a for a petting session. Yeah, umpily,

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Speaker 1: you did um well, And then yeah, you you mentioned

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Speaker 1: dating culture, teenage culture. This definitely changed how how young

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Speaker 1: people courted one another. Instead of the young man coming

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Speaker 1: into the parlor and sitting across the room from his beloved,

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Speaker 1: he would just you know, drive up outside her stoop

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Speaker 1: and honk the horn and she'd be like, pizza mama,

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Speaker 1: and you know, say some slang that I wouldn't understand.

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Speaker 1: She'd be like, this guy's really billow, which means he

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Speaker 1: lives fast and spends money freely. Yeah, we're gonna go

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Speaker 1: Barney mug is that courtship and our petting, oh man.

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Speaker 1: And then their parents would just blanche and wring their hands.

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Speaker 1: Yeah they were, oh dear, something terrible is going to see.

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Speaker 1: But I was interested to see that, um because because

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Speaker 1: I would have assumed that at the time, etiquette may

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Speaker 1: even such as Emily Post, would have said, hey, you

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Speaker 1: know what, ladies, this is not appropriate for you to drive. Uh,

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Speaker 1: don't don't get into cars with men. But pretty soon after, um,

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Speaker 1: like early in the nineteen twenties, Emily Post officially said, hey,

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Speaker 1: you know what, it's fine for women to drive by themselves.

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Speaker 1: Pretty early on the etiquette queen is telling that it's okay.

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Speaker 1: There was obviously, there was no stopping the emergence of

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Speaker 1: this new woman. Yeah, all of a sudden, young women

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Speaker 1: weren't tied to these lives of piety and domesticity. They

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Speaker 1: didn't immediately go into being from someone's daughter to being

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Speaker 1: someone's wife and taking care of a household. They were

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Speaker 1: pursuing education and employment. They were consuming all types of media,

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Speaker 1: reading a lot of magazines, books, going to movies, listening

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Speaker 1: to the radio, and yeah, they're pretty smart. Girls knew

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Speaker 1: a lot about a lot. Well, it seems like that that,

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Speaker 1: like you said hereing the um the reading of books, magazines,

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Speaker 1: going to the the movies, uh, listening to the radio. It

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Speaker 1: was that real emergence of mainstream pop culture that everyone

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Speaker 1: could kind of start partaking it. At the same time

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Speaker 1: that we have the rise in these um in these trends,

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Speaker 1: in this shift in attitude, um. And to describe the

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Speaker 1: new woman, who is we should differentiate the new woman

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Speaker 1: from the flapper because the new woman is a little

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Speaker 1: bit more of that um or politically liberated, sort of

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Speaker 1: like a Margaret Mead character. Anthropologist um and Charlotte Perkins Gilman,

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Speaker 1: who published magazine called The Forerunner, described the new woman

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Speaker 1: thus Lee. She says here she comes running out of

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Speaker 1: the prison and off the pedestal, chains off, crown off,

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Speaker 1: halo off. Just a live woman, live woman, sparkling with

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Speaker 1: electricity and sequence because she's a flapper. Um. Yeah. The

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Speaker 1: and we also have to differentiate between uh, these new

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Speaker 1: feminists knew knew, the new woman and suffragists because you

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Speaker 1: had the older generation really fighting for the vote. They

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Speaker 1: finally achieved, achieved what they've been fighting for for so long.

