This Week In Sexist History:

So, this "McFarland" guy was kind of pissed that his wife up and left him to become an actress and hang out with some "Richardson" dude. So he did what any husband would do: He fucking shot Richardson! To death. Thankfully, McFarland has got fancy olde-tyme defense lawyer John Graham on his side, who is like Atticus Finch meets Jack McCoy, except for jealous 1870's douchebags:

We laughed. We cried. We wanted to fuck him. In this four-hour grandstand, all Graham had to prove was that his client, McFarland, was insane when he shot his wife's lover point-blank. Graham gets preeeeeetty creative, and then—get this—ends the oration with "tears running down his [own] cheeks"(!) Let's see how Graham argues so hard for murdering adulterers that he makes himself cry:

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McFarland Is Crazy Because His Wife Thinks She's Too Good For Him:

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He's Crazy, But Even If He Wasn't Crazy, Other Dudes Your Wife Had Sex With Deserve to Die Anyway:

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He's Crazy, But He's Not A Fucking Coward!

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He's Crazy Because She Tried to Make A Life For Herself As An Actress, And She Sucked At It:

P.S.: She was an "abortion" on the stage? They had the sweetest insults in the 1870's!

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He's Crazy Because Only A Crazy Man Would Stand Idly By While His Wife Cuckolds Him. Wait, Doesn't That Mean That He's Not Crazy? Whatever:

This Week In Sexist History, a double billing:

followed by:

Good 'Ol Day: August 28, 1897

On August 28, 1897, a couple of newsworthy events occurred: A nine-year-old girl discovered the head of a local Arabian woman in the woods, was threatened with death by the woman's killer, then escaped just in time to avoid the forest fire the murderer lit to obscure his victim's remains. In other news, dog did something cute. I wonder which story the New York Times deemed worthy of the most column inches?

Nameless decapitated foreign woman: 29 lines.

Now how about that dog?

Dog imbued with the human qualities of inquiry, serenity, gaiety, and amusement by the New York Times: 42 lines.

This Week In Sexist History:

Good Ol’ Day: August 20, 1883

Dateline: Long Branch, NJ

1. Women must be pretty.

2. But they are born ugly, so we must make them pretty.

3. Women who go to the beach make this task very difficult for us.

4. And women who actually swim are nearly beyond help.

5. It is rather amusing, however, just how ugly swimming makes women!

6. Women who swim are so ugly, they don't even want men to look at their ugly bodies! But we do look at them, and then detail their hideousness in the pages of the New York Times.

7. Well, at least they are still wealthy.

8. Though these ugly, oceanic women allow no one to see how profoundly uncomfortable they are, I know they are profoundly uncomfortable, because I understand women. Even the ugly ones.

9. If a woman is not pretty, then she does not enjoy herself. As is proper.

10. But perhaps the water will help to cure her extreme ugliness anyhow.

11. And remember, even Butterfaces could be hiding a sensual ankle in the surf.

12. [Obligatory rhapsodic account of historical beach leering].

13. [Obligatory rhapsodic account of modern beach leering].

14. Foreign women! They are kind of hot, but so ignorant of the customs of our modern American beach leering!

15. This one hot foreign actress wore the ugliest swimsuit one time.

16. She was a shitty actress, too.

17. Yes, I am using the term "dudes." In 1883.

18. Girls can't swim!

19. Well, at least they display their pearly white arms when they're trying. Oh, did I mention that I am also a racist?

20. One reason for women to swim, of course, is to wear an outfit which mimics an animal's yoke, in order to infer that she would make a good, obedient wife.

21. Have I not sufficiently compared women to animals? Women women zebras.

22. Now I am leering at children.

23. Aaaaand back to the racism.

24. Old women are disgusting and must be kept indoors.

25. I like watching girls fall down.

26. Middle-aged women are the most heinous, for they insist upon swimming, though their bodies are universally reviled.

27. Have I mentioned swimming is for men?

In case you were wondering what happened to those crazy bitches picked up for "female hysteria" prior to 1900: it's pictured.

"illustration of French pelvic douche device" via Wikipedia Commons.

According to historical Washington Post archives, August is a banner month for crazy bitches. But there's a quick solution for any late-summer onset of the vapors, whether it's from the heat, a cheatin' man, or a too-full pocket book: oh, just throw her in the insane asylum! (The therapeutic pelvic massage comes later).

Diagnosis: It's hot.

Remedy: Straightjacket.

Bitch, please: Mary Smith, "a domestic"—the Post doesn't specify the breed—bites herself "in her frenzy." Police respond by tying her arms to her body and throwing her in jail. Surely, whatever made this stay-at-home Virginia mom housekeeper nearly bite her own arms and hands off will subside once the humidity goes down, right? Make sure to keep her on the insta-asylum list for next August!

