After learning about the Gentleman’s Club in the “Victorian Period” game, I decided to look into the “Ladies Club” section of the Victorian Dictionary. There was only one article in the section, and it was by the satirical conservative newspaper Punch. However, through the mockery that they give to the idea, they expose exactly what they fear women obtaining. The Ladies Club did not even actually exist, but the piece speculates on what might occur if it did, and how it’s possible formation incites “fearful questions.” Their first question is if there will be a club committee, and if there is how many women will be allowed to speak at once. This betrays a fear of women organizing and having a voice completely outside the control of men. They then question whether there will be a smoking room, and if “cigars will suffer to be lighted” or, for fear of illness, only “the middlest cigarettes.” Not only does this show disgust at the idea of women adopting a symbol of masculinity for their own pleasure, but it doubts whether they will be able to do that, or if their delicate constitutions would prevent it. They then question what women will discuss. Whether it will be topics they feel appropriate, such as “the nursery” and “bonnets,” or if they will talk of more scandalous matters such as love, marriage, and even divorce. In this question they restrict the interests of women to the domestic life. They do not even consider that women may talk about politics, literature, science, or anything outside of marriage and children. They go on, continuing to trivialize women, and their interests, even suggesting that ballots will be represented by cotton balls instead of actual ballots. Perhaps paper is just too heavy. They predict a woman in the club scorning her husband and leaving him to take care of the children for a night, while she takes time for herself. This practice, which men a known to do, is seen as selfish in a woman because her first concern should be the family and not herself. The last point they make on behavior in the club gives a good insight into the male gaze of the period: “what a sensation would be caused on the street pavement, if the Club belles were to congregate about the Club beau-windows, and stare through their eye-glasses every handsome man who passed.” They are revealing an anxiety about being objectified the same way that they objectify women. The entire article shows a fear, not of equality, but of a world where women have power over men in the same way that men have power over women.

Works Cited

“The Ladies Club” Punch. Victorian London Dictionary. Web. 12 February 2016. http://www.victorianlondon.org/women/ladiesclub.htm