“a Man” v. The Tender Sex: A Gender Bending Voyage In The Typewriter's Collage Time Machine
The Typewriter's Collage travels to 1903 via real stories from the era’s Chicago Tribune. A world where men aren’t men, women aren’t women—and only an eminent French sociologist can explain it to us.
Once again, let us step into The Typewriter’s Collage Time Machine. Our erstwhile Time Machine Commander (i.e., me) will take us through an electrifing excursion of etiquette, fraught with formidable faux pas (pronounced here in its plural form with “pas” concluding aurally with the sound of Zed rather than Ess), and infused with indelicate idiosyncrasies in an existential exploration on the subdualish subjagations of the sexes.
First Up: Un Prologue D'explication
The article below, from 3 May in the Year of Our Lord 1903, presents the findings of Professor Charles Letourneau, “the eminent French sociologist,” as detailed in his impeccable tome The Condition of Woman in Different Races and Civilizations. Certainly each of his carefully concluded conjectures must be correct. After all, as the article states, Prof. Letourneau possesses the trifecta in our highest standards for scholarship. He is eminent, he is a sociologist, and most important of all, he is French.
You can’t put too fine a point on this latter qualification. Some three score decades after Prof. Letourneau’s findings, his future countrymen (and, perhaps, countrywomen?) came to an equally impeccable summation on the unparalleled cinematic genius of Jerry Lewis. Given the prodigious output of this auteur, whom Gallic cinephiles lovingly refered to as “Le Roi du Crazy,” and his stellar directoral achievements including One More Time, Cracking Up, Hardly Working, and most of all Lewis’s long-anticipated, perhaps-soon-to-be-seen masterwork The Day the Clown Cried, what is not to trust in the wisdom of Prof. Letourneau’s une éminence sociologique française? Infinite wisdom is inherent to any Frenchman’s beret-and-striped-turtleneck-wearing, black-cigarette-smoking, let’s-sneer-at-American-tourists DNA. And most likely in Frenchwomen as well.
And now the article, presented in its unabridged form:
As stated in the lede line, Prof. Letourneau’s studies are “the most interesting recent works on the woman question from its scientific standpoint, both physiological and sociological.” The author of this enlightening article—who for reasons unknown thought it best to jettison a byline—notes that “(the) conclusions will not please everyone.” Really? Go figure.
Regardless, let us continue with quoted excerpts from Prof. LeTourneau’s groundbreaking tome, which I assume continues to be the singularly most respected textbook for gender studies majors at fine universities around the world. To wit:
Well, who can argue with this? Somewhere within Prof. Letourneau’s 1903 vocabulary of academic locutions, commonly referred to by all lovers of the written word as “gobbledygook,” we can discern an earth-shattering thesis, one that could change the course of our societal evolution: when given the opportunity, a tender female may have the capacity to do things on an (almost) equal, if not uncharacterastically higher plane as that of her naturally superior male counterpart.
To quote the greatest cultural philosopher in all of history, Miss Sophie Tucker, “fifty million Frenchman can’t be wrong.” Prof. Letourneau was certainly one in a million, if not fifty million. And it is with no small sense of significance I must point out that, among other things, Miss Tucker was—in the words of Prof. Letourneau—“what we call ‘woman.’”
Pills and Petticoats
Consider this next story from the Chicago Tribune published on 11 October in the Year of Our Lord 1896, some seven short years before Prof. Letourneau published his remarkable findings:
Twenty-six members of the Gentle Sex displaying dexterity behind the counter of your nearby apothecary? And a large per cent of them College Graduates? Incredible! The story continues, quoting a sage Masculine Male veteran of the pill pushing profession:
One out of every three drug clerks wearing a petticoat and each of them presumed to be a woman? Such cheek! Yet, as any amoureux campagnard of Prof. LeTourneau’s might declare “vive la différence!”
“a Man” Has His Say
Cutting-edge expansion of lacy undergarments above and beneath this new skirting of the pharmaceutical vocations is just the beginning in our exploration of Prof. Letourneau’s dissertational didacticism. Let us send our time machine forward to the day of 26 June in the Year of Our Lord 1898. It is not just petticoated lady pharmacists who present a clear and present danger. We now are confronted with a new sartorial threat from the Fairer Sex. Odds my bodkins! Former Gentle Women now indulge themselves with the rough-hewn neckwear that once was the rightful domain of the Broad Shouldered Sex.
As any stunned student of Prof. Letourneau might exclaim “Sacre bleu!” (and of course said “any stunned student” would be strapping young man—this is 1898 France after all). A shocking development that heats the blood and not in a good way. Let us delve further into the outraged moral fiber regarding textile fiber, as laid out in this criticism by “a Man,” who, as it turns out, “is not ordinarily observant of such matters.”
Oh those Tender Genderites and their malignant manifestations! Flapping to and fro—the very idea. This most certainly will lead to the ruination of not just the Summer Frolicking Season, but dare I (or “a Man”) say, The End Of Civilization As We Know It.
Coiffeur? Coiffeuse!
What is our Potent-Pressed Protuberant “a Man” to do? Wily Woman has displaced him through her Flagrant Feminine Wiles. He has been purged from the apothocary. His neckwear inappropriately appropriated. His very existence circumvented, circumambulated, circumcised. We need a clear-eyed understanding of this Brave New World (or “Worldette” for the Gentle Sex). Let us return to the wisdom of Prof. Letourneau.
A hard and bitter pill for “a Man” to swallow, particularly if that pill is procured from a College-Educated Apothocrarette. But what “a Man” does not realize is that this radical rebellion is already de riguer. Let us send our Time Machine back just a wee bit to 4 April, blah blah blah 1896. Therein “a Man” will discover an unimagined yet tantalizing new opportunity.
Dragged from the drugstore, negating their neckties, the Sterner Sex is presented with a new calling: “Men Ladies’ Hair Dressers.” In the past, “a Man” could always opt for an exciting career in the tonsorial trades as a burly barber, maintaining muttonchops whilst applying The Grecian Hair Balsam to any naked pate, restoring luxurious gloss to fallen follicles. And perhaps a good side business in bloodletting and application of leeches.
But soft! A man (or “a Man”) primping perms and coaxing curls upon the crown of a member of the Gentle Sex? Stranger things have happened. Besides, it is well known that any member of the Sterner Sex who pines for a career in the Men Ladies’ Hair Dressers profession will most certainly be considered the pinnacle of macho muscly manhood, vim and virile with vigorous vitality who recoils from the repulsive recordings by that effete folly for the effeminate, Fanny Brice (later to be embodied on Broadway by Barbra Streisand, also dismissed as an effete folly for the effeminate and rightfully shunned by the fastidious fortitude of the manly brotherhood of Men Ladies’ Hair Dressers).
What’s more, a prime and popular perk of “a Man’s” new life as Men Ladies’ Hair Dresser will be the phenomenal phermones produced by his position. By his very nature as a Men Ladies’ Hair Dresser, “a Man” will unleash the lubricious lust of his female clientele, as they randily renounce their natural state of ladylike manners, discarding their laddish scarves, unable to temper their seething sybaritic desires, whilst begging said “a Man” for more appropriate neckwear, such as pearl necklaces.
Playthings No More!
Yes, it is a queer yet quixotic quandary for “a Man”, this confounding contradiction of previously predictable positions between the Sterner Sex (masculine) and the Gentler Gender (feminine). To paraphrase the keen observation imparted in the film Planet of the Apes by Dr. Zaius (male orangutang) to Dr. Zira (female chimpanzee), within this metaphorically radioactive Forbidden Zone we shall find Man’s and Woman’s Destiny.
As Prof. Letourneau concludes:
Women who no more are merely “playthings?” Fewer men who are brutal to the point of beastiality? Mon dieu! Grab your smelling salts and get your respective derrières back into The Typewriters’s Collage Time Machine. We must return to an era where all such gender differences have been resolved and true order exists: the serene and utopian paradise that is 2024.
Story Links:
Professor Charles Latourneau’s groundbreaking work The Condition of Woman in Different Races and Civilizations for your dinner and dancing pleasure, in the original French Edition La Condition de la Femme dans les Diverses Races et Civilisations
Confusion still reigns as to whether or not The Day The Clown Cried will ever see light of day. In the interim, check out this treasure trove of information, including documentaries, news, what may be a draft of the script, and most important of all, actual footage from the film. Hollywood Elsewhere: Attempting to Clarify “Clown Cried” Situation.
Miss Sophie Tucker’s inspiring rendition of “Fifty Million Frenchman Can’t Be Wrong.”
Okay, I’ll shut up. What do you have to say about Prof. Letourneau’s research? And what possible journeys would you like to take via The Typewriter’s Collage Time Machine? That’s what the comment section is all about, Charlie Brown.
Thanks for reading The Typewriter's Collage. Connect with me at Twitter/X, Bluesky, Threads, and Instagram at the handle @RealArnieB. I’m on LinkedIn and Facebook under my real name. While you’re at it, be sure to take a peek at my website, www.arniebernstein.com.
And since you’ve made it this far, here’s your bonus content: A windy day in 1903 New York City, filmed in front of the Flat Iron Building. No lady pharmacists’ petticoats nor men’s scarves were harmed in the making of this motion picture.
I enjoyed all the french language throughout this! And especially the highly accurate clip-art.
Cheers to more petticoats on pharmacists!