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Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve

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Camray. It's ready. Are you welcome

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to stuff mom never told you? From

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house stuff Works dot com.

0:16

Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline

0:18

and I'm Kristin. So Kristen. Let's

0:21

blouse hip Hellen. Yeah, twenty

0:23

ones can do. Wait. I don't even know

0:25

if that's one of the thing it is nurts.

0:28

You know what I hate on a date A bunch

0:30

of cherry smashes. Yeah, but

0:33

a bunch of my friends are biscuits though. Biscuits.

0:35

Yeah, they don't like cherry smashes. Okay,

0:39

if people haven't guessed by now, we're talking in slapper

0:42

slang. Flapper eve yes,

0:45

um of all the slang.

0:47

While you know, today's generation

0:49

has text speak like walls

0:53

and uh, adorms,

0:58

toasts, adorms, toasts, jelly uh,

1:01

we have nothing on flapper

1:03

slang. Yeah, it really is unrecognizable

1:06

because at least tech speak, you kind of it's

1:08

abbreviations of things you can kind of figure it out.

1:10

But flapper speak, I mean they have dictionaries

1:13

so that people like us can understand what the heck they

1:15

were talking about. So why don't we explain a

1:17

little bit of what we were talking about. For instance, what

1:19

is let's blouse hip pound me that

1:21

means let's go person who likes to drink

1:24

hooch um. And if

1:26

you are a biscuit, that means that you

1:28

are a pettible flapper, which means

1:30

that people probably want to kiss you on

1:33

the mouth. But speaking of kisses

1:35

on the mouth, if you give

1:37

cherry smashes, that means

1:40

you have feeble

1:42

kisses, right and nerts

1:45

means I am amazed starts

1:47

I might adopt that one actually, um.

1:50

And uh, if you have gotten

1:52

a divorce recently, guess what you're out

1:54

on? Borow it's the bunk, which

1:56

means I doubt that, Oh you

2:00

doubt that I'm out on pearl. Yeah,

2:02

you're too young for them. Uh.

2:05

So today, yes, we're going to talk about

2:07

flappers and not just

2:10

fringy Halloween costumes

2:12

and Charleston, but actually who

2:15

these young women were and

2:17

uh, what was going on to

2:20

to to spur these these

2:22

zany gals who talked in all

2:24

this jib jam, all these changes

2:27

in society and in dress links

2:29

and hair links and everything. It came

2:31

from a place and all

2:34

of this came about after World War One ended.

2:36

Yes, Um, all these terrible things

2:38

were happening, um, but all of a sudden, society

2:41

started getting better. Um,

2:43

even though so many people had died in World

2:45

War One and a flu outbreak

2:48

millions of people died. Oh yeah.

2:50

In in World War One we have a worldwide

2:52

and estimated thirty seven million deaths

2:55

and injuries. And in the

2:57

nineteen eighteen Spanish flu pandemic

3:00

right on the heels of World War One,

3:02

twenty to forty million deaths. So

3:05

after this we see this huge

3:07

economic surge and significant

3:10

social change. Yeah. And kind of this notion

3:12

for for younger people, um,

3:14

whose peers might have gone off to war

3:17

and not come back or caught the flu

3:19

and not recovered. It's notion that, hey,

3:21

you know what, life is pretty

3:24

short and unpredictable, and we'd

3:26

better have a dang all good time, right,

3:28

And not to mention that while all those men

3:31

were out at war, um, a lot of

3:33

educational and employment opportunities

3:35

open for women, so they were they

3:37

were jumping in the game. Yeah. Uh.

3:40

And we should talk about two significant

3:43

pieces of legislation the past in

3:46

nineteen twenty, and that is the eighteenth

3:48

Amendment, also known as the Volstead

3:50

Act, which outlawed booze and

3:53

kicked off prohibition. And then in

3:55

August of nineteen twenty,

3:57

we have the passage of the nineteenth Amendment

3:59

give women the vote rights.

4:02

All these crazy things are happening. Women are running

4:04

around voting. Alcohol is driven

4:06

underground. You have to knock on doors and they open

4:09

little split and you have to say a password if you want booze

4:11

wants a bathtub gin Yeah,

4:13

sounds like a stomach problem with happen

4:16

or a good time on the dance floor.