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Speaker 1: But then you have the Flappers and the New Woman

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Speaker 1: who were sort of looked down upon by some of

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Speaker 1: their suffragist role models as just like these kids just

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Speaker 1: want to have a good time. Look at all we

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Speaker 1: fought for and they're just running around in cars going

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Speaker 1: to petting parties. Right where is um? The suffrage movement stopped,

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Speaker 1: kind of stopped at that right to vote and kind

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Speaker 1: of wanted everything to the status quote to remain in

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Speaker 1: terms of being a wife, being a mother, and taking

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Speaker 1: care of the domestic sphere. But the New Woman wanted

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Speaker 1: to really challenge those gender roles, right. Professor Catherine Lavender said, Uh,

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Speaker 1: they meaning the Flappers and the and the New Woman,

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Speaker 1: they reacted against the emphasis in the woman movement on

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Speaker 1: female nurturance, selfless service, and moral uplift. They were they

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Speaker 1: were doing good things, they thought, but they were having

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Speaker 1: a good time while they did it. Right, And there

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Speaker 1: was also this idea of uh, sexual freedom being equated

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Speaker 1: with economic freedom and those going hand in hand, which

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Speaker 1: again the suffrage movement was certainly not so much about

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Speaker 1: sexual politics, right, and not everybody was very supportive of

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Speaker 1: the New Woman. Professor Samuel Holmes was quoted in The

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Speaker 1: New York Times of saying that women who attend college,

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Speaker 1: there by developing an interest in a career rather than children,

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Speaker 1: were harming the race, and that maybe eventually this would

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Speaker 1: calm down and they'd all go back home and have babies. Sorry,

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Speaker 1: Professor Holmes did not work that way. The depression amount

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Speaker 1: of ruined everybody's good time. But we still kept the

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Speaker 1: keys to the car um. Yeah. The the New York Times,

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Speaker 1: it really would just uh did not want to to

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Speaker 1: give the Flapper much credit for anything. This is from

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Speaker 1: in nine, which is after once that the Flapper has

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Speaker 1: really become a part of the popular culture. They write

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Speaker 1: that the Flapper had established the feminine right to equal

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Speaker 1: representation in such hitherto masculine fields of smoking, drinking, swearing, petting,

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Speaker 1: and disturbing the community. Piece. Yeah, very snarky New York

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Speaker 1: Times snarky. You're like, good for you women, you are

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Speaker 1: equally annoying and um. And that's the thing though about

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Speaker 1: the Flapper is that, yes, she was very focused on

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Speaker 1: on doing what she liked. Whether that meant that she

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Speaker 1: was kind of crossing those bounds into more masculine territories

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Speaker 1: of smoking and drinking and other things like that. But

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Speaker 1: she wasn't as she didn't really care so much to

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Speaker 1: start any kind of gender revolution. She just really wanted

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Speaker 1: to have a good time and if that meant, you know,

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Speaker 1: stepping on some gin while she did it, okay, having

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Speaker 1: a cigarette, putting finger waves in her hair, and really

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Speaker 1: focusing on looking good, right and having a fantastic time exactly. Um,

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Speaker 1: so I didn't. I wasn't aware of where the word

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Speaker 1: flapper came from, but apparently it's it was a word

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Speaker 1: that was borrowed from British slang meeting just a young woman.

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Speaker 1: But in nineteen fifteen, writer HL Lincoln described this new

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Speaker 1: sort of female identity that was emerging in the US,

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Speaker 1: and it's an identity kind of full of contradictions. So

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Speaker 1: this woman or this young woman is innocent but smart,

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Speaker 1: and she consumes modern media like movies, music and magazines

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Speaker 1: like we talked about that she's supposed to, I mean

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Speaker 1: willingly to sexy or racy material, but she's not sullied

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Speaker 1: by it, right, she doesn't. Uh. He writes that she

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Speaker 1: saw damaged goods without batting an eye and went away

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Speaker 1: wondering what the row over it was all about? Right,

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Speaker 1: which damaged goods we referenced in our sex education podcast

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Speaker 1: and what was damaged goods? Caroline? It was all about

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Speaker 1: the dangers of having sex. Right. It was the first

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Speaker 1: sex said movie that was really produced in the United States,

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Speaker 1: all about the soldier who contracted syphilis, passed onsitive baby,

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Speaker 1: and then killed himself. So kind of you can see

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Speaker 1: how that movie could be kind of controversial. But the

