The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-02-23
THE GIRL OF THE TIME.
ce1lse.' -

The Things She Is TaugIt-Her Enslave-
ment by Fashions Foibles.
Nancy Willard Coveil, before Massachusetts Suffrage
Association.
All that girls are taught is to be pretty, and
hide their faults, and read love-stories, and GRO
chet, and make sponge cake, until some one asks
them to marry. So the poor creatures. through
fear they will miss their chances ard fail to
marry begin very early to pinch themselves in
some places and pad themselves in Others
Sometimes they wear clothing enough to founder
a ship, and again it is pronounced lovely to APP
pear without any to speak Of With the in
junction ringing III their ears ''Whatever you
do, be pretty, girls paint their lips and crock
their eyebrows, and take opium to make their
eyes soft, and arsenic to make their
complexions clear. 1t was an unfortunate day
when Paul or somebody else said that the joy of
woman was her hair. What nameless
and untold fortunes has this APP
pendage of the human body not been
subjected to! 1t has been filed with rats" and
''miee," heroically pulled out by the roots to
make the forehead high glued to the forehead
with extract of quince-seed, and again brought
over the eyes in tangled snares 1t has been
curled with over-hot irons, and then allowed
to float free far down the back; it has been pulled
and friZZed and powdered, and curled, and
creased and banged-done up high or low, made
longer or shorter, or dyed black or blonde-in
strict accordance with the caprice of the tickle
goddess of fashion. Does the Greeian bend re-
quire them to look ike a detected monkey,
straightway they become limp in body, and chat
ter that they do not do it because it is fashion
it is perfectly natural TO them To-day they drag
innumerable yards of dry-goods through the
streets, and tomorrow they appear in te-backs
so close that it is at the risk of their lives that
they attempt to board railroad train. Now the
head is surmounted bya bonnet the size of post
age stamp, and then by larger
than an umbrella. Sometimes women
are supposed to have, hips, and then
everybody, no matter how slender grows
boarder than donkey with panniers, Then
hips are abolished and no trace of them can be
discovered. If snakes and bugs become fash
able as ornaments, the snakes and bugs be-
come perfectly lovely" and the very girl who
shrieked at the sight of a spider, shippers, they
are just too lovely for anything" When irri-
descent beads become fashionable, one has only
to wait little and every woman becomes
walking rainbow. Now cardinal is the rage,
and then old gold; now mits and then twelve
button gloves, now pleatings and then ruifles;
now hens and then facing; waists are long
and they ribs are laced down until they adhere
to the liver, and they waists get shorter, and an
opportunity is given to breathe. In short WON
ans enslayement by fashion has resolved life for
her into an eternal game Of 'wigwag" and I'M
til she escapes this bondage there is no mental
life for her. All this, the speaker contended, is
the outgrowth Of the oppression of man in not
giving woman an opportunity to develop her
self mentally and in not giving her a social po-
sition equal with his own.