A Salute to Steam-Powered Cuteness

The fine fellows over at SfSignal recently were asking in one of their Q&A articles, ‘Why has Steampunk persisted for so long?”

Had only they asked me! Had they asked me, they probably would have received a farrago of nonsense in reply, so better that they didn’t.

But had they asked me and had I attempted a sober reply, I would have said this:

Victorian women were feminine, perhaps the most deliberately feminine females of history, and dressed and carried themselves to look the part. Steampunk lasts in part because the Steampunkettes dress in pseudo-Victorian costume, and it looks very cute and very female. It is refreshing change from the dull unisex monotony of modernity.

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