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Diagnosis: Husband-killer.

Remedy: Explain it away as hysterical jealousy.

Bitch, please: Ah, I see that this man was the victiom of his wife's "jealous rage" over allegations of "paying attention" to another woman, and so was slain. Typical. It's almost enough to overlook the part where he jumps out of the car and slams his fist in her face for catching him with his male companion. Hmmm! But even if it was a domestic face-punching and not maaaddddness which prompted the woman to discharge the weapon, one thing's for sure—if she wasn't crazy before, she's crazy now. Case closed.

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Diagnosis: "Colored"

Remedy: Guess.

Bitch, please: These women were practically asking to be pronounced demented and filed in the "insane department." After all, the three women were suspicious, "like the majority of their race," and we all know that black women are just one herbal tea away from being a lifelong danger to themselves and others.

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Diagnosis: Bitch has money.

Remedy: Yeah, yeah, commit her.

Bitch, please: Well, well, well. The truth comes out. It's not too hard to illegally confine a fake crazy woman in an insane asylum after all! All she has to do is get drunk—or get too hot, or drink some tea—and it's curtains for her! this woman is lucky enough to have a lawyer—she's crazy because she's rich, remember—who tries to make people give a shit that turn-of-the-century insane asylums were marked by "ill-treatment and cruelty." The "aged colored woman" in our last story probably was not so lucky.

This Week in Sexist History:

Good Ol’ Day: July 30, 1908

Dateline: Washington, D.C.

Subject: A District man's "attentions" to local married women—the phone calls! the hugging!—inspire a band of husbands to retaliate. Their weapons? Tar, feathers, nude sitting-on, and accusations of turn-of-the-century witchcraft. (In 1908, they called it "hypnosis"). Let the olde-tyme male slut-shaming begin:

Calling on a woman? In the evening? Bad slut. Bring out the tar:

So, Bliss comes to visit this chick in Columbia Heights. Says they're engaged. In love. Headed to New York to seal the deal. NYT reporter, however, is not buying this guy's love story at all. But couldn't this all be cleared up by—I don't know—asking the woman what happened? No? Fine:

Side note: How do you spontaneously tar and feather someone in a Columbia Heights basement? Where do the feathers come from?

Kinky. Though he arrived in the home as a mere adulterer, he left as THE SLUTMONSTER OF CAPITOL HILL:

But surely, the three dudes who captured him, stuck him in a basement, took all his clothes off, sat on him, painted him with tar, and then dusted him with the insides of a couch did so for good reason:

He's a witch!

Ah, the old I-fell-under-his-hypnotic-influence-at-an-innocent-dinner-party-and-was-unable-to-control-myself-when-I-got-his-messages-by-mental-telepathy trick. How dare this man take advantage of this poor, weak-brained woman! Only this hypnotist's slutty witchery could possibly have caused her to stray from the dude who sits on naked people in his basement and then exacts olde-tyme tortures on them. Yep, she sure is lucky she wasn't whisked away to New York City, never to see her husband again. Whew. Close one.

Telephone calls? Embraces? It's about time we got this guy off the streets, and into some crazy olde-tyme BDSM basement in Columbia Heights.

It's been a banner 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 sexism's final frontier. Now, for some Sexist Art History: Why we should give a shit about Judith Leyster, some painter lady who was born like 400 years ago.

Because even centuries after Leyster's death, Sexist Art Historians just didn't understand.

Leyster's work is currently on display at the National Gallery of Art, but as recently as 1893, nobody knew who this lady even was. So it was only about 100 years ago that the art world got to take a look at The Proposition (above), painted in 1631.

Pretty straightforward, right? Dude in the fur hat could not possibly by skeevier: he's inappropriately clutching at a blouse with one hand and offering up some precious coins with the other. Lady in the floor-length skirt, on the other hand, is a classic case of Asking For It: That sensual display of wrist! That awkwardly averted gaze! That mortified blush of the cheeks!

Wait, no, she's actually like, "I see that you are offering to pay me to fuck you. However, I'm more interested in keeping up my stitching. Also, shave your mustache."

And yet, despite the clear and obvious rapiness of this painting from 1631, Sexist Art Historians had trouble understanding just what it all meant—hundreds of years later!

Male art historians have commented on Leyster's The Proposition, 1631, as reflecting a "powerful image of temptation and resistance" and that the young woman's virtuousness "would appeal to men and attract many suitors," implying that Leyster's interest was more on the male market and less on reflecting a woman's discomfort with unwanted male attention.

