Life — January 22, 1920 — page 9: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Political Cartoon Analysis This page contains a cartoon dialogue between a father and son discussing employment. The son announces he's "in love with one of the girls in the office," prompting the father's skeptical response: "Well, what's the trouble? Are you afraid you can't support her in the style to which she is accustomed?" The satire targets early 20th-century anxieties about women's economic expectations and workplace dynamics. The father's concern—that the son cannot afford to maintain a woman's lifestyle—reflects contemporary tensions about dating costs and marriage economics during a period when women increasingly worked outside the home. The cartoon mocks both the father's materialistic outlook and the implied assumption that women required financial support beyond their means.