I’ve just read this review of a book I’d like to read, and while it’s all good stuff, I have some concerns.
I’d been thinking of an article where I talked about the way the popularity of 20s charleston with contemporary swing dancers meant that, finally, it was ok for women to dance alone (again). Just like in the 20s. And then I was going to write about flappers and women’s lib in the 20s. Reading the stuff I just have on blues women in the 20s, I could probably add a bit about how the 20s were just frickin’ hardcore generally. Compared to the late 30s anyway, mid WWII when we were wearing silly overly fitted dresses and then busily being kicked out of jobs and back into the kitchen.
But then I read this bit of the review:
Women of the 1920s began voting
And all I could think was ‘sure, if they were white and lived in the US’. Votes for women weren’t happening all over Europe in the 20s. And sure as fuck you weren’t voting in AUSTRALIA if you weren’t WHITE.
And then I thought about 20s charleston today and how the people who get out there and do it are generally the more advanced dancers (in ‘mixed company’ that is – when I’m at Funbags or other beginner-dominated gigs the noober dancers do all kinds of crazy shit without worrying that some frickin’ rockstar is watching). It seems social 20s charleston is not the People’s Dance as I had imagined it in two or three years ago.
I’m not sure I’m buying the whole ‘flappers are great’ line any more.
…and strangely, I’m reminded of the line from a Hot Club of Cowtown* song:
I can’t tame wild women,
But I can make tame women wild.
A sentiment I heartily endorse.
*If you don’t know the HCOCT, you should. That’s some hawt shit.