Part
1
War, crises, and economic recovery may pose challenges to
established social norms and bring about groups that defy conventions and live by their own norms. These groups create what is
generally called—albeit a much debated term—a counterculture. Throughout time,
history has seen many countercultures. In this post I will discuss about past countercultures
in the US and the UK, particularly the flappers, Beats, mods, hippies, and
punks, and look at the contexts in which they emerged from and its influence on gender.
This post is written in two parts. The first looks at the periods of flappers,
Beats, and mods; the second looks at the era which gave rise to the hippie and
punk countercultures.
The
Flappers
The flapper culture in the US only survived for a brief
period. Even with its lack of philosophical depth, flappers caused a major
controversy during their time. From a moralist point of view, flappers were
seen as women with loose morals and a sign of a collapsing middle-class morality.
On the other hand, some see the flapper period as a sexual revolution—however
brief—where urban middle-class women gained economic independence and turned
against existing norms. On their own terms, these women lived the rebellious life
that they desired.
 |
| A flapper posing after a drive (pinterest) |
The late 1920s was when the flappers became well-known,
but the term has been used since the early 1900s. The flappers were born out of
the conditions brought about by the First World War. During the War, women were
taken out of their homes to work in the frontline or to replace men in their
jobs. This gave the justification for women to leave their homes, secure
economic roles, and become independent. Even when women were geared back
towards the home after the war, some women continued to work. It seemed that traditional
moral values have been somewhat affected by the War and many young-single women
in the cities began to lead independent lives rather than submitting to
marriage. As a result of the War, there were more women than men. This fact greatly
contributed to women’s decision to postpone marriage as there were not enough
men available anyway. Moreover, the suffragist movement which had gained strength
at the time, also contributed to the changing perception of women’s role.
Hence the flapper queens established themselves. Young and
independent women, mostly single, determined, smart, and wild—rebelling against
the conventional passive and chaste female image. These women can easily be
identified by their short bobbed hair and shorter, loose dresses—they refused to
be constrained in corsets. Flapper women benefited from this era of rapid
progress in automation and electrical products, they drove their own cars,
smoked, drank, loved coffee, and went café hopping and hanged out in
speakeasies until the morning light. Flappers also enjoyed cultural pluralism.
On their night outs they listened to jazz and danced the Charleston, cultures which
have their roots in the African-American communities. Some perceived flapper
women as simply hedonistic creatures, while some respect them for being
well-informed in politics and the arts.
Flappers were considered promiscuous for their time because they did
not fear scandalous relationships. It can be argued that flappers sparked a
sexual revolution way before the term “sexual revolution” even existed. But even
after causing intense public controversy, the flapper lifestyle—which extended to
the arts, literature, and films—grabbed so much media attention that it became
more and more ordinary and less unconventional. Nevertheless, the fall of the
economy in the 1930s and the Great Depression turned all this freedom a few
women had into a mere momentary sensation—they lost it as quickly as they
gained it. The Depression ended the flapper culture and the following periods
to come simply chose to forget much of the flappers’ earlier gains.
The
Beats
Following the postwar economic boom and population
expansion of the 1950s, newly married US middle-class couples were moving from
the overcrowded city space into new housing areas in the suburbs. A new image
of the happy white middle-class family emerged along with new efficient home
appliances and weekend shopping activities. All this gave rise to a consumer culture
and at the same time strengthened the male breadwinner and domestic wife gender
role. In the face of postwar disillusionment, tradition and conformity became the
norm. It was against this setting that the Beats counterculture movement was
born.
 |
| Café Wha in New York, where the Beats used to meet (Pinterest) |
The Beats were born during the Great Depression. Like flappers,
the Beats (from the phrase beaten down) came out of a postwar generation which became
critical of traditional morality. The Beats were from an academia and
middle-class background, but instead of embracing the establishment, they went
against it and rejected the materialistic and secure life that it offered them.
The Beats were revolutionary in the sense that they
changed conventional ways of writing and expression. The Beats replaced the traditional
structure of poetry with disjointed and free verses and literature with spontaneous
and expressive language. They also had the fearlessness to confront taboo
subjects, such as sexuality.
These changes also constituted changes in lifestyles and
values. The Beats lived a Bohemian lifestyle in parts of the city, mainly in
East Village, New York and later San Francisco. A nonmaterialistic world view, a
nonconformist attitude, Eastern spirituality, jazz underground music, and
experimentation with drugs were important elements of this lifestyle.
Furthermore, they supported sexual freedom and homosexuality. Coffee houses
became the regular places where the Beat founders have their intellectual
discussions, poetry readings, and book discussions.