Ah yes, we can all identify with the young woman who only decides not to prostitute herself to this particular specimen of unfortunate facial hair because she wants to be able to fuck other dudes in the future and not get paid for it.

I wonder how Leyster would respond to that particular interpretation:

Self Portrait, 1630: "Eat it, douchebags."

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.

This Week in Sexist History:

Good Ol’ Day: July 12, 1909

Dateline: Berlin, Germany

Subject: German woman's body caught in a patriarchal double-bind: How to satisfy the "natural ample proportions" required to fulfill the role of Wife, while achieving the "modish slimness" required to fulfill the role of Sex Object. Sound familiar? Modern women, too, must navigate between "sexually desirable" and "baby-making factory"—it just usually doesn't up as cause for divorce, because nobody needs a reason to get divorced anymore.

Anyway, back to 1909, when this woman's husband:

Now that we've got the woman's vital stats out of the way, let's find out why someone's BMI makes them unfit for marriage:

Guilty! Of a crime of fashion. But seriously, that's all this woman has committed.

This is a toughie. While I can't support a woman's husband divorcing her because he doesn't like the choices she's made about her own appearance, I also have a hard time defending the forces of darkness ("fashion") which require a woman to lose ten pounds a month in order to fit into some clothes. Surely, this is a weight battle for the courts to decide.

Aw, at least she got to wear the dress. The really, really fashionable dress that would cost her her marriage!

Wait . . . he "bargained" for her? Yeah, I'm siding with fashion on this one.

Behold a common argument deployed by modern sexists:

1. Establish your concern for the women's movement by admitting that things used to be pretty bad for chicks, back in the olden days when institutionalized sexism dictated that women couldn't vote or hold jobs out of the home.

2. Your feminist prowress now established, assert that since women are now legally freed to pursue activities beyond babymakin', all sexism has miraculously disappeared in the workplace, in inter-personal relationships, and in entertainment.

3. Declare anyone who says otherwise a sexist.

This sexist argument—that sexism used to exist, but no more—tends to collapse whenever vintage sexism rears its ugly head. Modern sexists, like moths drawn dangerously close to the flame, can't help but defend the olde-tyme sexism. You know, the kind that was par for the course back when women couldn't vote or work or take birth control or avoid being legally raped by their husbands.

I learned this lesson personally when I began posting the "Sexist History" feature, which mines the New York Times archives for the hilariously overt degradation of women in vintage journalism. Whether the vintage sexism is objectifying hordes of women, asserting that female ignorance is cute, or blatantly rejecting the idea of women's suffrage, there is, without fail, at least one modern defender of the sexist NYT reporter, may he rest in peace.

Take this commenter's response to a 1909 sports reporter's rhapsodic, objectifying, and paragraphs-long detailing of all girls in the audience. It's an account which has apparently aged well over the past 100 years:

How on earth is that sexist? I don’t see one comment that is disparaging of women. He’s simply admiring the abundance of women at the event, and his writing is actually fantastic, much better than most of the BS that’s out there today.

Or another commenter's response to a 1900 New York Times piece which admonished female Cuban exchange students for taking too many sexual liberties in America, posted on IvyGate's coverage of the story:

Heh. So now it’s sexist to notice pretty girls?

More vitriollic defenses of olde-tyme sexism can be found everywhere vintage sexism is on display. YouTube, of course, is an infamous repository of bigotry. Check out the commonts on this YouTube clip from the 1963 movie, The Courtship of Eddie's Father, which posed the question about the following dialogue: "The Most Sexist Line in Movie History?"

[youtube:v=eVLKArzODO4]

"The man who will love me on equal terms. That old saying, 'behind every man is a woman'—that's not for me. I want to stand right alongside. Is that asking too much?"

"Well, now I think you're going to have to be satisfied with the vote right now," TK responds. "I don't think that will ever become a national movement."

The modern sexism was swift and barely intelligible:

From MysteryManoLove:

You are DUMB, feminism has it's good points as Nazi Germany did too, thonly parallel is that feminists are taking the rights away from every one. They arn't making more "rights" anymore, it's all privilige, affirmative action, Title ix education amendment, ect.

From LovelyYTRocks:

Women? Equal to man? Lololol. I remember in P.E., not so long ago: A 15-year-old girl needs to cover 3 kilometres in 16 minutes to receive 10/10. A 15-year-old boy needs to cover 3 kilometres in 12 minutes to receive 10/10. 0 girls has completed this task so far, and nearly all boys has completed this challenge (except the really fat ones).

From Nickyrinkydinky:

To Lowfuellevel and the rest of the whining sexist bitches.

1. My father is a HOUSE-HUSBAND and looks after my sisters and brothers WHILST going to work during the day time. On top of that MANY men i know DO have 2 jobs in order to support their families.

