From the Vaults #2: Sisters are Ruining it for Themselves

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. To be very honest, I've been losing interest in sustaining this paltry little web presence. Maybe it's frustration at my inability to write anything 'serious', maybe it's just the way the world seems to scream "NO ONE GIVES A SHIT" in my ears on a daily basis, but I'll hold my hands up and admit to a lapse.

I don't have the motivation right now to attempt another long-ish piece, nor will I bother you with my fanboy approval of some semi-obscure rock band or another, so I humbly return to the format of "From The Vaults": in which I dredge up loads of Old Shite from the past and explain why it's funny, bollocks, or otherwise noteworthy.

In the first of these entries I mentioned that my job at the time was to build a few volumes of Victorian-era Irish Feminist writings - clippings, cartoons, letters to the editor, even full novels - that focused mainly on female suffrage but, being Irish and Victorian, also wasted no chance to rail against English oppression as well. All very righteous in principle, though it was far too full of angry revolutionary Catholic rhetoric to be of any interest here. Not to mention all the dour and pious protest poetry, which was tiresome and endlessly shite. No, it was the opposing volume I was later assigned to that yielded the most hilarity: 'Victorian and Edwardian Anti-Feminism'.

As you can imagine, this was a treasure trove of stuffy Olde English sexism and condescension. The most common misunderstanding among the monocled gentry in the (ahem) 'satirical' media was the belief that if women wanted the right to vote, they also must have wanted to act like men in every other way imaginable. Cue dozens of 'hilarious' gender-reversal cartoons spanning almost fifty years from Punch Magazine (example: an old matriarch asking her son's fiancee if she can "keep him in the manner to which he has become accustomed". The son stands sheepishly at the door.) I would post a few of these cartoons up but I won't waste your time or cause any unnecessary movement of your scroll-down finger. If you really want to sample Punch Magazine humour you can simply go to a country pub full of wheezing septugenarians and read the corridor walls while you're heading out for a piss.

Perhaps that's a bit of a cheap shot. I mean, the magazine's stance towards female suffrage is not really surprising given that it's named after Mr. Punch, husband of Judy and everyone's favourite Puppet Perpetrator of relentless domestic violence.

The real reason for this post was to upload an example of what I have decided to call the 'Helen Lovejoy Defence'. This is, of course, something along the lines of: "Won't somebody please think of the children???" Unfortunately these silly histrionics are not just coming from the male critics, I guess mainly because men had far more pressing things to do back then than worry about the day-to-day welfare of their own children. Those old-timey moustaches don't grow themselves, you know.

The Helen Lovejoy Defence seems to be the most frequent protestation of the many female anti-suffragists that vehemently insisted they shouldn't have the right to vote. Honestly, before I put this book together I didn't think female anti-suffragists even existed. That's not a sweeping statement, it's genuinely baffling to me why someone would stand in the way of their own enfranchisement. A closer look at their testimonies reveals what I should have suspected all along - these women are either startlingly unambitious even for their time, or just rich enough not to care. Here's a grainy picture of a stall set up by a 'Mrs. Bray' to spread the word. The posters read 'Women do not want votes':

You'll notice the odd irony in how Mrs. Bray has joined a pressure group to prevent her own political voice being heard. I've been trying for hours to think of a suitable simile for this illogic, and the best I can come up with is also the shortest: it's like screaming to be gagged.

One of the most astonishing snippets is this quote from Lady Henriette Haversham, whose ability to succinctly patronise half the world's poulation is unparalleled. Check it out:

I can't help but feel a bit sorry for Lord Haversham, what with his being married to such a wet dishcloth of a woman. Still, I don't suppose she bothered him much unless she needed rescuing from a wasp or something.

Anyway, here is the prime example of the Helen Lovejoy Defence, as promised. This made me laugh so hard in the office that I actually had to hide it under another stack of papers and not even look at it while I was scanning it. It's such a great example of emotionally manipulative propaganda I can almost hear Josef Goebbels taking notes across the pages of history. Behold!


More posts to come as I try to kick this blog into gear again, including: Mediafire links to lots of old recordings I've been involved with, the recent breakup of ISIS, and possibly some sort of Plurals long-weekend mini-mini-tour diary.