As much as the Beats appear to offer a kind of sexual
revolution—women—however, were onlookers who were excluded from serious
intellectual and artistic exchange; at best they were there to be available to
the men. Nevertheless, it would be unfair to generalize. Yes, they were prominent
female Beat figures, but it is commonly observed that women did not play a pivotal
role in the Beats’ “boy’s club movement”. As confirmed in the memoir of one
female Beat, Joyce Johnson, the Beat literary movement with its male founding
members—Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs—had “a very masculine
aesthetic.”
There is the view that women were not intentionally left
out, but that there was a lack of female writers and poets at the time,
especially good ones. Even if we were to buy this explanation, it must be noted
that this was a period where women were expected to submit to the role of
housewife and mother. This was the age of conformity. Women who simply could
not conform were seen as having some kind of disturbance and were taken to
mental institutions—electric shock being a common treatment. Thus, this condition
laid the obstacles for women’s substantial participation and inclusion in the Beat
movement.
So, it is not surprising that women who had a high
profile in Beat circles were those who had personal connections with their male
peers/lovers and who held supportive roles. A number of these women, such as Hetti
Jones and Diane Di Prima, organized the publication and distribution of the
work of their male Beat partners. As established publishing houses were not interested
in printing Beat work due to their lack of commercial value, the Beats had to
develop ways and a DIY attitude to get their work out there.
Some Beat women, such as Jones and Johnson took on the
role of breadwinner so that their Beat man can focus on his artistic career. So
they sacrificed their own creative potential for the men in their lives.
However, some did write in their own right, such as Di Prima, Joyce Johnson, and Joanne Kyger.
Beat literary style was influential on the emerging pop
culture of the late 1950s and 1960s, which was predominantly masculine. Bands
like the Beatles as well as a number of 1960s folk-rock song writers such as
Bob Dylan acknowledged the Beats’ influence on their music. With their
influence expanding to pop culture, Beat hat, black leotard, and coffee house
book reading became stereotypes which later were commercialized, exploited, and
turned into a mere fad by the media through the phrase “Beatnik”. Ironically,
the Beat became part of the mainstream culture they were against in the first
place.
The
Mods
Shortly after the Beats became the buzzword of the US, in
the UK, a new urban youth culture called the mod (from the word modern, because
these youths were into modern jazz) was grabbing media attention. The mods
would cruise around the city on their scooters and hang out in coffee houses,
listening to jazz and ska out of the juke box until the morning light. Some say
mod came out as an influence of the Beatnik fad. But unlike the Beats, the mods
started from working-class communities, who because of better economic
conditions and job opportunities after the Second World War, were able to live
a somewhat consumptive lifestyle of fashion and clubbing.
 |
| We are the mods (Pinterest) |
Like the Beatniks, the mods had a distinct taste for
clothes, but they were very fashion conscious. While the Beats’ attire was more
laid back, the mods who were influenced by French and Italian art films, wore tight
suits and pointed shoes. Buying clothes was an important part of their
lifestyle and they did this using most of their wage.
Women were quite visible in the mod culture. As working women,
their economic independence allowed them to participate in the mod lifestyle.
In fact, the mods altered gender roles—English men do not normally shop, but mod
men do their own shopping. As with the flappers, independent mod women rode through
the night; looking stylish on their scooters while wearing masculine leather
jackets—sporting androgynous fashion.
At a glance, the mod lifestyle may appear to have no
political relevance. But it was a political statement in itself, a rebellion
against the conventional postwar English life of hard work and conformity.
The music scene of the early ‘60s also promoted the mod
culture. Performers such as The Who, the Small Faces, and David Bowie sported the mod style (while female musicians were almost nonexistent). At this point,
not surprisingly, top designers saw the potential of the mods as consumers. It
did not take that long until the fashion industry exploited the mod fad. Model
Twiggy’s tomboy posture represented the mod look and altered previous standards
of beauty. While women became more independent beings, they were turned into
objects of the industry. The mod became so commercialized that it became
mainstream and lost its edge.
 |
| David Bowie during his mod days (Pinterest) |
During the hippie generation, the mods became less
visible, but mod fashion and music associated with mods experienced a series of
revivals, especially in the ‘80s. Instead of being too fashion conscious, the mods
of this era took a lot more interest in social and political issues.
From
Nonconformity to Mainstream
Flappers, Beats, and mods started as a form of resistance
against conformity. Their discontent with postwar values affected how they saw traditional
morality. Economic prosperity instigated a new sense of freedom and need for a new
moral code and lifestyle; however, this resistance soon lost to mainstream co-optation.
The flapper culture altered norms on sexuality and gender.
