Athletic Fashion, Punch, and the Creation of the New Woman

Between 1885-1900 Punch satirized the personality of the New Woman. However, virtually single-handedly it also gave a body and emancipated culture to this otherwise socially abstract personality. Using illustrations from Punch, this essay argues that using sport specific clothing and equipment in its cartoons, Punch completely unintentionally created a liberating picture of women while simultaneously using its captions and border texts to make the New Woman's body signify the anxieties patriarchal culture had about her social personality and politics.