Life, 1910-12-22 · page 24 of 44
Life — December 22, 1910 — page 24: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is satirical commentary on early 20th-century women's suffrage activism, written *against* the suffrage movement itself. The author uses a fictional character, Priscilla, to mock suffragettes by having her express their supposed views in exaggerated, contradictory ways. Priscilla defends boycotting *Life* magazine for mocking suffragettes, then undermines her own cause by abandoning serious argument to shop for hobble skirts. She claims women's "superior intellectuality" while praising sensationalism over domestic duty. She ridicules a theatrical scene emphasizing motherhood as women's highest calling, yet reveals that seeking newspaper attention—not voting itself—is her actual priority. The cartoons (a caricatured woman and garden scene) reinforce the satire: Life magazine is mocking suffragettes as hypocritical and trivial, prioritizing fashion and publicity over genuine political argument. The piece suggests activists undermine their own credibility through contradictions and superficiality.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
*L DPE Priscilla Airs Serious Ideas ON’T think for a minute, dear sisters, that be- cause I write for Lire I have any sympathy with the silly pictures and jokes it prints against our sacred cause. I agree perfectly with our cour- ageous sister, Mrs. Huntley Russell, of Grand Rapids, Michigan, who wrote a letter, recently printed in this periodical, saying that Lire is not indis- pensable and that the Suffragettes in Michigan have not yet “ got busy” with Live's subscription list. There is a grand thought! Threaten every paper which dares say a word against the privilege of the more seasoned members of our sex to get out and make ourselves con- spicuous. Have no mercy for any old pub- lication which advocates the idea that woman's strongest power is in her womanh- ness. The true mission of woman in this world is to get her name into the newspapers. Sensationalism is the greatest lever of mod- ern times. The woman who stays quietly at home and docs her duty as a wife and mother is a fool. 1 know no more inspiring spec- tacle than a pretty and well-bred young girl putting on near-masculine attire and help- ing us older and more experienced females to attract attention to ourselves. Pass the word. Boycott Lire. Boycott every shop which dares put out the sign “Men's Furnishing Goods.” Let there be no distinction of sex. We are quite as good A CALIFORNIA GARDEN as men and a great deal better. Let us boy- cott everything and everybody who does not believe in “ Votes for Women.” Men are tyrants and the American woman is a down- trodden slave. 1 could write more on this topic, but I must stop now, as I read in the morning newspaper that there are bargain sales of hobble skirts at all the department stores. Thousands of words about trifles in Presi- dent Taft's message and not one about the greatest question of the day. He’s a man. A silly story is going the rounds of the newspapers to the effect that a Parisian man-modiste recently went crazy, and being confined in an asylum for the insane spent his time in his cell drawing pictures on the walls of designs for the hats and gowns which have been adopted in Paris and there- fore in America as the latest fashions. This is perfectly absurd. Everyone knows that the hats and gowns now being worn by American women are perfect demonstrations of woman's superior intellectuality. Can anyone sccing a woman board a street-car ona hobble-skirt deny this? I should very much like to sce a mere man try to do the same thing. In one of the current plays called “ Mother,” the heroine, a foolish female per- son who impoverishes herself to keep her son from going to jail, is represented as saying: “In every woman's life there are only two great moments—when she gives her first kiss to her lover, and when she gives her first kiss to her own first child. Not much of a destiny, is it? But that is Pretty near the sum total of our lives—and the woman who misses them. no matter how much else she may be, how much else she may succeed, she is still a failure.” Did anyone ever hear such trash? The proudest moment in a woman's life is, when she is making an impasstoned appeal for Votes for Women from a dry-goods box on a Bowery corner, to hear some silly man say, ‘Ah, there! Good-morning, Carrie.” There's no logic in the claim that to vote is a privilege, not a right. It's truc that in times gone by men were fighters and pro- tectors and that most of the peace and quiet we now enjov were won by men who wrought and fought while silly women made homes and cared for children. To-day the greatest victories are gained by" talking, and is there a man on earth who can out-talk a woman? This is the century of talking in- stead of fighting. It is the era of woman. PRiscitta Jawnones. “ DROP IN TIME.” “WHO DO YOU THINK THE WRIGHT BROTHERS?” AND SEE ME SOME AM? comicbooks.com