Life, 1913-04-17 · page 20 of 52
Life — April 17, 1913 — page 20: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes male dishonesty toward women, attributed to Thomas Edison's claim that women find truth difficult to believe. **Main Cartoon**: Shows a man in an urban setting with the caption "ow! I ain't fit to 'ave a 'and in the gover'ment, ain't I? I'll show yer"—likely depicting a working-class man's boastful claims, illustrating the text's theme that men routinely lie about their accomplishments, finances, and activities. **The Satire**: The accompanying essay argues men systematically deceive women—about love, money, smoking habits, spending, and opinions—not because women naively believe lies, but because women *expect* and *accept* this deception as normal relationship dynamics. It's a critique of both male dishonesty and female complicity. **"Juvenile Diplomacy"**: A brief joke where boys cleverly avoid breaking their promise by trading oranges rather than eating their own. **"The Donkey"**: A separate illustration with unclear satirical intent from this context alone. The overall tone is tongue-in-cheek social commentary on gender relations and honesty.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“LIFE: What Men Tell Women “Tt is very difficult to make women believe anything that is so."—Thomas A. Edison. HIS is not so singular, Mr. Edison, considering the fact that from the time the world began men have been trying to make women believe all the things that are not so. A man tells a woman that he loves her more than any- thing else on the face of the earth and that he will con- tinue to love her forever and ever; but it isn’t so. If a woman ventures an opinion upon any subject—no matter what it is—and a man disagrees with her, he will let her keep on thinking that she is right rather than prove that she is wrong. A man lies to a woman about the number of cigars he smokes a day, about how much money he is making in his business, about what he has done during his waking periods, about where he was last week, where he expects to be to-morrow and where he thinks he will be next year. He lies to her about how much he pays for his clothes, how much he spends on his friends, what he reads, what he doesn’t read, what he thinks and what he doesn’t think. The object of every man, outside of his business, is to keep women misinformed. No, Mr, Edison. If a woman wanted to know what was really so, she would find out. But she knows better than that. She expects to have the men keep on telling her things that are not so. That is part of her existence. Ts be, Juvenile Diplomacy OTHER: I gave each of you boys an orange. Charles, you said you wouldn't eat yours till after dinner. And you, Jack, said the same, Have you deceived me? Cuartie: No, mother, we didn’t eat our oranges. I ate Jack’s an’ he ate mine. cr isn’t the man who takes things as they come who suc- The Donkey: THOSE WINGS HAVE SPROUTED ALL RIGHT; ceeds, but the man who also snatches them as they go. BUT I WONDER HOW MUCH LARGER THEY WILL Grow! comicbooks.com