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Speaker 1: Flapper was like, Hey, I'm so good. So I think

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Speaker 1: a good way to differentiate them between that new woman

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Speaker 1: UH might be in the form of media. Consumer For instance,

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Speaker 1: the new woman would be all about the textbooks and

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Speaker 1: the pamphlets and more, the more actually minded literature of

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Speaker 1: the day, whereas the Flappers media was all just give me,

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Speaker 1: give me movies, give me magazines, give me tabloids about

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Speaker 1: Clara Beaux, all that stuff. Vanity Fair editor Frank crowin

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Speaker 1: Shield in nineteen fifteen characterized the Flapper UH saying that

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Speaker 1: his dinner companion, Yeah, this is interesting this quote. He said,

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Speaker 1: his dinner companion was very well informed. I put it

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Speaker 1: down naturally enough to wide reading. It couldn't all come

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Speaker 1: from experience their little bodies wouldn't hold so much so

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Speaker 1: thanks because she couldn't possibly like, you know, have life

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Speaker 1: experiences and learn all that stuff. But you know, it

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Speaker 1: was clear that these women were people all over characterized

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Speaker 1: them as as big readers and wanted to experience a

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Speaker 1: lot of stuff. And then in nine twenty, the movie

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Speaker 1: The Flapper starring all of Thomas, really introduces this female

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Speaker 1: figure into main dream culture, although all of Thomas, while

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Speaker 1: she did play that original flapper, would soon be overshadowed

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Speaker 1: by Clara Bow who's nineteen seven It Girl really defined

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Speaker 1: um who who these women would want to be, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we still I mean we still use the term it

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Speaker 1: girl for for young Starlett and it was just sexual allure, yes,

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Speaker 1: and and how everybody wanted it. And so it's interesting

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Speaker 1: how the films of the time really created this consumer

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Speaker 1: culture but also sort of used the consumer culture. So

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Speaker 1: he's really a cycle because they showed beautiful young women

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Speaker 1: on screen having a great time using such and such

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Speaker 1: brand of cigarettes or soap or whatever. It's like, don't

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Speaker 1: you want to be like this woman? And so people

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Speaker 1: would go out and participate in these flapper contests and

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Speaker 1: pageants and stuff that you'd win something if you were

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Speaker 1: the one who looked most like the starlett in the movie. Um,

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Speaker 1: and one flapper. The real life flapper that we have

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Speaker 1: to talk about is Zelda Fitzgerald. Poor Zelda, Zelda. UM sad,

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Speaker 1: sad life. She did have a sad life, but at

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Speaker 1: first it was pretty glamorous. Um. She was a debutante

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Speaker 1: in Alabama where she met f Scott Fitzgerald, and those

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Speaker 1: two became just the couple, jure, right, the golden couple. YEA, parties, drinking, drinking, um,

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Speaker 1: traveling around the world and um. It was interesting. There

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Speaker 1: was a shift around the time that Zelda and f

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Speaker 1: Scott started to become so popular, which was with the

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Speaker 1: publication of This Side of Paradise. Um, there was a

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Speaker 1: shift in magazine content from just general news articles to

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Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you have this surge in personal profiles.

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Speaker 1: So even among more um, high minded media, not just

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Speaker 1: magazines like Variety. UM, you see this shift from just

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Speaker 1: general news and information to more celebrity and self obsession.

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Speaker 1: And part of that obsession was with the fashion of

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Speaker 1: the time, which I mean that's one of the most

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Speaker 1: easily identifiable eras in terms of fashion because you have.

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Speaker 1: You go from having high necked clothes and with the

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Speaker 1: with the hem line touching the floor and having very

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Speaker 1: sensible shoes and your long hair tied up in a

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Speaker 1: bun like like the Gibson girls of the time exactly.

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Speaker 1: Um yeah, all of a sudden it became all about

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Speaker 1: straight shifts. You know, some were sparkly. If you're going

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Speaker 1: out dancing, the hem line was cut so that would

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Speaker 1: be easier to dance. You're showing off your bare arms,

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Speaker 1: you're not wearing dark wool stockings. You're putting on your

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Speaker 1: your silken hose right, and you might even roll down

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Speaker 1: your your hosiery below the knees to help accommodate dancing.

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Speaker 1: And the straight cut dresses of the time also made

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Speaker 1: it easier for any young woman, no matter whether she's

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Speaker 1: rich or poor, to make her own flapper fashion. Whereas

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Speaker 1: with those you know, more elegant Gibson girl kind of outfits,

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Speaker 1: it was it was definitely more restricted to the middle

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Speaker 1: and upper classes. And we can't forget the hair. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: the hair is such a big deal. Everybody starts chopping

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Speaker 1: their hair off and like slicking it down and having

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Speaker 1: those two little curls that came out of the side

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Speaker 1: and then putting a cloth chat on top. That's right,

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Speaker 1: and on a side. Note. Yeah, this is also the

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Speaker 1: time when while yes, plenty of women were still making

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Speaker 1: their own dresses at home, but you also have ready

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Speaker 1: made clothes becoming more of the standard. And because of that,

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Speaker 1: this is when sizing comes into play, which is still

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Speaker 1: such a massive frustration in women's fashion. Um. But but

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Speaker 1: standard sizing starts happening. And then you also have, uh,

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Speaker 1: the popularization of dieting, right, because people want to be

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Speaker 1: a two instead of a six or whatever, and they

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Speaker 1: want to fit in the lower numbers, and that thin

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Speaker 1: boyish figure was in Women would even buying their breasts

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Speaker 1: just to make sure that they didn't have that that

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Speaker 1: hourglass shape of the Gibson girls. They didn't want to

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Speaker 1: be bouncing around there dancing, right, just like an early

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Speaker 1: sports bra basically um. And even down to the shoes,

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Speaker 1: they wore tea straps and buckled heels that were low

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Speaker 1: enough to accommodate dancing. Um. But this was also the

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Speaker 1: time when we started wearing bras instead of corsets, but

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Speaker 1: not without um some people kind of freaking out about

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Speaker 1: the implications of women not wearing corsets anymore. This is

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Speaker 1: This is a pretty intense example from Leonard floor Sheim,

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Speaker 1: who was the president of the Corset and Brazier Association.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen one, he wrote an article titled the Evils

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Speaker 1: of the No Corset fat in which he used racial

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Speaker 1: stereotypes to persuade middle and upper class white women that

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Speaker 1: going corsetless was much the same as going wild. My goodness, Leonard,

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Speaker 1: how hateful that is horrifying? Yeah, just gee, you layoff. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but the flappers did not give a about Leonard floorsche

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Speaker 1: You were not given to giving hoots, that's right. But

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Speaker 1: Leonard Floorsheim, of course, was not the only um adult

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Speaker 1: non flapper who was really concerned about these young women

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Speaker 1: and moral implications of their lifestyles. I mean parents of

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Speaker 1: the day, not only we're freaking out about jazz. There's

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Speaker 1: this one one article that we found I think in

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Speaker 1: uh it might have been in Harper's Um, but the

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Speaker 1: title was something along the lines of this jazz put

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Speaker 1: the sin in syncopatient. Yes, And these flappers were listening

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Speaker 1: to jazz music and dancing to all this this new

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Speaker 1: music and uh, smoking cigarettes and petting in backseats of

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Speaker 1: cars and parents, Oh man, they didn't know what to do,

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Speaker 1: but um. Ellen Wells Page in December wrote a Flappers

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Speaker 1: Appeal to parents, which Caroline you aptly describe as the

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Speaker 1: jazz age version of parents. Just don't understand, that's the

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Speaker 1: most It's like such a whiny. It totally reminds me

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Speaker 1: of some melodramatic, whiney young woman who's just like, oh goodness,

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Speaker 1: times of changing, and we need guidance from you. You

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Speaker 1: just have to understand that we're different. We need your support.

