Editing Flapper (section)

== Semiotics of the flapper ==
[[File:The Flapper by Frank Xavier Leyendecker.jpg|thumb|225px|''Life Magazine'' cover "The Flapper" by [[Frank Xavier Leyendecker]], 2 February 1922]]
Being liberated from restrictive dress, from laces that interfered with breathing, and from hoops that needed managing suggested liberation of another sort. The new-found freedom to breathe and walk encouraged movement out of the house, and the flapper took full advantage.<ref name="Kriebl 1998 113–128">{{cite book |last=Kriebl|first=Karen J |title= From bloomers to flappers: the American women's dress reform movement, 1840–1920|publisher=Ohio State University|year=1998|pages=113–28}}</ref> The flapper was an extreme manifestation of changes in the lifestyles of American women made visible through dress.<ref name="Yellis 1969 44–64">{{cite news |last=Yellis|first= Kenneth A | title = Prosperity's Child: Some thoughts on the Flapper| work = The American Quarterly|year=1969|pages=44–64}}</ref>

Changes in fashion were interpreted as signs of deeper changes in the American feminine ideal.<ref>{{cite news |last= Lowry|first= Helen| title= As the debutante tells it: more about Mrs Grundy and Miss 1921| work = The New York Times|date= January 30, 1921}}</ref> The short skirt and bobbed hair were likely to be used as a symbol of emancipation.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Freedman|first=Estelle B.|s2cid=155502077|title=The New Woman: Changing views of Women in the 1920s|journal=The Journal of American History |volume=61|issue=2|year=1974|pages=372–93|doi=10.2307/1903954|jstor=1903954}}</ref> 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, a woman, though no more "a lady", entered a [[speakeasy]] as casually as she would go into a railroad station. Women had started swearing and smoking publicly, using contraceptives, raising their skirts above the knee and rolling their 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.<ref name="Yellis 1969 44–64" />

The [[New Woman]] was pushing the boundaries of gender roles, 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, the modern woman of the 1920s was an independent thinker, who no longer followed the conventions of those before her.<ref name="Kriebl 1998 113–128" /> The flapper was an example of the prevailing conceptions of women and their roles during the Roaring 1920s. The flappers' ideal was motion with characteristics of intensity, energy, and volatility. She refused the traditional moral code. Modesty, chastity, morality, and traditional concepts of masculinity and femininity were seemingly ignored. The flapper was making an appeal to authority and was being attached to the impending "demoralization" of the country.<ref name="Yellis 1969 44–64" />

The Victorian American conception of sexuality and other roles of men and women in society and to one another were being challenged. Modern clothing was lighter and more flexible, better suiting the modern woman such as the flapper who wanted to engage in active sport. Women were now becoming more assertive and less willing to keep the home fires burning. The flappers' costume was seen as sexual and raised deeper questions of the behavior and values it symbolized.<ref name="Yellis 1969 44–64" />