Women fight off “Mashers” (sexual harassment)
One hundred years ago today … Women were fighting off “mashers” – men who make unwelcome physical advances. i.e., sexual harassers.
Daily News, 18 May, 1920, p. 6. Newspapers.com.
Daily News, 18 May, 1920, p. 1. Newspapers.com.
Grace McKenna, a stenographer who lived on 20th Street in Brooklyn, made the front page of the May 18th Daily News for fighting off one such “masher” known as “Mustache Pete.”
It may be that the News still had the McKenna incident in mind the next day when it captioned a photo of women in fencing practice by saying that they could now fight off a “masher” if “armed with a parasol or umbrella.”
Daily News, 19 May, 1920, p. 40. Newspapers.com.
WRITTEN BY JONATHAN GOLDMAN. MAY 18, 2020.
TAGS: Women, self-defense, masher, sexual harassment, sexual assault, Daily News