This Week In Sexist History: Bathing Beauties Edition
Newspaper stories from the good old days say the darndest things. So every week on the Sexist, let’s take a ride on journalism’s way-back machine, to a time when beach-bound girls were sexy, confident, and refreshingly childlike!
This Week In Sexist History:
Good ‘Ol Day: July 22, 1893
Dateline: Long Branch, N.J.
Subject: The summer of 1893 is nearly ruined for this sad sack New Jersey scene reporter—until the sexiest underage bather this side of puberty catches his roving eye!
What’s lifting these male vacationers from the depths of their pathetic existences? If you’ve been studying your Sexist History, you’d know that the answer probably starts with Pretty and ends with Girls:
Oh, it makes no difference what shape you are in the freewheeling social scene of the Jersey surf! Unless, of course, you’re “pretty girl” shaped, in which case your body will likely be obsessively detailed in the pages of the New York Times. Proceed:
Euugh! How old is the young lady in the red swimsuit, anyway? One the one hand, it’s great that this girl is still in her spluttering-around-in-the-water bathing suit phase, and not yet in her crippled-by-body-issues bathing suit phase. On the other hand, I’m willing to bet the girl’s sexy childhood innocence was shattered riiiiiight arrroooound July 23, 1893—the day this Skeevy Turn-Of-The-Century Reporter’s ruminations on her sexy childhood innocence was printed in the pages of the New York Times.
How can Skeevy Turn-of-the-Century Reporter possibly redeem himself from the true skeeviness of ogling bathing children? By turning next to an even sleazier specimen: The Skeevy Turn-Of-The-Century Sketch Artist.
Done and done.
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Linked From: July 23rd, 2009This Week In Sexist Art History: Judith Leyster - The Sexist - Washington City Paper
4:43 pm[...] week for Sexist History! First, we revisited an 1893 New York Times piece which informed us why children are the sexiest swimmers of all. Then, we wrote some Sexist History of our own and discovered why male models may inhabit [...]
10:21 am
This article is a little tawdry even with the fact that there were no bikinis or thong bathing suits back then. As a bathing story, it’s almost along the lines of David and Bathsheba. Not saying that the lady deserved the writer’s attention but, RED always stands out.
Yes his article was sexist, but what is more interesting is the audience he’s writing to. So, was this an article telling male readers to go “check out the ladies” or an article telling women to watch out for those voyeurs at the hotel?