Any woman who dares to speak up for other women, or for children, will always be traduced by people whose motives are less than benevolent.
The extraordinary feminist campaigner Josephine Butler (1828 - 1906) campaigned for women's suffrage, the right of women to better education, the end of coverture (where a woman’s independent legal existence vanishes when she marries) in British law, the abolition of child prostitution, and an end to human trafficking of young women and children into European prostitution.
Butler became aware of the cruel treatment meted out to poor women in accordance with the Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864, 1866 and 1869. These Acts were an attempt to control the spread of sexually transmitted disease, particularly among men employed by the Royal Navy and British Army. They empowered the police to detain women simply for being in particular areas, and to deliver them to (invariably male) doctors who would subject them to intimate examinations which Butler called surgical or steel rape. Extracts from Butler’s writing about these procedures make harrowing reading.
With Elizabeth Wollstenholme, Butler set up the Ladies’ National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts (LNA) in 1869. In 1870, with the support of the LNA, she toured Britain and spoke at 99 meetings. Her opponents and detractors attempted to disrupt meetings in a way that today’s brave campaigners for women’s rights would find very familiar. Butler endured having rotten vegetables and dung thrown at her; windows of the hotel she stayed at were broken; and at one location, the building where the meeting was being held was set on fire.
Also very recognisable is the accusation flung at Butler by a contemporary journalist that she was “an indecent maenad, a shrieking sister, frenzied, unsexed, utterly without shame”. Members of Parliament insinuated that her interest in the lives of women in prostitution made her morally suspect.
Of course, none of this was true; and none of it stopped Butler from making a difference. Among her many achievements, she forced the British parliament to raise the age of consent for girls from 13 to 16; her actions against the Contagious Diseases Acts led to their repeal in 1886; and she pressured the authorities at Cambridge University into providing further education courses for women, which eventually led to the foundation of Newnham, Cambridge’s first college for women.
Just one last thought; what an absolute travesty that the University of Durham, which has a Josephine Butler College, is promoting prostitution to its students.
This is for you, Allison
I had read of the Contagious Diseases Acts & it is interesting to learn more about Josephine Butler's work in connection to them.