Judge — November 12, 1898 — page 16: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This six-panel comic strip by Judge satirizes domestic chaos through slapstick humor. The narrative follows a man visiting a barber shop who becomes entangled with a woman's elaborate feathered hat—a fashionable accessory of the era. The "joke" title blames women generally for the resulting mayhem: the hat creates escalating physical comedy (panels 1-5), culminating in the man fleeing frantically down the street in panel 6, chased by what appears to be the hat's owner or an angry figure. The satire reflects early 20th-century attitudes trivializing women's presence in public spaces and fashion as inherently disruptive. The exaggerated physicality and the concluding "blame women" caption represent a common comedic trope of the period that framed women's autonomy—here symbolized by her fashionable attire—as fundamentally chaotic and problematic.