Davison’s humour was met by the wry humour of this letter which managed to turn the

tables on the usual gender stereotypes that Davison tried continually to rebuff:

October 10 1912, To the Editor of The Newcastle Daily Journal , “The Hunger

Strike”

Sir, –I fear it would not be easy to enforce a hunger strike upon the male sex

during the festive season, as Miss Davison suggests in your paper today; since

all the most accomplished cooks are men, who might have a sneaking sympathy

with the starving victims. It is precisely in the domestic arts, such as cooking,

housework, and dressmaking that a man excels; let us give the devil his due; but

over wider affairs of national importance he invariably makes a most conspicuous

ass of himself. When it comes to positions requiring high powers of organization,

tact, and diplomacy, a wide and intimate grasp of detail, and an incorruptible

devotion to duty, then a woman is required.

To take one small example: if Miss Davison will enter any of our best

shops, doing a large and successful business, she will find that the window-

dressing and other work which requires a man’s taste and a man’s skilful fingers

is done (as it should be ) by men; but at the cashier’s desk a woman sits

enthroned.

9th October, 1912

LOOKER-ON

Davison, however, did not take kindly to the tone or the content of “Looker-

On’s” letter, missing the cues that might have signaled some support for women. She

took the argument at face value and engaged it seriously and angrily in this letter

which takes the opportunity of Looker-On’s observations about the dominance of men

in women’s so-called sphere, to castigate pervasive male influence in all aspects of

English culture. The letter also indicates Davison’s awareness of William Morris’ and

the Arts and Crafts’ Movement’s interest in unrestricted and natural clothing for

women.

October 15, 1912, To the Editor of The Newcastle Daily Journal

Sir, Your correspondent, ‘Looker On,’ is evidently given to the art of picturesque

abuse when he unkindly reflects on the diabolic tendencies of the male sex, and

at the same time cunningly displays the male cloven hoof by referring to the age-

long masculine tendency to absorb all the paying and comfortable sinecures,

which belong to the sphere usually elegantly described as peculiar to women.

Thus, too, ‘Looker On’ is cleverly forcing upon our notice how absolutely the

average male is thrusting his tongue into his cheek, when he urges the exploited

female to shine brightly in her own ‘sphere’ when he can tell her to pay up and

shut up, so long as he controls the law and the purse-strings!

‘Looker-On’ rams home the little fact that the astute (or asinine!) male still

sees to it that he runs the gamut of guiding women by shop windows, and great

autocrats of fashion, such as Worth, to exhaust their energy and cash on the

very prettiest and most changeable of fashions, so that they may all through the

ages play into his hands! And the amusing commentary on it all is that ‘Looker

On’ points to the fact that the gentle devil does it all through those very acts in

which he is deficient .

The average masculine good taste is abundantly evidenced in his

hideosities, in his sight-offending cities, his own monstrosities in the matter of

male and female attire (which causes him to clothe himself in the beauteous

topper and sightly [sic] bifurcated garments, while he orders his female to

veer from the cramped shoes of old China to the alternatives of the crinoline

and hobble-skirt of Europe), to the very ugliness of his own private dens and

city offices. ‘Looker On’ is evidently possessed by a satire almost worthy of

Dean Swift in referring to the ‘skilful fingers’ of the male, when we consider the

blasphemy to which the latter is given when faced by the departing button or the

recalcitrant collar-stud!

EMILY WILDING DAVISON