The Wasp — 1892 — page 402: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This is a satirical column by "Tabitha Twiggs" mocking unmarried women and their independence. The illustration shows a caricatured older woman in exaggerated dress with prominent features. The piece ridicules women who deviate from traditional roles—specifically targeting a young woman with "coal-black bangs" and "bleached blonde" hair who rejects male attention and marriage prospects. The author sarcastically criticizes her for being uninterested in beauty or attracting men, suggesting this violates natural feminine duty. The humor (by modern standards, deeply misogynistic) attacks women's education, career ambitions, and refusal of marriage as unnatural and contemptible. References to cigarettes, "slang," and independent living reinforce anxieties about changing women's social roles in early 20th-century America.