4:19

That's true. But yeah, so other things

4:21

that were going on during this time. It really

4:23

affected the way people thought, hung

4:26

out with each other, interacted. UM.

4:28

The first radio broadcast aired in nineteen

4:31

twenty November. UM and more

4:33

and more people are going to the movies each week,

4:35

so you know, everybody's seeing these

4:38

pop culture representations

4:40

of young people and it sort of creates

4:42

this cycle. But we'll get to that in a little bit.

4:45

UM. And thanks to and this is Man.

4:47

These are quite nice

4:49

percentages in today's economic

4:52

climate. The GDP at the time was

4:54

growing at a rate of four point eight percent

4:56

annually, and unemployment

4:59

was hovering at a round three. Yeah,

5:01

so a lot of people had more money than

5:04

they had previously had. They were earning a lot

5:06

more money, and more people were moving to cities.

5:08

So you had this rise of this young culture

5:11

that had more money and more leisure

5:13

time because they had things like refrigerators and vacuums,

5:15

and they had far more

5:18

mobility. Car ownership

5:20

from nineteen nineteen to nineteen twenty

5:23

nine, ten years, jumped from

5:26

six point eight million to a hundred

5:28

and twenty two million. Suddenly

5:31

people had cars, and that

5:33

was a huge force behind

5:36

this, uh, the emergence of teenage culture

5:39

and flappers, as well of women being able to

5:41

get behind the wheel and drive off

5:43

to who knows where, maybe park

5:45

for a for a petting session. Yeah,

5:49

umpily,

5:52

you did um well, And then yeah,

5:54

you you mentioned dating culture, teenage

5:56

culture. This definitely changed how how young

5:58

people courted one another. Instead

6:01

of the young man coming into the parlor

6:04

and sitting across the room from his beloved,

6:06

he would just you know, drive up outside her stoop

6:09

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

6:11

and you know, say some slang that I wouldn't

6:14

understand. She'd be like, this

6:16

guy's really billow, which

6:18

means he lives fast and spends money freely.

6:20

Yeah, we're gonna go Barney mug is

6:22

that courtship and our petting, oh man.

6:25

And then their parents would just blanche and

6:27

wring their hands. Yeah they were, oh

6:30

dear, something terrible is going to see.

6:33

But I was interested to see that, um

6:35

because because I would have assumed that at the

6:37

time, etiquette may even such

6:39

as Emily Post, would have said, hey, you know

6:41

what, ladies, this is not appropriate

6:43

for you to drive. Uh, don't

6:45

don't get into cars with men. But pretty

6:48

soon after, um, like early in the nineteen

6:50

twenties, Emily Post officially said, hey,

6:52

you know what, it's fine for women to

6:54

drive by themselves.

6:56

Pretty early on the etiquette queen

6:59

is telling that it's okay. There was obviously,

7:01

there was no stopping the emergence of

7:03

this new woman. Yeah,

7:06

all of a sudden, young women weren't tied to

7:08

these lives of piety and domesticity.

7:10

They didn't immediately go into being from

7:12

someone's daughter to being someone's wife and taking

7:15

care of a household. They were pursuing education

7:17

and employment. They were consuming all types of

7:19

media, reading a lot of magazines, books,

7:22

going to movies, listening to the radio,

7:25

and yeah, they're pretty smart. Girls knew a lot

7:27

about a lot. Well, it seems like that that, like you

7:29

said hereing the um the reading of books,

7:31

magazines, going to the the movies, uh,

7:34

listening to the radio. It was that real emergence

7:37

of mainstream pop culture that

7:39

everyone could kind of start partaking it. At

7:41

the same time that we have the

7:43

rise in these um in these

7:45

trends, in this shift in attitude,

7:49

um. And to describe the new woman, who

7:51

is we should differentiate the new

7:53

woman from the flapper

7:55

because the new woman is a little bit

7:57

more of that um or politically

8:00

liberated, sort of like a Margaret

8:03

Mead character. Anthropologist

8:05

um and Charlotte Perkins Gilman,

8:08

who published magazine called The Forerunner,

8:10

described the new woman thus

8:12

Lee. She says here she comes

8:15

running out of the prison and off the pedestal,

8:17

chains off, crown off, halo off.