2. There is literally little/no sexism today. You complain just for the sake of it. Ive been brought up well by my mother and i respect women. Yet all i see is sexist comments from "feminists" nowdays.

Yahoo! Answers—and its fellow community-based advice sites—may be the most frustrating forum for even the most innocuous feminist sentiments. After user Lindseylillian asked other Yahoo! users for examples of sexism in film, the resounding response was: No films are sexist. Lindseylillian is the only one who is sexist:

Oh great another feminist taking pure entertainment and making it into something so complicated and offensive. You know what YOUR sexist, because nobody even thought of that before you, people all saw people, you saw woman being held back....you sexist.

I used to enjoy a good laugh at vintage sexism, partly because it demonstrated how far we've come. Now I know that while the films and newspapers may have aged, there's nothing "vintage" about the sexist sentiment behind them.

Photo by late night movie

Who is this Dan Sullivan?

Bring it on:

This Week in Sexist History:

Good Ol’ Day: July 7, 1900

Dateline: Boston, MA

Subject: Turn-of-the-century Cuban exchange students take Harvard by storm. The New York Times reports on Crimsons charmed by the girls' exotic beauty, helpless pleas of "no understand," and severely limited "powers of locomotion" (boys don't count).

Hey, looks like these Cuban girls are having a great time reveling in the relatively progressive social landscape of 1900 Boston. This cannot stand:

Thank goodness for American girls. If they don't take away the freedoms of their foreign-exchange sisters, who will?

I understand that these Cuban women have come to America to study English. But until they do, they will remain charmingly distraught, adorably helpless, and delectably worthy of mockery.

Take note, admirers—all it takes is a few American steps to render these exotic beauties utterly helpless.

Ha! I knew those Cuban girls weren't sneaking out of their dorm rooms to "walk alone with men" on innocent "evening strolls." These sexy señoritas can't even fucking walk. Also, one is a redhead, The End:

The Sexist will be out for the holiday weekend tomorrow, so I leave you with last week's greatest hits. What better way to celebrate America's birthday than reading a bunch of random shit about sex on the Internet?

1. This Week in Sexist History: Girls, Girls, Girls Edition, an indulgence in olde-tyme sports writing. I say it's sexist! Commenter says it isn't! Steve Silver says it's "interesting how it has to be explained to some readers 100 years later that an article published 100 years ago describing women purely as objects for men’s pleasure is sexist."

2. Teen Sex Scandal!, in which I put the feminist linkbait-and-switch theory to work.

3. Big Penis Site Reveals Inches Before First Date, in which 7orbetter.com has more longevity than I gave it credit for.

4. Disney's Closeted Gay Agenda, in which High School Musical debunks all theories about Disney promoting heterosexuality.

5. Sex Tips From Drunk People, in which I pledge to do more research in this area over the holiday, and I encourage you to do the same! E-mail your drunk sex insights to ahess@washingtoncitypaper.com.

Photo by Misserion

This Week in Sexist History:

Good Ol' Day: June 23, 1909

Dateline: New York, NY

Subject: Reporter at Yale-Harvard rivalry baseball game fluffs up his flowery play-by-play with a rhapsodic account of the glorious array of girls in attendance. Collect one in every ethnicity!

First, let us immerse ourself in the peculiar style of turn-of-the-century Ivy League baseball reporting:

The "real old Jamake," guy? Whatever—this man has clearly got column inches to fill. And then:

Who has a baseball game to report on when there are girls to scrupulously detail?

At this point, you might be thinking that this guy should get back to the game at hand instead of ranking the glorious blossoms of the rose garden that is female college baseball enthusiasts. No? Okay. What were they wearing?

That explains it: He fancies himself a novelist. Say what you will about this reporter's choice to obscure the whole ballgame with testimony on gowns "such as made Paris a memory" and excuses for his own lechery—it beats his baseball reporting:

Yeah, where are the girls again?

This Week In Sexist History:

Good Old Day: June 23, 1909

Dateline: Washington, D.C.

Keywords: Joseph Gurney Cannon; pretty girls; rolling a cigar reminisciently in one's mouth; smiling indulgently; women's suffrage.

Joseph Gurney Cannon, who ruled over the House of Representatives from 1903 to 1911, is considered to be "the most dominant Speaker in United States history." After Canon's tenure ended, subsequent Speakers of the House were rendered increasingly helpless until an actual woman finally claimed the top Congressional spot, in 2007. See what happens?

Girls so pretty.

Pretty girls so pretty.

Girls pretty! Unfair how pretty girls are!

The women then waited ten more years before securing the right to vote.