Judge — June 23, 1917 — page 5: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This cartoon satirizes a woman who claims to have abandoned social life ("the efficiency period") to focus on "beautifying the landscape," yet complains that men now avoid her. The joke hinges on irony: she sacrificed her social appeal for earnest, unglamorous work, then expresses surprise that her romantic prospects suffered as a result. The cartoon mocks both the "efficiency movement" (an early-20th-century trend emphasizing rational productivity) and the woman's self-deluding logic. She presents landscaping as noble work while resenting its social consequences—the implicit critique being that women cannot simultaneously pursue serious work and maintain traditional attractiveness/desirability without contradiction. The title's "butterfly" likely refers to her former frivolous social self.