2026 Volume 22 Issue 1 Pages 41-62
This article examines visual discourses surrounding the “New Woman” in the 1920s and 1930s through an analysis of political cartoons reprinted from various countries in the British periodical The Review of Reviews. Figures such as the flapper, the garçonne, and the modern girl emerged alongside the expansion of consumer culture and women’s increased participation in the workforce during and after the First World War. While these women gained new forms of economic and social autonomy, they were simultaneously represented as symbols of disruption to the male–centered social order. Focusing on representations of romantic choice, marriage, family roles, and divorce, this study explores how women’s growing agency was visualized as a fear of reversed gender hierarchy. This article pays particular attention to the role of The Review of Reviews as a transnational medium in which cartoons from different national contexts resonate with one another, collectively constructing an imagined vision of a female–dominated society. By analyzing these shared visual tropes, the article demonstrates how anxieties over social change were reframed as humorous yet threatening narratives of female dominance. Ultimately, this study highlights the international circulation of visual representations that functioned as a cultural backlash against women’s emancipation in the interwar period.
