MISS WALKER: A FEMALE POLITICIAN, 1842
Women and Politics
This article is fairly typical of the attitude of Punch towards what we now call "Feminism"—a term so new that in the New English Dictionary it is dismissed in half a dozen words as a rare word meaning "the qualities of females"! That definition, however, was given in 1901. Now it would have to be revised to include the movement for political emancipation, economic independence, and admission to the professions. References to female politicians begin in the third volume, where we find the very unsympathetic and even acid sketch here given of Miss Walker, "the female Chartist." Eight years elapsed before ladies were admitted to the gallery of the House of Commons, though, even then, carefully screened from view by the metal work of the "Grille," an Orientally obscuring device which lasted till Georgian days. The possibility of their appearing on the floor of the House is never seriously contemplated; the "Parliamentary female" included amongst the "ladies of creation" in the Almanack for 1852 is modelled on Mrs. Jellyby—Bleak House had been coming out serially from March, 1852, onwards. The pioneers of the invasion of the professions hailed from America. Miss Elizabeth Blackwell, M.D., of Boston,[25] is mentioned in 1848, and in the following year Punch welcomed the innovation in verse:—
AN M.D. IN A GOWN
Young ladies all, of every clime,
Especially of Britain,
Who wholly occupy your time
In novels or in knitting,
Whose highest skill is but to play,