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Speaker 1: Right At first, she starts out explaining differences among flappers. Um,

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Speaker 1: and apparently there were three main categories. I had no

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Speaker 1: idea flappers, the semi flapper, which ellen Wells Page, the

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Speaker 1: author describes herself as one of those because she didn't

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Speaker 1: really smoke very many stings. Is like, this is like

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Speaker 1: hipsters who want emit their hipsters. Right, I'm not a hipster.

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Speaker 1: I just dressed like this. I don't know to hang

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Speaker 1: out at these places. I don't know that much. Just like,

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Speaker 1: just because I dressed like a flapper doesn't mean I

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Speaker 1: have one. I'm only a semi flapper. But then they're

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Speaker 1: from the semi flapper. You have just the standard flapper,

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Speaker 1: and then there is the super flapper who just I mean,

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Speaker 1: I don't know if she ever even came home. She's

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Speaker 1: just riding around in cars for days, drinking bathtub does

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Speaker 1: she had the bathtub bathtubs in in the car going crazy.

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Speaker 1: She never took off that close chat, but I did

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Speaker 1: like her observation that petting is gradually growing out of

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Speaker 1: fashion through being overworked, which seems to apply to me.

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Speaker 1: That that making out essentially was just that people were

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Speaker 1: doing it so often in so many back seats that

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Speaker 1: there it was just becoming a little just like, who

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Speaker 1: does that anymore? Well? She also she also wrote about

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Speaker 1: jazz as if jazz were something that would eventually go

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Speaker 1: out of style. She's like, yeah, we're listening to it now,

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Speaker 1: but that's only until it's not cool anymore. How little

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Speaker 1: she knew, how olda she knew. But she did end

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Speaker 1: up appealing to parents to to understand and embrace the

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Speaker 1: flapper lifestyle and provides some kind of guidance instead of

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Speaker 1: just rebuking um all of the flapper ways, although at

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Speaker 1: one point she she uh encourages father's to quote make

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Speaker 1: love to their daughters it's a figure. It was totally

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Speaker 1: a figure spege um. But I think that only h yeah,

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Speaker 1: the only hammer's holm the just the drama because there

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Speaker 1: I mean, even though this is one essay that we're

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Speaker 1: talking about, this was really Ellen Wells Pages essays sums

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Speaker 1: up just the I don't know that everybody's computery. Everything's changing.

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Speaker 1: You just got to hold on for the ride. But

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Speaker 1: it's only speaking of of using making love. It's so different.

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Speaker 1: It meant something very different than it does now. And

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Speaker 1: that phrase I was I first found it in Um

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Speaker 1: the Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, for which she

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Speaker 1: want a Pulletzer Prize. She read in n and she

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Speaker 1: was the first woman, in fact to win a Pulletzer prize. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: another example of that, that new woman emerging. So I

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Speaker 1: don't know, to me, the flapper, the place of flappers

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Speaker 1: in American history isn't so much about feminism because she's

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Speaker 1: sort of is uh, this offshoot of the new woman.

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Speaker 1: She kind of takes the social benefits that new women were,

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00:23:07,119 --> 00:23:10,240
Speaker 1: um were earning, and but really just kind of ignores

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Speaker 1: all the heavy stuff and has a good time. So

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Speaker 1: I kind of consider flappers as the first real bachelor's

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Speaker 1: in American society, because bachelor's, the whole bachelor culture is

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Speaker 1: generally a political and they're just enjoying their their single dom,

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Speaker 1: which is what flappers were doing. Well, I mean it's

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Speaker 1: so think of teenage culture now, yeah, it's it's the

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Speaker 1: same thing. I mean, I mean, not that there aren't

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Speaker 1: teenagers who are interested in you know, learning and politics