8:20

Just a live woman, live woman,

8:23

sparkling with electricity and sequence

8:26

because she's a flapper. Um.

8:28

Yeah. The and we also have to differentiate

8:31

between uh, these

8:33

new feminists knew knew,

8:35

the new woman and suffragists

8:38

because you had the older generation really fighting

8:40

for the vote. They finally achieved,

8:42

achieved what they've been fighting for for so long.

8:45

But then you have the Flappers and the New

8:47

Woman who were sort of looked

8:49

down upon by some of their suffragist

8:51

role models as just like these

8:53

kids just want to have a good time. Look at all we fought

8:56

for and they're just running around in cars going to

8:58

petting parties. Right where is

9:00

um? The suffrage movement stopped,

9:02

kind of stopped at that right

9:05

to vote and kind of wanted everything

9:07

to the status quote to remain in

9:09

terms of being a wife, being a mother, and

9:11

taking care of the domestic sphere.

9:14

But the New Woman wanted to really challenge

9:16

those gender roles, right.

9:19

Professor Catherine Lavender said, Uh,

9:21

they meaning the Flappers and the and the New Woman,

9:23

they reacted against the emphasis in the woman

9:25

movement on female nurturance, selfless

9:28

service, and moral uplift. They were

9:30

they were doing good things, they thought,

9:33

but they were having a good time while they did it. Right,

9:35

And there was also this idea of

9:38

uh, sexual freedom being equated with

9:41

economic freedom and those going

9:43

hand in hand, which again the

9:46

suffrage movement was certainly

9:48

not so much about sexual politics,

9:50

right, and not everybody was very supportive of the New

9:53

Woman. Professor Samuel

9:55

Holmes was quoted in The New York Times of saying

9:58

that women who attend college, there by

10:00

developing an interest in a career rather

10:02

than children, were harming the race, and

10:05

that maybe eventually this would calm down and they'd

10:07

all go back home and have babies. Sorry,

10:09

Professor Holmes did not work

10:11

that way. The depression amount of ruined everybody's good

10:14

time. But we still kept the keys to the car

10:17

um. Yeah. The the New York Times,

10:19

it really would just uh did not

10:22

want to to give the Flapper much credit

10:24

for anything. This is from in nine, which

10:27

is after once that the Flapper has really

10:29

become a part of the popular

10:32

culture. They write that the Flapper had

10:34

established the feminine right to equal representation

10:37

in such hitherto masculine

10:39

fields of smoking, drinking,

10:42

swearing, petting, and disturbing the community.

10:44

Piece. Yeah, very snarky New York Times

10:46

snarky. You're like, good for

10:48

you women, you are equally annoying and um.

10:52

And that's the thing though about the Flapper

10:54

is that, yes, she was

10:57

very focused on on doing what she liked.

10:59

Whether that meant that she was kind of crossing

11:01

those bounds into more masculine territories

11:04

of smoking and drinking and other things

11:06

like that. But she wasn't

11:08

as she didn't really care so much to start

11:10

any kind of gender revolution. She

11:13

just really wanted to have a good time and

11:15

if that meant, you know, stepping on some gin

11:17

while she did it, okay, having

11:19

a cigarette, putting finger waves

11:21

in her hair, and really focusing on

11:24

looking good, right and

11:26

having a fantastic time

11:29

exactly. Um, so

11:32

I didn't. I wasn't aware of where the word flapper

11:34

came from, but apparently it's

11:36

it was a word that was borrowed from British slang

11:39

meeting just a young woman. But in nineteen

11:41

fifteen, writer HL Lincoln described

11:44

this new sort of female identity that

11:46

was emerging in the US, and it's an identity

11:48

kind of full of contradictions.

