Today, a sort of quiz. Below, you’ll find extended excerpts from a rather Man Boobzy article about young English women. Afterwards, I want you to guess where, and when, this article came from.
The girl of the period is a creature who dyes her hair, and paints her face … whose sole idea of life is plenty of fun and luxury; and whose dress is the object of such thought and intellect as she possesses. … and as she dresses to please herself she does not care it she displeases every one else. Nothing is too extraordinary and nothing too exaggerated for her vitiated taste … .
[S]he cannot be made to see that modesty of appearance and virtue ought to be inseparable, and that no good girl can afford to appear bad, under penalty of receiving the contempt awarded to the bad. …
The girl of the period envies the queens of the demi-monde far more than she abhors them. She sees them gorgeously attired and sumptuously appointed, and she knows them to be flattered, feted, and courted with a certain disdainful admiration of which she catches only the admiration while she ignores the disdain. …
No one can say of the modern English girl that she is tender, loving, retiring, or domestic. … Love indeed is the last thing she thinks of, and the least of the dangers besetting her. …
The legal barter of herself for so much money — representing so much dash, so much luxury and pleasure — that is her idea of marriage; the only idea worth entertaining. For all seriousness of thought respecting the duties or the consequences of marriage, she has, not a trace.
If children come, they find but a stepmother’s cold welcome from her; and if her husband thinks that he has married anything that is to belong to him … the sooner he wakes from his hallucination and understands that he has simply married some one who will condescend to spend his money on herself, and who will shelter her indiscretions behind the shield of his name, the less severe will be his disappointment.
She has married his house … his balance at the banker’s, his title; and he himself is just the inevitable condition clogging the wheel of her fortune; at best an adjunct, to be tolerated with more or less patience as may chance. For it is only the old-fashioned sort … that marry for love, or put the husband before the banker.
But she does not marry easily. Men are afraid of her; and with reason. They may amuse themselves with her for an evening, but they do not take her readily for life. Besides, after all her efforts, she is only a poor copy of the real thing; and the real thing is far more amusing than the copy … Men I can get that whenever they like …
[I]t cannot be too plainly told to the modern English girl that the net result of her present manner of life is to assimilate her as nearly as possible to a class of women whom we must not call by their proper-or improper-name.
And we are willing to believe that she has still some modesty of soul left hidden under all this effrontery of fashion, and that, if she could be made to see herself as she appears to the eyes of men, she would mend her ways before too late.
It is terribly significant of the present state of things when men are free to write as they do of the women of their own nation. …
It is only when these [women] have placed themselves beyond the pale of masculine respect that such things could be written as are written now; when they become again what they were once they will gather round them the love and homage and chivalrous devotion which were then an Englishwoman’s natural inheritance. The marvel, in the present fashion of life among women, is how it holds its ground in spite of the disapprobation of men.
It used to be an old-time notion that the sexes were made for each other, and that it was only natural for them to please each other, and to set themselves out for that end.
But the girl of the period does not please men. She pleases them as little as she elevates them; and how little she does that, the class of women she has taken as her model of herself testifies.
All men whose opinion is worth having prefer the simple and genuine girl of the past, with her tender little ways and pretty bashful modesties, to this loud and rampant modernization, with her false red hair and painted skin, talking slang as glibly as a man, and by preference leading the conversation to doubtful subjects. …
[S]he will not see that though men laugh with her, they do not respect her, though men flirt with her they do not marry her; she will not believe that she is not the kind of thing they want, and that she is acting against nature and her own interests when she disregards their advice and offends their taste….
[A]ll we can do is to wait patiently until the national madness has passed, and our women have come back again to the old English ideal, once the most beautiful, the most modest, the most, essentially womanly in the world.
Ok, now comes the quiz part.
So where did I get this from?
A) The Thinking Housewife blog, in April of 2011
B) “Whore-Imitating Sluts Are Ruining England,” The Spearhead, in August of 2012
C) Margaret Thatcher, “Up From Sluttery,” Tory Press, 1972.
D) “The Girl of the Period,” The Perth Gazette and West Australian Times, 6/5/1868
Click on this link to find out the answer.
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NOTE: I cheated a teensy bit by taking out some of the more egregiously old-fashioned language. But if you ignore the old-fashioned style, the content of the piece is strikingly similar to a lot of stuff posted in the more traditionalist corners of the Manosphere today.
Thanks to Magpie for posting a link to this piece in the comments!