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Speaker 1: and stuff, but but that whole pop culture and I

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Speaker 1: think that yeah again, like flappers too, were one of

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Speaker 1: the first big examples of how pop culture can influence

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Speaker 1: those trends and that kind of back and forth cycle

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Speaker 1: that you mentioned between you know, the seeing things on

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Speaker 1: screen and then mimicking them in real life and then

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00:23:56,760 --> 00:23:58,840
Speaker 1: you know, screen taking cues from your life and it

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Speaker 1: goes around and around and a giant vat of consumer culture. Um,

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00:24:04,440 --> 00:24:07,440
Speaker 1: and now we're in a recession. And speaking of recessions,

395
00:24:07,560 --> 00:24:13,280
Speaker 1: on October, stock market crashed and the Flapper Party came

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Speaker 1: to a close. Right on that, right, but those major

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Speaker 1: ideas of you know, the the new women had had

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00:24:22,160 --> 00:24:26,920
Speaker 1: earned their freedom or less, scarts stayed relatively short, cars

399
00:24:26,960 --> 00:24:30,719
Speaker 1: were still on the road. Yeah, so good for you

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Speaker 1: flapper women. So I hope that you have enjoyed this

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00:24:33,720 --> 00:24:37,560
Speaker 1: little historical insight into the role of flappers. And then

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00:24:37,640 --> 00:24:42,120
Speaker 1: next time, you know, if you're uh thinking of way

403
00:24:42,160 --> 00:24:45,720
Speaker 1: ahead about Halloween next year, um, or next time you

404
00:24:45,760 --> 00:24:48,400
Speaker 1: see the flapper costumes, just remember there's more. There's more

405
00:24:48,400 --> 00:24:53,359
Speaker 1: to flappers than just fringe and cigarette holders, exactly a

406
00:24:53,400 --> 00:24:58,000
Speaker 1: lot more like haircuts, right and movie watching. So if

407
00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:00,359
Speaker 1: you have anything you'd like to send our way about

408
00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:03,560
Speaker 1: flappers in your take on them, Mom, Steve al stepworks

409
00:25:03,600 --> 00:25:07,600
Speaker 1: dot Com is the address, and I've got an email

410
00:25:07,640 --> 00:25:13,560
Speaker 1: here from Bayla in response to our podcast on Trailblazing Lesbians,

411
00:25:13,960 --> 00:25:17,119
Speaker 1: and she writes, I wanted to mention Dr Dorothy Anderson,

412
00:25:17,320 --> 00:25:20,800
Speaker 1: who was my grandmother's college roommate at Mount Holyoke in

413
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Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties. Andy, as she was known, never came out,

414
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Speaker 1: but she also never married, and she routinely wore men's

415
00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:29,879
Speaker 1: suits and was generally seen as very masculine or butch

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Speaker 1: Andy went on to identify and to develop the first

417
00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:37,120
Speaker 1: treatments for cystic fibrosis. My mother once asked my grandmother

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Speaker 1: whether she had ever realized that Andy was probably a

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Speaker 1: lesbian and my fairly proper grandmother responded, Oh, I think

420
00:25:42,480 --> 00:25:45,440
Speaker 1: she had a boyfriend once. Anyway, there was a family

421
00:25:45,520 --> 00:25:48,240
Speaker 1: legend that Andy sometimes tagged along on my grandmother's dates

422
00:25:48,280 --> 00:25:50,360
Speaker 1: to sit at the table nearby and inspect the young

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Speaker 1: men courting her friend. In later life, Andy kept a

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Speaker 1: small recreational farm in upstate New York where my mother

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00:25:56,160 --> 00:25:58,640
Speaker 1: and her siblings all spent summers growing up. And as

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00:25:58,680 --> 00:26:00,560
Speaker 1: Andy had no children of her own, and she left

