The Wasp — 1895 — page 406: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page satirizes women's appearance and behavior through the caption "Getting Ready for the Summer Campaign." The illustration shows a woman in a bathing suit admiring herself in a mirror while another woman sits nearby, appearing to wait. The accompanying text criticizes women who spend an hour preening before their mirror, comparing this vanity to a "bathing suit that the Society for the Prevention of Vice" would condemn. The satire suggests that such self-admiration represents the "New Woman" engaging in frivolous behavior that reformers ought to target for moral correction. This reflects early 20th-century anxieties about changing female independence and sexuality, mocking both women's emerging freedom and contemporary moral reform movements simultaneously.