Judge — March 24, 1928 — page 23: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This multi-panel comic satirizes 1920s social attitudes about women and marriage. The top panel shows two women discussing husbands—one complaining she "gave him up for Lent" (a religious sacrifice joke). The lower panels mock male perspectives: a man wishes his wife had a "pretty face," another discusses his wife running away with her "best friend" (implying infidelity or scandal), and a couple jokes about the "tiller girl idea"—a reference to the "flapper" or modern, independent young woman of that era. The satire targets contemporary anxieties about changing gender roles and women's increasing independence during the Jazz Age. The crude characterizations and men's shallow comments ridicule both male attitudes toward women and the emerging "modern girl" phenomenon itself, reflecting the period's conflicted social commentary on femininity and marriage.