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00:26:00,560 --> 00:26:03,119
Speaker 1: the farm to my aunt when she died. While Andy

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00:26:03,200 --> 00:26:05,600
Speaker 1: was not publicly known as a lesbian in her lifetime,

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00:26:05,680 --> 00:26:07,479
Speaker 1: we firendly believe that she was gay and that her

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00:26:07,480 --> 00:26:10,920
Speaker 1: close friendships with my mother's family constituted her own surrogate

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00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:17,359
Speaker 1: family's interesting bit of history. I have an email from

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00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:22,520
Speaker 1: Damien in response to our Bisexual Men podcast, and he

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00:26:22,600 --> 00:26:24,520
Speaker 1: said that you may be interested to learn that there

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00:26:24,560 --> 00:26:28,199
Speaker 1: is another designation gaining slow recognition amongst individuals who can

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00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:30,800
Speaker 1: feel both deep emotional and sexual connections to those of

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00:26:30,840 --> 00:26:35,480
Speaker 1: both sexes. The term is homo sexual and awkward contradiction,

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00:26:35,520 --> 00:26:40,080
Speaker 1: indicating a postmodern perspective on sexuality, wherein the individual finds

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00:26:40,119 --> 00:26:43,280
Speaker 1: themselves not driven by sexual motivations and attractions, but by

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00:26:43,440 --> 00:26:47,800
Speaker 1: characteristics and traits of the genderless individual. Of course, the

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00:26:47,840 --> 00:26:51,240
Speaker 1: concept is not easily understood. Yes, it has made my

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00:26:51,280 --> 00:26:54,320
Speaker 1: own romantic, personal and social life more awkward than perhaps

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00:26:54,320 --> 00:26:58,360
Speaker 1: my gay, heterosexual, or even bisexual counterparts. Most people read

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00:26:58,400 --> 00:27:00,920
Speaker 1: it with both fear and maybe been a bit of disgust,

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00:27:00,960 --> 00:27:03,920
Speaker 1: as though I'm itching to potentially get with everything that moves,

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00:27:04,280 --> 00:27:06,520
Speaker 1: or that I could just suddenly switch at any time.

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00:27:06,880 --> 00:27:08,920
Speaker 1: Of course, I do recognize a good looking man or

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00:27:08,960 --> 00:27:12,080
Speaker 1: woman in the room. In reality, however, real attraction begins

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00:27:12,119 --> 00:27:13,960
Speaker 1: for me not as sexual at all, but as an

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00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:17,800
Speaker 1: emotional and intellectual connection. Only after identifying someone as a

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00:27:17,800 --> 00:27:20,840
Speaker 1: potential mental partner have I been truly interested in exploring

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00:27:20,880 --> 00:27:25,320
Speaker 1: a potential physical side. Thanks so thanks to all of

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00:27:25,320 --> 00:27:27,400
Speaker 1: you who have written in at mom stuff at how

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00:27:27,440 --> 00:27:29,719
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com, and as always, you can hit

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00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:32,720
Speaker 1: us up on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at

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00:27:32,800 --> 00:27:36,359
Speaker 1: mom Stuff Podcasts, and you can check out the blog

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00:27:36,480 --> 00:27:40,160
Speaker 1: during the week and read the article how Flappers Work

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00:27:40,440 --> 00:27:44,720
Speaker 1: by Hey me that girl there yep me at how

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00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:51,640
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com. You're a regular billow be sure

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00:27:51,680 --> 00:27:54,600
Speaker 1: to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.

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00:27:54,920 --> 00:27:57,240
Speaker 1: Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most

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00:27:57,240 --> 00:28:01,919
Speaker 1: promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The House stafforks iPhone

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00:28:01,920 --> 00:28:09,920
Speaker 1: app has a ride. Download it today on iTunes, brought

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00:28:09,920 --> 00:28:13,119
Speaker 1: to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,

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00:28:13,280 --> 00:28:13,679
Speaker 1: are you