The New Woman and the Female Comedian as Social Insurgent

Abstract

In 1913 the periodical Current Opinion stated that “‘Sex O’ Clock’ had struck in America.” ¹ Twenty-two years earlier, a warning that “sex o’ clock” was about to strike appeared in the periodical Nineteenth Century, titled “The Wild Woman as Social Insurgent.” ² The article characterizes the reaction of the diminishing authority of nineteenth-century Victorian values to the so-called offensive behavior of women in the early twentieth century. The notion of a social insurgency signaled a cultural conflict that led to the advent of the new woman.