PS: Margaret Thatcher didn’t actually write a book entitled “Up From Sluttery,” nor did The Spearhead run a piece titled “Whore-Imitating Sluts Are Ruining England.” At least it hasn’t yet.
WOW is all I have to say to what you just added, David.
On the OP, I was legit gonna guess Thinking Housewife until I was more than halfway through.
Her writing style is almost as archaic and overwrought as all that. Though I did wonder why she was getting worked up over English women.
Yep, as ever, misogyny & racism marching hand in hand.
Three young student employees are having a fascinating politics- and gender-related discussion outside of my office. One of them is spouting standard glibertarian/MRA talking points, and the other two are demolishing everything he says.
I am so proud of them.
I must confess this is how I live my life…at least in the fashion manner. It’s fun. The author should join the darkside, it’s much more fun when ::cackles evilly::
Is it like weird that I feel like the author (*cough* quoted misogynist *cough*) keeps describing me?
Ohmigod, my hair is a really fakey red color too!!!!!!!!eleven *twin buddies with whoever the author’s hate crush is on*
Part of why is bloomers where becoming A Thing — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomers_(clothing)
Women! In pants!
dogs and cats, mass hysteria, &c., &c.
The late 1860s saw the extreme and end of the crinoline fashion; it had changed from a dome shape to being more stretched out at the back. Hairdos were becoming much more elaborate and false hair was coming in to fashion for building it up – by the 1870s hairstyles were getting huge, too big to wear a bonnet with. Aniline dyes had been around for a while and colours were bright and harsh, with geometric decoration more the thing than florals, for instance. It was a high-impact look. The first pic here is from 1864, the second from 1865, a few years earlier than the article – and fashion moved fairly fast then, too.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_JF6gescswVg/TI_IYvErmOI/AAAAAAAAAso/vAzigVVSbl0/s1600/chiya.jpeg
http://0.tqn.com/d/womenshistory/1/0/u/s/2/90009040_10a.jpg
On top of that, women were taking part in more sport and outdoor activity; in the 1840s and 50s it had been frowned upon if a woman even wore solid boots to go walking (boots! Unladylike!) despite the example set by, f’rinstance, Queen Victoria on her Highland expeditions. Young women getting out and about more and caring less what people thought probably set the chaps’ alarm bells jangling wildly.
The song remains the same. These woman hating toads haven’t had an original thought ever.
Nary a one. Hell, they’ve hardly caught up with heliocentrism yet.
My husband didn’t marry a thing that belongs to him, he simply married a person. I am half-English, so I guess The Perth Gazette and West Australian Times were right!
You should be pale and invisible until a man wants to find you so that you can do something for him. Dress to imitate the wallpaper! Then snap to it when he calls your name.
The whole thing’s also a reminder of what a joke the “egalitarianism” and “mateship” prattled about here were. Yeah, if you’re a male WASP, but otherwise, forget it.
In England at that time the women were getting very uppity. Divorce and property laws had been changed and suffrage was next.
You may have noticed that Time magazine used the “kids today” boilerplate for the cover of their current issue. I think every newspaper and magazine in the country has had someone dust off up date and republish this article quarterly for three hundred years.
It also reminded me of the conversation about young girls being out or not out in Mansfield Park.
Off-topic: I just found a documentary about those “Love Shy” and “Incel” types who come up in these parts occasionally.
It’s short at 31 minutes and has in-person interviews with “Incels” and PUAs. They’re surprisingly similar to what you’d expect from reading their keyboard screeds.
@serrana
Maybe I could infuse myself with the DNA of a chameleon? it sounds easier.
“Maybe I could infuse myself with the DNA of a chameleon? it sounds easier.”
And more fun!
Dressing to imitate the wallpaper reminds me of a friend who worked at the Melbourne Concert Hall in the 90s. The walls were beige leather (yes, leather) and the customer service uniforms were … beige. She said they looked like floating heads if they ever stood still.
Marie, then you could make your neck really large and pink whenever you wanted! Definitely easier.
And think of being able to look in two directions at once!
I’m not sure when, but that’s got to come in handy sometime XD
It would be like a built-in airbag, but appropriate for all occasions.
And being able to see in all directions means you could see an MRA or PUA coming and use your protective colouration to become invisible.
Or possibly just catch some flies with your tongue and gross ’em out enough to go away. 😛
Grossing out mras would be the funnest way to eat in public 😉
^besides the whole ‘having to be around mra’s in public’ thing, which would not be fun.