one day event - women voting

[booksandcheeses.livejournal.com]

This postcard: Pro-women's suffrage, yet infantilizing...

Comments

[pikkewyntjie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, mixed feelings on this one. It's adorable but there's also that whole patronizing, "well, aren't you the cutest thing wanting to do grown-up things like the menfolk." If it just added "when I grow up" it would be fine.

[ticktockman.livejournal.com]

It reminds me a lot of the illustration style for many valentine's day cards. They would given by an adult to an adult. Proffering love is both powerful and risky, and turning it into child's play can reduce the level of hurt if the offer is rejected.

So how can we read this? I'd say, primarily as innocent and non-threatening. Compare it to the images of women used by opponents to suffrage.

I dunno. I'm speculating through my hat, with no evidence at hand.

[arylkin.livejournal.com]

Wow.

[arylkin.livejournal.com]

Do you really think it was a pro women's suffrage poster? It seems more like, "Votes for women, since this is what you'll be getting at the polls, someone who knows as much as a baby" or something. It's just a very weird poster!

[booksandcheeses.livejournal.com]

When I was (admittedly briefly) looking for context, the only reference I found (in Collectors Weekly mag) was that adorable kid pics might have been used to "diffuse the intensity of the subject," or just as easily to infantilize women. So I just don't know.

[luke-russell.livejournal.com]

I think it's almost impossible to put ourselves into the mindspace of people 100 years ago. I can't even figure out the attitudes of my parents!

[luke-russell.livejournal.com]

I think we may reading way too much into the illustration. Weird today, perhaps, but probably not way back then (100 years ago). Think "Betty Boop" I suppose.