Episode 49: Bare Female Shoulders, Oh My!

Bare Female Shoulders, Oh My! Flapping through the 1920s in Bootie and Bossy's Episode 49!

Why, why, why do men care so much about what women wear? Oh right, because they want to control women, but Irene Castle did not let the condemnation of Pope Pius and other religious leaders stop her from bobbing her hair and baring her shoulders. As a result, Castle was blamed for everything from broken engagements to wrecked homes, according to Anne Macdonald in No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting. But this was the roaring 20s, the era of the Flappers, when women emerged from World War I empowered by new economic opportunity, and they said hello to voting and goodbye to old fashion, especially the corset. Now women were finally free to breath and move, or in Irene Castle's case, dance. Despite the liberation, Flap ...