Under Construction Journal Issue 6.1 UNDER CONSTRUCTION JOURNAL 6.1 | Page 30

acceptable for women’s objectified bodies in society. The tension between the flapper as an icon of
independence for women or an object of consumerism and further patriarchal control remains
irresolvable.
Concluding Remarks
The flapper offers the chance to explore how women’s liberated identity has previously been bound with
consumer capitalism in similar ways to contemporary feminisms’ entanglement with consumer culture.
As a result, the flapper’s potential to construct an autonomous identity becomes questionable. As a source
of power that seeks profit, capitalism adopted and appropriated the flapper’s liberating qualities,
identifying in the flapper the innovation of new modes of being as well as the potential for new sites of
commerce,such as make-up and dieting. Furthermore, utilising Foucault’s theories of the self-disciplined
body as a basis, feminists suggest that the introduction of new body ideals for women is a new form of
control,particularly when knowledge/discourse and surveillance create a self-disciplined body. Such
arguments make it difficult to see the flapper as the icon of liberation she is often referred to.
For a comparative analysis of contemporary feminism, the flapper offers a useful example of
analysing a figure of liberation that emphasises aesthetics rather than challenging their unjust application
of power. Though contemporary feminism, with its slogan t-shirts and keyrings, may be challenging the
negative stereotypes of feminism, a critical approach should be taken to examine the ways it is potentially
reproducing self-disciplined women that simply create new platforms for capitalist marketing of identities.
Therefore, with the flapper and her attempts to transform what was considered feminine in mind,and
contemporary feminism, how far do these efforts allow women to be seen as a subject rather than an
object? And how can women continue these efforts under today’s consumer marketing? Though due to
reasons of scope this piece has not been able to unpack the way the flapper is frequently represented as
a young, white, middle to upper-class woman, many argue popular feminism offers a similar emphasis on
this group – further adding a heteronormative, classed, raced and cis-gendered glaze over its ostensibly
liberatory, egalitarian feminism. Such criticisms and questions remain important for contemporary
feminism 100 years after the flappers’ subculture emerged.
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