The Weaker Sex — II

Four Gibson Girls crowd a tabletop to study a tiny, fully formed man — roughly two inches tall — with the clinical detachment of naturalists examining a specimen. The central figure holds a magnifying glass over him; a second woman, leaning in from the right, extends a hat pin as if to prod him. Two others observe from behind, one half-turned in profile. The figures are rendered in Gibson's characteristic dense crosshatching: piled pompadours, bare shoulders, expressions poised between amusement and cool appraisal. The title, The Weaker Sex, delivers the inversion cleanly — it is the man who is miniaturized and helpless. Gibson's serial satire on gender hierarchy here gives the joke entirely to women, depicting them as sovereign, curious, and faintly predatory, with the era's 'New Woman' confidence worn as naturally as an evening gown.