11:51

So this woman or this young woman

11:53

is innocent but smart, and she consumes

11:55

modern media like movies, music and magazines

11:58

like we talked about that she's supposed

12:00

to, I mean willingly to sexy

12:03

or racy material, but she's not sullied by

12:05

it, right, she doesn't. Uh. He writes

12:07

that she saw damaged goods without

12:09

batting an eye and went away wondering what the row

12:12

over it was all about? Right, which damaged

12:15

goods we referenced in our sex

12:17

education podcast and what was

12:19

damaged goods? Caroline? It was all about

12:22

the dangers of having sex.

12:25

Right. It was the first sex said movie

12:27

that was really produced in the United States, all about

12:30

the soldier who contracted

12:33

syphilis, passed onsitive baby,

12:35

and then killed himself. So

12:37

kind of you can see how that movie could be kind of controversial.

12:39

But the Flapper was like, Hey,

12:43

I'm so good. So

12:45

I think a good way to differentiate

12:47

them between that new woman

12:51

UH might be in the form of media. Consumer

12:53

For instance, the new woman would be all about

12:55

the textbooks and the pamphlets

12:58

and more, the more actually minded

13:01

literature of the day, whereas

13:04

the Flappers media was

13:06

all just give me, give me movies, give

13:08

me magazines, give me tabloids

13:10

about Clara Beaux, all that stuff.

13:14

Vanity Fair editor Frank crowin Shield

13:16

in nineteen fifteen characterized

13:18

the Flapper UH saying that his

13:21

dinner companion, Yeah, this is interesting

13:23

this quote. He said, his dinner companion was very

13:25

well informed. I put it down

13:27

naturally enough to wide reading.

13:30

It couldn't all come from experience

13:32

their little bodies wouldn't hold so much

13:35

so thanks because she couldn't

13:37

possibly like, you know, have life experiences

13:40

and learn all that stuff. But you know, it was clear

13:42

that these women were people all

13:44

over characterized them as as big readers

13:47

and wanted to experience a lot of stuff.

13:49

And then in nine twenty, the movie The

13:52

Flapper starring all of Thomas,

13:55

really introduces this female

13:57

figure into main dream

14:00

culture, although all of Thomas, while

14:02

she did play that original flapper, would

14:04

soon be overshadowed by Clara

14:07

Bow who's nineteen seven

14:10

It Girl really defined

14:13

um who who these women would

14:15

want to be, right, Yeah, we still I mean we still use

14:17

the term it girl for for young

14:19

Starlett and it was just

14:21

sexual allure, yes, and and

14:23

how everybody wanted it. And so it's

14:25

interesting how the films of the time

14:27

really created this

14:30

consumer culture but also sort

14:32

of used the consumer culture. So he's really

14:34

a cycle because they showed beautiful

14:37

young women on screen having a great

14:39

time using such and such brand

14:41

of cigarettes or soap or whatever. It's

14:43

like, don't you want to be like this woman? And so

14:45

people would go out and participate

14:48

in these flapper contests

14:50

and pageants and stuff that you'd win something

14:52

if you were the one who looked most

14:55

like the starlett in the movie. Um,

14:57

and one flapper. The real life flapper

15:00

that we have to talk about is Zelda

15:02

Fitzgerald. Poor Zelda, Zelda.

15:06

UM sad, sad life. She did have a

15:08

sad life, but at first it was pretty

15:10

glamorous. Um. She was a debutante

15:12

in Alabama where she met

15:15

f Scott Fitzgerald, and

15:18

those two became just

15:20

the couple, jure, right, the

15:22

golden couple. YEA, parties,

15:25

drinking, drinking, um,

15:27

traveling around the world and

15:30

um. It was interesting. There was a shift

15:32

around the time that Zelda and f

15:34

Scott started to become so

15:36

popular, which was with the publication

15:38

of This Side of Paradise.

15:41

Um, there was a shift in magazine content

15:44

from just general news articles to all

15:47

of a sudden, you have this surge in personal

15:49

profiles. So even among

15:52

more um, high minded media,

15:54

not just magazines like Variety.

