Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1899-01-05
DECOLLETTE GOWNS.
Denounced AS Incompatible With Self
Respect.

Viscountess Harberton, one of the
most prominent women in English
society, has written signed article
on What Women should Wear, for the
first number of the Rational Dress Ga
zette, published in London, strongly de-
nouncing loW-necked dresses as in
compatible with self-respect and pan
dering to debased craving"
These low aecked dresses, says Lady
Harberton, are 'unwomanly' and are
made for the purpose of displaying the
naked form.
She says that the time has arrived
when radical reform must be effected
in women's dress and that the mem
bers of her own sex must be emanci-
pated from the absurd conventional
ties which hedge them about.
Lady Harberton would cover up the
shoulders of women and uncover their
legs to the public gaze. She says
there is no reason why a beautiful
woman should bare her arms and
shoulders in public, but that there are
many valid reasons why she should
wear knickerbockers and display her
legs below the knee.
Low-necked dresses, she says, are de-
basing, but short skirts are eleYating,
the former appealing to the passions of
man, the latter to his common sense.
Has anyone ever considered how
strange is the overwhelming interest
taken by the public in this question,
which might reasonably be supposed
to be matter of but small import
ance? III we take up one OF
the early numbers Of Punch, or any
comic paper, the one standing joke,
then as now, is women's dress. Yet,
in point of fact, the attitude of the
pubic itself is both irrational and IL
logical. For, as shown above, it
never ceases it's gibes at the folly of
women in adopting the fashions pre-
sented to them, and railing at the
dress. At the same time, the sensible
woman style of dress meets with uni
versal condemnation, although it is
merely a smart dress shorn of it's more
outrageous eXtravagances and decora-
tons while retaining its customary
cumbrous shape.
Then, when rational dress rises on
the horizon, which need not necessar-
lily be dowdy, which has the merit of
cleanliness and comfort in its favor,
besides many other advantages, GER
tain proportion of this public seem al
0ct Cn1u with
demand with much vulgar abuse and
not single sane argument that the
wearers should Zoe denied food and
lodgings at inns; that they should be
excluded from games and cycle club
runs, etc. The same kind of unreas-
oning rage, in short, as might seize an
audience at a pantomime were the
clown to be suddenly withdrawn.
''The dress which obviously inter-
feres with the movements of the legs;
the dress which neces8itates compress
sion of the waist to look slightly with
its unavoidable accompanying dis
placement of the internal organs)
and the dress which leaves the
shoulders and bust uncovered for the
one and only object of displaying
them naked, are all unwoman1y dress
es. Unwomanly because incompatible
with self-respect, and as pandering to
debased craving on the part of Tie
public to give expression to con-
tempt for women which is unreason- |
able in the present state of society, and |
which would have ceased long ago but
for being constantly fed by women
themselves fearing to show respect for |
their own bodies.
Admiration of her physical charms
is the least worthy form of admiration
which woman should desire. The
estimate women form of themselves,
and which must in the main be the one
on which they stand, is enormously
biased by their general appearance.
Just SO long as they declare by this
last that their comfort, their health,
their modesty (Which should not be a
mere matter Of unthinking convention
atty, but be real and true), do not
really signify if only they may secure
the least worthy form of social admi
ration, just so long will they continue
to be the target for the jeers and gibes
they deserve as whole, and which
many stupidity imagine they escape as
long as they are protected individually
by family infuence-but this position
is ursound, and also opposed to lib
erty.
mo one is free who is unable at