Flapper image and style became so widespread and influenced films, fashion, and
art that amidst all the controversy surrounding the flapper trend, it grew
mainstream and lost its meaning. This appears to be similar to what the other
countercultures experienced.
The Beat image through the beatnik fad ended up becoming
a commodity for middle-class consumption—everything the Beats stood against. Despite
its nonconformist stance, the Beats lack interest in fundamentally challenging
the gender norm of their time. Patriarchal features which excludes most women
and treats female peers as object of desire remained a part of the Beat
movement.
On the other hand, women were more visible in the mod
youth culture. But the mod style was soon co-opted by the media and fashion
industry and became part of popular culture—losing its working-class essence
and the significant role women had. It later intertwined with other cultures,
such as the hippie counterculture, which I will discuss in the second part of
this post.
Sources
The
Mods: Sex and Feminism in Post-War Britain.’ All That is Interesting [online] <http://all-that-is-interesting.com/mods-feminism-britain>
[6 May 2017]
AP comp: The Beat Generation (n.d.) The Importance of the
Beat Generation [online] <https://sites.google.com/site/ahsapcompthebeatgeneration/section-four/importance-of-the-beat-generation>
[6 May 2017].
Asher, Levi (1994) ‘"This
Is The Beat Generation" by John Clellon Holmes.’ Literary Kicks [online]
<http://www.litkicks.com/ThisIsTheBeatGeneration> [6 May 2017].
Baccala, Angela D. (1997) ‘Muses or Maestros?
Women of the Beat Generation.’ The Beat
Begins: America in the 1950’s [online] <http://www.plosin.com/beatbegins/projects/baccala.html>
[6 May 2017].
Casburn,
Melissa M. (n.d.) A Concise History of
the British Mod Movement [online] <http://www.gbacg.org/costume-resources/original/articles/mods.pdf>
[6 May 2017].
Cellania, Miss (2013) ‘The Rise of the
Flappers.’ Sociological Images
[online] < <https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2013/03/25/guest-post-the-rise-of-the-flapper/>
[6 May 2017].
Chastain Elaina (2014) ‘A “Beat” Generation:
Influence and Knowledge from the Masters’. The
Artifice [online] <https://the-artifice.com/beat-generation-influence/>
[6 May 2017].
Cotter, Bill (2017) ‘
Enck, Denise (n.d.) ‘The Beat Generation vs.
The “Beatniks”.’ Empty Mirror
[online] <http://www.emptymirrorbooks.com/beat/whats-the-difference-between-beat-and-beatnik.html>
[6 May 2017].
Farrugia, Jessica M. (2014) ‘Missing Beats: Marginalised Women of the Beat Generation.’ The Artifice [online] <https://the-artifice.com/beat-generation-women/> [6 May 2017].
Huddleston, Diane M. (2012) The Beat
Generation: They Were Hipsters No Beatniks [online] <http://digitalcommons.wou.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=his>
[6 May 206].
Love,
Jennifer (2001) ‘No Girls Allowed: Women Poets and
the Beat Generation.’ Women Writers: A
Zine. Kim Wells (ed.) [online] <http://www.womenwriters.net/may2001/No%20Girls%20Allowed.pdf>
[6 May 2017].
Luyten, Marteen (2012) The Beat Generation’s Influence on Rock and Roll. Bachelor Thesis Faculty
of Arts and Philosophy, Gent University. The Netherlands [online] <http://publish.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1392&context=honorstheses>
[6 May 2017].
Rahn, Josh (2011) ‘The Beat Generation’. The Literature Network [online] <http://www.online-literature.com/periods/beat.php>
[6 May 2017].
[6
May 2017].
Spivack, Emily (2013) ‘The History of the Flapper, Part 1: A Call for Freedom.’ Smithsonian.com [online] <http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-history-of-the-flapper-part-1-a-call-for-freedom-11957978/>
[6 May 2017].
Ushistory.org (2017) ‘Flappers.’ U.S. History Online
Textbook [online] <http://www.ushistory.org/us/46d.asp>
[6 May 2017].
Wandering Mind (2017) Flappers and the New Feminism <http://sakridge.umwblogs.org/its-academic/history/history-299/flappers-and-the-new-feminism/>
[6 May 2017].
Wills. David S. (2008) ‘The Women of the Beat
Generation.’ Beatdom [online] <http://www.beatdom.com/women-of-the-beat-generation/>
[6 May 2017].
Youmans, Kelley (n.d.) The Mod Movement: Britain and
France in the 1960s [online] <https://msu.edu/~youmansk/Eng313/mod.htm>
[6 May 2017].
No comments:
Post a Comment