15:57

UM, you see this shift

16:00

from just general news

16:02

and information to more celebrity

16:04

and self obsession. And

16:08

part of that obsession was with the fashion of

16:10

the time, which I mean that's

16:13

one of the most easily identifiable eras

16:15

in terms of fashion because you have. You

16:17

go from having high necked clothes

16:20

and with the with the hem line touching the floor

16:22

and having very sensible shoes and your

16:24

long hair tied up in a bun like

16:27

like the Gibson girls of the time exactly.

16:29

Um yeah, all of a sudden it became all about

16:33

straight shifts. You know, some were

16:35

sparkly. If you're going out dancing, the

16:37

hem line was cut so that would be easier

16:39

to dance. You're showing off your bare arms,

16:41

you're not wearing dark wool stockings.

16:44

You're putting on your your silken hose

16:46

right, and you might even roll down your

16:49

your hosiery below the knees to help accommodate

16:52

dancing. And the straight cut dresses

16:55

of the time also made it easier

16:57

for any young

17:00

woman, no matter whether she's

17:02

rich or poor, to make her own

17:05

flapper fashion. Whereas with those

17:07

you know, more elegant Gibson girl kind

17:10

of outfits, it was it was definitely more restricted

17:12

to the middle and upper classes. And

17:15

we can't forget the hair. Oh yeah, the hair

17:17

is such a big deal. Everybody starts chopping

17:19

their hair off and like slicking it down

17:21

and having those two little curls that came out of

17:23

the side and then putting a cloth chat on top.

17:25

That's right, and on a side. Note.

17:28

Yeah, this is also the time when while

17:31

yes, plenty of women were still making their own dresses

17:33

at home, but you also have ready

17:35

made clothes becoming more of

17:37

the standard. And because of that,

17:40

this is when sizing comes

17:42

into play, which is still such

17:44

a massive frustration in

17:46

women's fashion. Um. But

17:49

but standard sizing starts happening. And then you also

17:51

have, uh, the popularization

17:54

of dieting, right, because people want to be

17:56

a two instead of a six or whatever, and

17:58

they want to fit in the lower numbers, and that thin boyish

18:01

figure was in Women would even buying their

18:03

breasts just to make sure that they

18:05

didn't have that that hourglass shape

18:07

of the Gibson girls. They didn't want to be bouncing around

18:10

there dancing, right, just like an early

18:12

sports bra basically um.

18:14

And even down to the shoes, they wore tea

18:16

straps and buckled heels that were

18:19

low enough to accommodate dancing.

18:22

Um. But this was also the time

18:24

when we started wearing bras instead

18:26

of corsets, but not without

18:29

um some people kind of freaking out

18:31

about the implications of women not

18:34

wearing corsets anymore. This

18:36

is This is a pretty intense example

18:38

from Leonard floor Sheim, who was the president

18:41

of the Corset and Brazier Association.

18:44

In nineteen one, he

18:46

wrote an article titled the

18:48

Evils of the No Corset fat in

18:50

which he used racial stereotypes to persuade

18:52

middle and upper class white women that going

18:54

corsetless was much the same as

18:57

going wild. My goodness,

18:59

Leonard, how hateful that is horrifying?

19:02

Yeah, just gee, you layoff.

19:05

Yeah, but the flappers did not give

19:07

a about Leonard floorsche You were

19:09

not given to giving hoots, that's right. But

19:12

Leonard Floorsheim, of course, was not the only um

19:15

adult non flapper who was

19:17

really concerned about these young

19:19

women and moral implications

19:21

of their lifestyles. I mean parents of the

19:24

day, not only we're freaking out about jazz.

19:26

There's this one one article that we found

19:29

I think in uh it might have been in Harper's

19:32

Um, but the title was something along the

19:34

lines of this jazz put the sin in

19:36

syncopatient. Yes, And

19:38

these flappers were listening to jazz music

19:41

and dancing to all this

19:43

this new music and uh,

19:45

smoking cigarettes and petting

19:47

in backseats of cars and

19:50

parents, Oh man, they didn't

19:52

know what to do, but

19:55

um. Ellen Wells Page

19:57

in December wrote

19:59

a Flappers Appeal to parents, which Caroline

20:02

you aptly describe as the jazz

20:04

age version of parents. Just don't understand,

20:07

that's the most It's like such a

20:09

whiny. It totally reminds me of

20:11

some melodramatic, whiney

20:15

young woman who's just like, oh

20:17

goodness, times of changing, and

20:19

we need guidance from you. You just

20:22

have to understand that we're different.

