Thread by @DigiVictorian

In 1891, the Illustrated Police News published these reactionary cartoons bemoaning what they regarded as women's growing power to accuse men of sexual/romantic misconduct. There are striking parallels here with more recent responses to movements like #MeToo and #TimesUp.

This panel, for instance, ridicules the idea of men being publicly shamed by women.

These panels remind me of men who now say things like, "you know, you can't even LOOK at a woman in public these days without being ACCUSED of something."

Here, of course, we have the deliberately absurd over-reaction to the suggestion that men should consider how their public behaviour might make women feel threatened.

As usual, there's an accusation here that any women who publicly object to toxic male behaviour are all man-hating (proto) feminists.

Notice, too, that most of the women are depicted as being older and unattractive. The idea here is to discredit & mock the idea that men would actually *want* to harass or romantically manipulate these women — another recurring feature of recent responses to women who speak up.

The cartoons were prompted by an apparent increase in 'breach of promise' cases — i.e. promising to marry somebody, then reneging. These cases often rested on he-said/she-said arguments, opening the door to accusations (and fears) of bogus/malicious accusations. Ring any bells?

Cases could be proven with the support of private letters & other romantic correspondence — a bit like modern cases where men are exposed by their texts and DMs. There were lots of jokes about this in the nineteenth century:

https://twitter.com/VictorianHumour/status/934893638781415429?s=20

All in all, I guess this is pretty depressing evidence that our sexual politics haven't progressed as much since the Victorian Era as we might like to imagine.

Happy Wednesday, everybody!

I'll just leave this thread here as a palate cleanser...

https://twitter.com/DigiVictorian/status/1297324669318692865?s=20

I was surprised to learn recently that approx 60% of the people who follow this account are women. I wasn’t sure why, but maybe it’s because I keep tweeting pictures of Victorian men getting horsewhipped? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I was saving an analysis of this panel until an anonymous account appears in my mentions to call me a cuck... but I seem to have been spared that pleasure for now. Here we see another familiar reactionary response: the idea that women's rights will lead to an emasculation of men.

The Illustrated Police News published this series of cartoons about the 'failure' of marriage a few weeks earlier. Do you think the editor was going through a rough time at home?