Life, 1913-06-26 · page 14 of 45
Life — June 26, 1913 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes two opposing personality types through an argument addressed to readers. A "synthetic" woman is praised as intellectually superior—she's organized, purposeful, and self-directed, embodying modern progress. By contrast, an "acratic" man is mocked as aimless and dependent, "hardly able to make a living" with "increasingly unintelligent" behavior. The bottom illustration ("Man and Subaltern") shows five men in formal dress, likely satirizing gender dynamics of the era. The "Auction Bridge Terms" section makes wordplay jokes connecting card-game terminology to romantic/marital situations (e.g., "Hearts: Before marriage; Diamonds: At the wedding"). The overall message champions modern synthetic womanhood as superior to traditional male role models.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Ak you an acratic man or a syn- thetic woman? If you are a synthetic woman we take off our hats to you. You have traveled beyond the vul- gar union of the sexes by what is termed a psy- chological, sexual, sy chronated and super- human synthesis. You have made of yourself an entirely new creature, having absorbed the hitherto vicious energy of mankind and di- verted to your own personality that psychic combination of vibrations which thus cnabled you to emerge into the higher and circumambient at- mosphere of supreme superiority. In other words, you are IT. Mrs, Pankhurst, by the way, in the onward march of this great wave of synthetic cerebration, is only an inci- dent. If, on the other hand, you are merely an acratic man, then God help you. You have given up to this great movement about all the good that there was in you. It has left you wobbly. You are barely able to make a living. Your horns are gone. To say that you are increasingly unintelligent conveys “LIFE- Synthetic vs. Acratic no idea of the situation at all. You are acratic. The synthetic woman docs not even look down upon you; she has no time. She does not even know that you are in existence. There however, to an admittedly humble and commonplace mind, one harrowing thought in connection with a synthetic woman. Is it possible that in her on- ward progress—in her intense occupa- tion and concentration (because we all know how woman leans to con- centration)—is it possible, we say, that she has, for the time being, over- looked the slight detail of being able to perpetuate herself? With only ‘i¢ man tottering around in the d, how is the synthetic woman to arrange the process by which others like her can keep going in the future? We have no doubt that she has ar- ranged this matter. With the superb intellectual machinery which she is ac- quiring—and which it is, of course, impossible that we should understand —a detail of this sort could not have escaped her attention. Possibly this announcement may come a little bit later. We hope when it does come that it will be received with the respect and admiration which it should com- mand from all sober-thinking people. MAN AND SUPERMAN “stop THIEF” Auction Bridge Terms VER: A roof—if you're lucky. Satisfied: Never: it’s too Amer- ican. Hearts: Before marriage. Diamonds: At the wedding. Clubs: After marriage. Spades: Last call. A short suit: In bathing. Pivoting: When you marry a widow. Cutting In: War. Down and Out: Depends upon your partner. comicbooks.com