"Where are you going to, my pretty Maid?"

Dublin Core

Title

"Where are you going to, my pretty Maid?"

Description

"Where are you going to, my pretty Maid?"
"I'm going a-voting, Sir," she said.
"And who shall you vote for, my pretty Maid?"
That Duck in plus fours, kind sir," she said.

[Image: Illustrator Donald McGill's postcards proved hugely popular with seaside holidaymakers.

The two postcards of this kind in the collection comment on the passing of the Equal Franchise Act in 1928, the moment when men and women could vote on equal terms. Superficially the postcards are just a bit of fun, but in reality they are evidence of long held misogynistic (the hatred or belittling of women) assumptions about how and why women would vote.

This postcard pictures a long held delusion about women's voting intentions. Namely, that politics was complicated, women were too superficial to understand it, and consequently they would just vote for the best looking man. Thus the "pretty Maid" informs the man (a candidate in the election, his poster is shown far right) that she will be voting for the handsome Binks, the "Duck in the plus fours."]

Creator

Donald McGill

Source

People's History Museum, https://phm.org.uk/

Publisher

Stourbridge, London

Date

1928

Files

Where are you going to, my pretty Maid?.jpeg

Citation

Donald McGill, “"Where are you going to, my pretty Maid?",” The Suffrage Postcard Project, accessed March 19, 2024, https://thesuffragepostcardproject.omeka.net/items/show/1167.