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An Appeal to Women

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Nov 30, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 47.

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An Appeal to Women.

[The following appeal to women,—from an editorial in a prominent daily,—tho not always phrased in the choicest form, we present to our readers of the gentler sex, assured that it will appeal to their common-sense, and we hope favorable and positive action:]
When you see a beautiful female creature looking off into space, her round eyes shining like stars, her whole mentality riveted on some problem, it is shocking to think that she is trying to think about some new foolishness in dress.
We observe with regret that woman has inaugurated this fall a brand new kind of foolishness. WE REFER TO THE SKIRT, LONG IN FRONT, THAT A WOMAN FALLS OVER—the skirt that gathers up microbes ahead, as the trailing skirt used to gather them up behind.
We realize what an important work women have to do in the world, and we try to divert them from foolish littlenesses that check their progress, waste their time and thought.
If you catch a cannibal and want to make a good clergyman out of him, you must first cure him of cannibalism.
If you want to make a high-class citizen out of a clay-eating Indian, you must first get him to stop eating clay.
If you want to make a thoroughly useful human being out of a woman, you must coax her away from the foolish fashion ideas which are the stamp of mental inferiority.
Women, don't you see how men have outstripped you in their sensible attitude toward dress? Men used to wear wigs, powdered hair, false calves on their legs, clothes of satin, silk, lace, and velvet. They have stopped all that nonsense, and see what progress they made.
Woman, on the other hand, still wastes her time on frivolities that are meaningless—or worse than meaningless—because they injure health or detract from modesty.
In the past we have denounced the following things, among others:
The kangaroo shape and walk that make women squeeze themselves in below the waist, twist themselves out of nature's shape, and project themselves through space all out of plumb, like foolish kangaroos.
The foolish, transparent shirt waist, made out of something like mosquito netting, which displays all sorts of ribbons, buttons and other contrivances that ought naturally to be invisible, like the springs of a watch.
The crazy desire of women to appear thin, leading them—so the doctors tell us—to wear brutally tight rubber bandages around their hips, and to starve themselves, or poison themselves with drugs, to make themselves thinner.
These and many other things we have had to denounce, including the foolish rows of buttons down the back of a dress, the preposterous and unsightly way of walking along with the skirts drawn tightly to one side—not very modest; the eternal high-heeled shoes which prevent deep breathing and spoil digestion; the tight lacing which is a feature of every foolish costume, as bread is a feature of every meal.
Now comes this idiotic invention of dresses, with skirts so long in front that they must keep kicking out their feet unnaturally in order to keep from stepping on them and falling down.
Women, we don't ask you to be logical, but be ALMOST logical.
Why do you suffer the tortures of the seventh circle of the inferno to make your feet small, and then invent a dress that will keep anybody from seeing your feet?
Why do you spend your girlhood going to dancing school, learning to walk gracefully, and then put on a dress so long in front as to make you walk in a hesitating, shuffling manner, like the cow you see in a lot with a board in front of her eyes to keep her from jumping the fence?
Won't you try to realize that the great Power which created you knows a great deal better than the man milliner what you ought to look like?
Get small hats that fit your skull, not huge things with a crown the size of a thimble, that make you walk stiff-necked for fear they will blow off.
Wear loose, comfortable waists that will give you a chance to breathe.
Have short skirts and good, broad shoes with low heels in which you can walk or jump comfortably. If you think a man wants to marry two deformed feet, you are mistaken—China is the market for such goods.
Wear your gloves one size too large, not two sizes too small. Your heart uses up its energy trying to pump blood to the extremities, your hands and feet, and you use all your infantile ingenuity to squeeze those extremities so that the blood can not go there.
Your hands and feet get cold, the tip of your nose gets pink, you suffer, and you look like a half-frozen hen as soon as cold weather comes on. Why do you do it?
Wear sensible things, simple things, clean things—and you will be much more popular than the poor, foolish female who makes herself the victim of every foolish fancy.