Grumbles Writes Letters

To the personage of CNN Mental Flossateee Christopher Connolly, Esq:

My good man, it is my duty as Shakesville's resident expert on Victorian women to inform you that your article making the outrageous claim that women's lib arrived on bicycles is thorough-going poppycock! For a start, sir, I can inform you that women's liberation, as you hippies like to call it, began as soon as some crumble-nutted dingaling got it in his head that the fairer sex ought to be taught to read!

Secondly, the portrait you paint of the typically conjured image of a Victorian lady is as preposterous as a ginglefurk in a halsbury sack!

She's sickly and pale, relies on men for everything, and occasionally peeks out from behind an ornamental fan (usually before touching her wrist to her forehead and fainting). The frailty of a "lady" was such that preventing females from studying, working, voting and doing much of anything at all seemed a rational measure.

Naturally that is the preferred image of a proper Victorian lady, but I have it on good authority that the ruffians around here, especially the women's libbers, might call to mind a more radical lot.














As you can see from the above photographic images, my good man, the seven pounds of underwear and other fashionable trappings required of a Victorian lady did not, in fact, keep many of the hysterics cloistered away as any upstanding gentleman would have liked. (I don't know this "jog bra" that you speak of, but, based on the activities of certain women around here, it doesn't seem to keep them in line, either.)

Perhaps we can schedule a meeting at a local soda shop and further discuss over sarsaparillas the many misconceptions you appear to have about Victorian ladies.

I can, however, assure you that horseback riding does indeed damage the ladybits. Once Mrs. Grumbles came back from her ladies' holiday, she informed she'd ridden a stallion named Andre which had ruined her to me forever.

Good day, sir.

Benjamin H. Grumbles, Esq.
Detector of Potions, Elixirs, and Poisons for
the US Government and Its Occupied Territories