Josephine Elizabeth Grey Butler (13 April 1828 – 30 December 1906) Victorian era British feminist and social reformer who was especially concerned with the welfare of prostitutes.
But first an excursion into the why and wherefore of prostitution.
Prostitution is an economic, a social, a political crime, the result of inequality economically, socially and politically. Women, men and children, virtually all of them under coercion, have functioned as prostitutes. However, in a vast majority of cases men have been the users, the purchasers of the services of prostitutes because of their vastly superior position economically, socially and politically in most of the world, the few exceptions are the Scandinavian countries where there is a greater degree of equality for women with men.
Inequality enables exploitation.
Now, venture with me into Josephine Butler's world, Victorian England:
Childhood, as we now think of it, was an idea which was emerging slowly in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but it was a concept more common amongst the middle and upper classes. In the lower and labouring classes children were generally considered as a part of the work force and a source of cheap labour. Quite aside from this being a form of exploitation and abuse, such young children were "street wise," knowing a great deal more about life and sex than either their counterparts in the higher classes or today's young children. However, children of any class had no standing. They were, like a man's wife, his chattel, and within very wide bounds he had the freedom to do with them as he desired.
A letter to The Times in 1849 reported on the attempt of "an old man dressed in the garb of a gentleman" to accost a young girl. He apparently "asked her to go with him to a house in Oxenden-street", and, as the letter writer comments, "you can easily conjecture the object." At the insistence of the writer, a Constable warned the girl and suggested she go home "but in a few moments afterwards we observed the hoary old sinner already referred to in hot chase after his prey." The Police Constable, "behaved with exceeding propriety, and appeared to be quite alive to the grossness of the affair, but he said he had no right to interfere."
Prostitutes start their work at a very young age.
Enter Josephine Butler:
Josephine Butler’s life spans the Victorian age – born in 1828, she was nine when Victoria came to the throne, and died five years after the Queen, in 1906. She was tall and beautiful, with thick lustrous hair which she wore long, in ringlets tied with ribbon or secured with a plait. She was slim, and always dressed with care, choosing tactile fabrics like lace and damask, set off by dramatic beads and earrings. She played the piano with true skill and sensitivity, and loved animals especially dogs and horses. She came from a comfortable family home in the countryside, and was a devoted daughter and sister. She was happily married to a husband who adored her and they had four children. But at the age of 40 Josephine became obsessed with the needs of women who were completely unlike herself. While living in Liverpool, she began to care for imprisoned and ill prostitutes, even inviting some to live in her own home. After the Contagious Diseases Acts were passed, which allowed these women to be sexually assaulted by police surgeons on a regular basis, she went into battle with Parliament, the police and the judges to change the law.
In 1864 the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed
The Contagious Diseases Acts, in other words the STDs acts. In their typically sexist way, the legislators enabled police officers to arrest prostitutes ports and army towns, and to isolate the women, if infected, into
Lock Hospitals.
Josephine Butler took note of the gender inequality of the acts and recorded the testimony of a young prostitute:
It is men, only men, from the first to the last that we have to do with! To please a man I did wrong at first, then I was flung about from man to man. Men police lay hands on us. By men we are examined, handled, doctored. In the hospital it is a man again who makes prayer and reads the Bible for us. We are had up before magistrates who are men, and we never get out of the hands of men till we die!
Stripping women of all rights:
The passing of the Contagious Diseases Acts, which stripped poor and working-class women of their rights, shocked many respectable middle class women and provoked a major campaign for repeal. The Acts were a legal embodiment of the Victorian sexual double standard and, according to their critics, sanctioned male lust and forced vulnerable women into a life of state registered prostitution to service it.
The first Contagious Diseases Act was passed in Britain in 1864 and was, to an extent, modelled on the European (French) system of regulated prostitution. It operated in an area surrounding 11 army camps and naval ports, and was designed to stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. It allowed for the forcible registration and regular internal examination of women suspected of being prostitutes. Those found to be diseased were detained for periods of up to 3 months (later extended) in a secure lock hospital.
Butler's role in repealing the Act:
Josephine Butler and the Ladies National Association argued for repeal of the Acts from several standpoints:
A moral argument, the law was treating women with severity while allowing men to sin with impunity
The Government was waging an equal war on the weaker sex only
The Acts persecuted working class women, limiting their freedom of movement (if you could afford to travel in a carriage at night you were safe from suspicion)
Women’s rights were being taken away to create a sub-class without rights.
The Act did not define ‘common prostitute’: any woman could be suspected, and no difference was made between an unchaste woman and a criminal
Women were presumed guilty until proved innocent
The political liberty of the whole nation ‘depends on the preservation of the rights of all’.
The Act was finally repealed in 1886.
Butler was also instrumental in raising the age of consent:
In 1885 she was drawn into another related campaign led by the campaigning editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, William Thomas Stead. He had published a series of articles entitled The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon exposing the extent of child prostitution in London. As a result of this campaign, the age of consent in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was raised from 13 to 16 that same year.
The last word to Ms Butler:
God and one woman make a majority