20:24

We need your support. Right At first, she starts

20:27

out explaining differences among flappers.

20:29

Um, and apparently there were three main categories.

20:31

I had no idea flappers, the semi flapper,

20:34

which ellen Wells Page, the author describes

20:36

herself as one of those because she didn't really smoke

20:38

very many stings. Is like, this is like hipsters who want

20:40

emit their hipsters. Right, I'm not a

20:42

hipster. I just dressed like this. I don't know to hang

20:44

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

20:47

just because I dressed like a flapper doesn't

20:49

mean I have one. I'm only a semi flapper. But

20:51

then they're from the semi flapper. You have just the standard

20:54

flapper, and then there is

20:56

the super flapper who just I

20:58

mean, I don't know if she ever even came home. She's

21:01

just riding around in cars for days,

21:03

drinking bathtub does she had the bathtub bathtubs

21:06

in in the car going crazy. She never

21:08

took off that close chat, but

21:10

I did like her observation that petting

21:13

is gradually growing out of fashion through being

21:15

overworked, which seems to apply to me. That

21:18

that making out essentially was just

21:20

that people were doing it so often in so many

21:22

back seats that there it was just becoming

21:25

a little just like, who does

21:27

that anymore? Well? She also she also wrote

21:29

about jazz as if jazz

21:32

were something that would eventually go out of style. She's

21:34

like, yeah, we're listening to it now, but that's

21:36

only until it's not cool anymore.

21:39

How little she knew, how olda she knew. But she did

21:41

end up appealing to parents to

21:44

to understand and embrace

21:46

the flapper lifestyle and provides some kind

21:48

of guidance instead of just rebuking

21:52

um all of the flapper ways,

21:54

although at one point she she uh

21:57

encourages father's to

22:00

quote make love to their daughters it's a

22:03

figure. It was totally a figure spege

22:05

um. But I think that only h yeah, the only

22:08

hammer's holm the just the drama because

22:10

there I mean, even though this is one essay

22:12

that we're talking about, this was really Ellen

22:15

Wells Pages essays sums

22:17

up just the I

22:19

don't know that everybody's computery.

