EST. '00

Naoya HATAKEYAMA, Terrils

“We can stay in bed all summer.”

I wouldn’t say it is more or less sexist it’s just that how this sexism is expressed depends specifically on the culture and specific time period. Women in Victorian times certainly looked back on the medieval times with ‘yikes, good thing we weren’t born back then!’ but that doesn’t mean they weren’t also oppressed and dismissed by their society.

It is also a bit of a misconception of pop culture that the Victorian and Edwardian times were the times of entirely straitlaced and repressed women who sat quietly doing needlework or fanning themselves.

The popular ideal of the Gibson Girl was that of the athletic, confident, and educated ‘new’ woman who could hold her own in a spirited conversation and who attended college, perhaps even holding a job before marriage.

However, the Gibson Girl was not expected to have any political opinions or to associate herself with the suffragette movement, as this would be seen as offensive or offputting to the men she was expected to attract. At the same time, early 1900s culture depicted the Gibson Girl as openly flirtatious and even dismissive or mocking of men, rejecting suitors and reveling in their bumbling discomfort.

She was supposed to be the quintessential independent and successful American young woman, but she was not supposed to violate gender norms or directly challenge men; in the end the Gibson girl was always expected to settle down, give up her career, and become a cheerful and doting wife and mother.