April 29, 2013

New Reader Alert – this blog is a sequential release of a longer written piece. Each segment works hard to ‘stand alone,’ but inevitably, they make more sense in context, which means reading from the beginning post through to the latest post, which is actually the current ‘end.’ Thank you for stopping by – please leave a comment; it would be great to hear what you think about these ideas.  With appreciation, Laurie

Serfdom in Modern America:

Forging Our Own Chains

On Feminism - From Equal to Angel to Workhorse

The ascension of Queen Victoria (who called early feminist activities “this mad, wicked folly of Women’s Rights") to the throne made things even harder – much harder – for women as the mores of the era became increasingly more conservative and repressive for women to navigate. During Victoria’s reign, there was an increasing public sentiment of the “ideal woman’ beginning to emerge, including the omnipresent ‘Angel of the Hearth’ stereotype seen in so much art and writing of the era. This rise of middle class morality made it harder for women to obtain work in certain ‘unfeminine’ professions, causing a concentration of female workers in such areas as factory work and domestic service – occupations with long hours and low pay – all predecessors of today’s ‘pink collar’ industries.

Predictably, class became a certain indicator of a woman’s chances in the new Wage-economy market place. Upper class women who had been handed the ‘Angel of the Hearth’ cultural consolation prize (and financial security) in exchange for increasingly limited opportunities in a suffocating era were locked away behind closed doors in the ‘new’ feminine spaces of the middle class home, while  lower class women, whose work opportunities were limited to low and unpredictable wages, fell into dangerous waters if they found themselves without a male breadwinner at their side. 

An astonishing number of those women without breadwinners found themselves practicing prostitution, a working class profession, in order to feed their children and survive (estimated by the Westminster Review to number an estimated 30,000 to 50,000 women working in the sex business in England between 1857 – 1869). In a fascinating collaboration, prostitution and the double standard evidenced by the increasing emphasis on feminine virtue during a time of rampant vice would collide to form the nascent first wave of feminism.

As prostitution increased in England, syphilis spread rapidly through all sectors of society, and it became increasingly clear to women that there was a grave double standard in place. Authorities introduced the Contagious Disease Acts in the 1860’s in an attempt to stem the spread of syphilis. Under the acts (which had been originally proposed for all women in the general public, and later reduced to apply only to prostitutes who consorted with members of the Army), women could be forcibly taken from the streets to be subjected to humiliating examinations by male doctors for signs of syphilis. 

If determined to have syphilis, the women were confined, involuntarily, to ‘Lock Hospitals,’ from which they would only be released once cured, and where they could be legally confined for up to one year. Incredibly, women were expected to pay their own keep in these hospitals, and were often sent to work hospitals to be able to continue to earn wages while confined.

One brave woman went far beyond merely perceiving injustice and feeling outrage: in the first known Victorian-era instance of a ‘virtuous’ women taking up the cause and rights of prostitutes, Josephine Butler, a middle-class mother, led a political campaign begun in 1864 to overturn the Acts in what would become a massive rejection of male right to determine female agency. Butler was also part of a tenacious group that successfully lobbied Parliament to have the age of consent changed from 13 to 16, something all the men in that august body had never before seen fit to do.

Butler’s political organization would eventually host more than 900 meetings of angry middle-class women who were fully aware that the Acts had originally been penned to include them in the random inspections and incarcerations. Since their existence in a culture of supposed virtue meant that the only way they could contract syphilis was through unfaithful, sexually active husbands, women did not fail to see that they could be subjected to random and humiliating examinations and imprisonment for something that their husbands had done. This anger and activism led to the organization of a female political structure which ultimately did defeat the Acts, and left a powerful and politically seasoned framework in place for later First Wave feminists to utilize.

Breaking down barriers to education and professional employment had already formed the backbone of early feminist thought in the 19^th c, with women in the United States and Britain having already gained admittance to colleges and professional schools, but this new outrage-driven movement had an entirely different aspect to it of privileged women acting protectively for other less privileged women. 

This protective behavior naturally extended to children who were being increasingly exploited by industry, and true Equity Feminism - authentic Feminism based on women organizing politically in order to protect themselves and other less able women, and children, and to secure equal legal rights for women in  the eyes of the law, including suffrage (Classical Liberalism) - soon was headed into its most productive, useful and meaningful years.