Life — April 7, 1910 — page 45: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This satirical cartoon mocks the suffragette movement by contrasting a fashionable woman with a child. When asked if she's a suffragette, the woman responds she's "happily married"—implying suffragettes are unmarried or unfeminine. The joke relies on period stereotypes portraying suffragettes (women's voting rights activists) as unattractive, man-hating, or otherwise socially undesirable. By having an elegant, conventionally feminine woman reject the label, the cartoon suggests suffragettes were the opposite: unfeminine or socially problematic. The parasol—a fashionable accessory—emphasizes the subject's conventional femininity, sharpening the contrast with the implied "unfeminine" suffragette. This represents typical anti-suffrage propaganda using ridicule rather than substantive argument.