My topic of research from Lee Jackson’s The Victorian Dictionary was about female clerks. There was a satire article from the Victorian newspaper Punch about a female clerk being hired in a post office. The article deftly makes a mockery of the idea of women working in a post office: “…we see no objection to female clerks, who will, at all events, be sure to have something to say…” (“A FEMALE FUNCTIONARY”). Due to their lack of having a voice in many situations, the writer is teasing the idea that they would love to speak here because elsewhere they are to remain silent and submissive. The article continues to mock women by targeting the limitations of their legal standing: “We rather tremble…for we know what an awful propensity most women have to put papers to rights, and the inextricable confusion into which papers are generally thrown by the process” (“A FEMALE FUNCTIONARY”). Seeing as how women are rarely allowed to sign legal papers without the consent of a male guardian, this is a shot on their limitations. The idea of them handling the legal papers of others is certainly humorous and ridiculous to the Victorian readers. If not degrading enough to the female gender, the satire ends by taking the responsibilities of their position and twisting them into a cruel joke: “Perhaps, however, the State Papers are not intended for reference, and as most of them are possibly mere waste paper by this time, a female hand may be very useful in cramming them into all sorts of holes and corners, where they will be quite out of everybody’s way, and utterly inaccessible” (“A FEMALE FUNCTIONARY”). The author morphs the female clerk from the role of maintaining the functioning of an important service into handling an unimportant task where the result does not affect the documents in the least. He talks about the female clerks cramming the waste paper away where it is in nobody’s was and inaccessible but he is also referring to the clerks themselves as if their job would satisfy them and keep them out of the real business of government and law.

Works Cited
“A FEMALE FUNCTIONARY.” Punch. Victorian London Dictionary. Web. 12 February 2016. http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm