The Wasp — 1896 — page 785: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This cartoon satirizes the women's suffrage movement. An elderly grandfather scolds his granddaughter Mabel for "gadding about the streets" and warns: "What do you expect to be when you grow up, anyway?" Mabel responds that she's "a woman suffragist." The satire ridicules suffragists by suggesting that activism outside the home—particularly women's public political engagement—represents a moral failing or dangerous deviation from proper feminine behavior. The cartoon uses intergenerational conflict to mock suffragists' ambitions, framing political activism as an "early symptom" of social disorder. The page is otherwise filled with period advertisements (wine, shoes, whiskey, hotels), typical of *The Wasp's* satirical-magazine format.