22:22

Everything's changing. You just got to hold

22:24

on for the ride. But it's only speaking of

22:26

of using making love. It's so

22:29

different. It meant something very different than it

22:31

does now. And that phrase

22:33

I was I first found it in Um

22:35

the Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, for

22:38

which she want a Pulletzer

22:40

Prize. She read in n and she

22:42

was the first woman, in fact to win

22:45

a Pulletzer prize. Yeah,

22:47

another example of that, that new

22:49

woman emerging. So

22:52

I don't know, to me, the flapper, the place

22:55

of flappers in American history isn't

22:57

so much about feminism because she's sort

22:59

of is uh, this offshoot

23:02

of the new woman. She kind of takes the

23:05

social benefits that new women were, um

23:07

were earning, and but really just

23:09

kind of ignores all the heavy stuff and

23:12

has a good time. So I kind of consider

23:14

flappers as the first real bachelor's

23:17

in American society, because bachelor's,

23:20

the whole bachelor culture is generally

23:22

a political and they're just

23:24

enjoying their their single dom,

23:26

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

23:29

so think of teenage culture now, yeah,

23:31

it's it's the same thing. I mean, I mean, not

23:34

that there aren't teenagers who are interested

23:36

in you know, learning and politics

23:38

and stuff, but but that whole pop culture

23:40

and I think that yeah again,

23:42

like flappers too, were one of the first big examples

23:45

of how pop culture can influence those

23:47

trends and that kind of back and forth

23:49

cycle that you mentioned between you

23:51

know, the seeing things on screen and

23:53

then mimicking them in real life and then you

23:56

know, screen taking cues from your life and it goes

23:59

around and around and a

24:01

giant vat of consumer culture. Um,

24:04

and now we're in a recession. And speaking

24:06

of recessions, on October, stock

24:09

market crashed and the Flapper

24:12

Party came to a

24:14

close. Right on that, right,

24:17

but those major ideas of

24:19

you know, the the new women

24:21

had had earned their freedom or less,

24:24

scarts stayed relatively short, cars

24:26

were still on the road. Yeah,

24:30

so good for you flapper women. So

24:32

I hope that you have enjoyed this little historical

24:34

insight into the role of

24:36

flappers. And then next time, you know, if you're uh

24:40

thinking of way ahead

24:42

about Halloween next year, um,

24:45

or next time you see the flapper costumes, just remember

24:47

there's more. There's more to flappers than

24:49

just fringe and cigarette

24:52

holders, exactly a lot more like

24:54

haircuts, right and

24:56

movie watching. So if you have anything

24:58

you'd like to send our way about flappers

25:01

in your take on them, Mom, Steve al

25:03

stepworks dot Com is the address, and

25:06

I've got an email here from Bayla in

25:09

response to our podcast on

25:11

Trailblazing Lesbians,

25:13

and she writes, I wanted to mention Dr

25:16

Dorothy Anderson, who was my grandmother's

25:18

college roommate at Mount Holyoke in

25:20

the nineteen twenties. Andy,

25:22

as she was known, never came out, but she also

25:24

never married, and she routinely wore men's suits

25:27

and was generally seen as very masculine

25:29

or butch Andy went on to identify

25:31

and to develop the first treatments for cystic

25:33

fibrosis. My mother

25:36

once asked my grandmother whether she had ever realized

25:38

that Andy was probably a lesbian and my fairly

25:40

proper grandmother responded, Oh, I think she

25:42

had a boyfriend once. Anyway,

25:44

there was a family legend that Andy sometimes tagged

25:46

along on my grandmother's dates to sit at the table

25:49

nearby and inspect the young men courting

25:51

her friend. In later life, Andy kept

25:53

a small recreational farm in upstate New York where

25:55

my mother and her siblings all spent summers growing up.

25:58

And as Andy had no children of her own, and she left

26:00

the farm to my aunt when she died. While

26:02

Andy was not publicly known as a lesbian in

26:04

her lifetime, we firendly believe that she was gay

26:07

and that her close friendships with my mother's family

26:09

constituted her own surrogate family's

26:12

interesting bit of history.

26:16

I have an email from Damien in response

26:18

to our Bisexual Men

26:20

podcast, and he said that

26:23

you may be interested to learn that there is another

26:25

designation gaining slow recognition amongst

26:27

individuals who can feel both deep emotional

26:29

and sexual connections to those of both sexes.

26:31

The term is homo sexual and

26:34

awkward contradiction, indicating a postmodern

26:37

perspective on sexuality, wherein the

26:39

individual finds themselves not driven by

26:41

sexual motivations and attractions, but by

26:43

characteristics and traits of the genderless

26:45

individual. Of course, the concept

26:48

is not easily understood. Yes,

26:50

it has made my own romantic, personal

26:52

and social life more awkward than perhaps my gay,

26:54

heterosexual, or even bisexual counterparts.

26:57

Most people read it with both fear and maybe

27:00

been a bit of disgust, as though I'm itching to potentially

27:02

get with everything that moves, or that

27:04

I could just suddenly switch at any time.

27:06

Of course, I do recognize a good looking man or

27:08

woman in the room. In reality, however,

27:11

real attraction begins for me not as sexual

27:13

at all, but as an emotional and intellectual connection.

27:16

Only after identifying someone as a potential

27:18

mental partner have I been truly interested in

27:20

exploring a potential physical side.

27:23

Thanks so thanks to all of you who have

27:25

written in at mom stuff at how stuff works

27:28

dot com, and as always, you can hit us up

27:30

on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at

27:32

mom Stuff Podcasts, and

27:35

you can check out the blog during the week and

27:37

read the article how Flappers

27:39

Work by Hey me that

27:42

girl there yep me at

27:44

how stuff Works dot com.

27:46

You're a regular billow be

27:51

sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff

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from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff

27:56

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