Life, 1913-05-08 · page 18 of 48
Life — May 8, 1913 — page 18: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical piece mocks suffragist Constance Brannan's warning that American women might resort to militant tactics (like those of British suffragists led by Emmeline Pankhurst) if denied voting rights across all states. The cartoon "THE BITER BIT" depicts three figures—likely representing suffragists of different generations—carrying a sign reading "VOTES FOR WOMEN," with the imagery suggesting they are the "bitter" ones being satirized. The author's argument is sarcastically dismissive: he suggests militant suffragists belong in asylums, recommends women simply relocate to pro-suffrage states, and proposes teaching boys "how to please the ladies" instead. His core argument reduces women's political demands to economic dependency—women want votes only because men don't provide adequately for them. He frames female unrest as an "economic condition" rather than a justice issue, ultimately trivializing women's political aspirations as complaints about money and male providers. The satire targets both the suffragists and, through exaggeration, the paternalistic attitudes dismissing their cause.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
926 Na \ =a Some Reflections on Mrs. Brannan RITING to the Times about Mrs. Pankhurst, Mrs. Brannan says that though American suffragists are agreed as yet in thinking that militant action is not called for here, “it is quite possible that if the Eastern States con- tinue to deny enfranchisement to their women while the Western States con- tinue to grant it, the women thus dis- criminated against would find the political anomaly of their position so impossible to bear that even militancy would seem to them justifiable.” That would be a pity. Our lunatic asylums are crowded now, and to move out the more manageable of their present occupants in order to make room for militants would involve much hardship. It would be much kinder for the more im- patient sisters to cure the political anomaly of their posi tion by moving into suffrage States. California, Colo- rado and all the Mormon States await Mrs. Brannan. Michigan and Iowa have backslid, but Maine is emotional State. Maybe, some time, the suffragists will win Maine. Then, with a summer vote in Bangor and a winter vote in Los Angeles, they will have a sure cinch on the political anomaly. But when women like Mrs. Brannan threaten us with public revolt, arson, dynamite, handbills and invasion of the post-boxes if we don’t hurry up and give them the ballot, is it not time that in our institutions of public in- struction courses should be introduced wherein the boys may’ study how to please the ladies? That seems to be “ MERE’S TO YOU, OLD Hoss!’ + LARP E « THE BITER BIT the most important branch of knowledge now open to the pursuit of man. In simpler days it was considerably taught by mothers, but since institutional teaching has so far superseded mothering, it may be that it has been a good deal lost out. The simplest and best known way to please women is to get money for them, and if they are still unappeased, to get more money, and more and more. That method has been extensively followed in this country. It has worked pretty well, for, as Mrs. Brannan generously concedes, the impatience with men is not so acute in this country as in England. She feels, apparently, that we are doing our poor best and, backward as we are, she is willing to give us a little more time. Taking women by and large, there is nothing we can think of that they respect so much as a good provider. It is a warrantable respect, for if they are to be employed as women, and not as mere industrial factors, they require provision, and should have it made for them, and not have to go qut and hustle for it themselves. The primary cause of unrest in the areas of female disturbance is that too large a proportion of the men are pnable to provide for anybody, and too many women are obliged to provide for themselves. That is an economic condition, and if it can be cured a long step will be taken to cure the prevailing suffragitis. comicbooks.com