Judge — May 4, 1912 — page 14: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This is a satirical cartoon by Flato about Princeton University athletics and gender dynamics. The image shows a tiger (Princeton's mascot) in an aggressive stance, with a fashionably dressed young woman riding on its back. The verse jokes that while the Princeton Tiger is fierce in athletic competition ("roars and growls"), it becomes docile and affectionate ("turn to a purr") when encountering a Princeton girl. The satire targets the contradiction between masculine athletic aggression and masculine submissiveness around women—suggesting that even the fiercest competitor becomes meek in romantic/social contexts. The woman's confident posture and the tiger's tamed demeanor humorously invert traditional power dynamics of the era.