Britannica Astride: One Hundred Years of Women on Top Of

Lesley A. Hall. Outspoken Women: An Anthology of Women's Writing on Sex, 1870-1969. Hall. Women's and Gender History Series. London and New York: Routledge, 2005. viii + 344 pp. $36.95, paper, ISBN 978-0-415-25372-7. Reviewed by Melinda Chateauvert Published on H-Histsex (January, 2007) Scholars and students will shout "Finally!" phlets and books examine marriage, sexual de‐ when they read Lesley Hall's Outspoken Women. sire, non-marital sexual relations (heterosexual, This textbook is not only a much needed correc‐ same-sex, living single, and continence/celibacy), tive to the historiography on women and sexuali‐ prostitution, birth control, and sex education, doc‐ ty, it is a critical reinterpretation of nineteenth- umenting the sometimes transgressive, some‐ and twentieth-century history that may soon be times conformist views of self-styled female au‐ regarded as important to the history of women thorities on intimate matters. The book's fve and sexuality as Carroll Smith-Rosenberg's semi‐ chapters chart the development of a sexology that nal article from 1975, "The Female World of Love places the clitoris ahead of the penis, contrary to and Ritual."[1] the sexology of Havelock Ellis, Richard von Krafft- Contrary to the assertion of second-wave fem‐ Ebing, and Magnus Hirschfeld, whose pseudo-sci‐ inist historians, women have engaged in a rich de‐ entific classificatory schema allowed the policing bate on sexual matters. Historians have failed to of male privilege. The discursive schema revealed find that debate in part because they researched in this anthology allowed Josephine Butler, Marie only the recognized sexology literature, which it‐ Stopes, Helena Wright and other women to devel‐ self has been heavily guarded by generations of op a their own intelligence on sexual practices self-referencing sex scientists. (To this day, accep‐ and sexual freedom. tance in the U.S.-based Society for the Scientific Their sexological knowledge is encyclopedic. Study of Sex--"Quad S"--is open only to applicants Hall contends that the methodologies used by fe‐ who demonstrate an objective--as opposed to male observers and interviewers were as rigorous prurient?--interest in the subject.) as those of their male contemporaries, and in This "sex-positive" women's history intro‐ some cases, perhaps less tainted because of their duces readers to excerpts from a century of wom‐ empathetic understanding of their informants, en's writings on sexual issues. Passages from pam‐ and their own desires and experiences. Harriet H-Net Reviews Nokes, writing on the fates of female prostitutes, Ideas labelled "feminist" can and do change established her authority from thirty-two years of over time. British feminists of the Victorian era rescue work, as did the anonymous author of the did not suggest that women had the right to sexu‐ pamphlet Downward Paths (1916), who connects al pleasure, yet in egalitarian terms they fercely prostitution to sexual harassment in the office. condemned the sexual double standard that per‐ Dora Russell's discussions of open marriage are mitted men to engage in sex outside of marriage informed not only by her philosophical training, without reprisal. Victorians and suffragettes advo‐ but by her own experiences as the wife of cated a noviciate for marriage, or short-term pre‐ Bertrand, and by her relationship to the father of liminary contracts that would not penalize wom‐ her third and fourth children. Physician Elizabeth en who found their mates or married life unbear‐ Blackwell drew on her medical training to write able; "starter marriages" are not a new idea. In authoritatively on the "essential nature" of "physi‐ 1969, when J (Joan Terry Garrity) suggested in The cal passion" for every "human" (italics in original). Sensuous Woman that women should masturbate Moreover, these scholars relied on more fa‐ for their own pleasure, not a few second-wave miliar and sometimes more popular genres and feminists were scandalized. (Nor did third-wave forums for disseminating their discoveries. Astute feminists rush to the defense of U.S. Surgeon Gen‐ observers of the sexual behaviors of men and eral Jocelyn Elders when she spoke favorably women, and harsh critics of sexual ignorance and about masturbation in 1993). In 1917 Stella hypocrisies, these women cannot be dismissed as Browne wrote that "self-excitement and solitary mere gossips and agony aunts (sob sisters), but enjoyment" (p. 48) were inevitable and safer. radical thinkers who "overturned many male- Egalitarian feminism, with the goal of women dominated assumptions" (p. 2). and men achieving equal status under law, is per‐ Hall also suggests that the sexual discourses haps represented best in this volume. The sexual of women have been ignored because the writers double standard that penalized women who exer‐ did not have formal degrees in the sometimes in‐ cized sexual freedom, while granting those liber‐ choate discipline of sexology. An appendix pro‐ ties to men, is the subject of many reprimands vides biographical notes on the authors, sketches through the one hundred years represented in their educations, profession(s), accomplishments, this book. Of course, on the issue of prostitution, family lives, and political and religious views what constitutes an egalitarian position is the sub‐ where known. Some of the contributors may have ject of extensive debate. Many Victorians took an been dismissed or overlooked, as in the case of abolitionist perspective, holding that only the to‐ Edith Lees Ellis; her husband Havelock was re‐ tal eradication of prostitution would render wom‐ garded as the expert. Several authors conducted en equal to men, but an "extreme social purity" their by studies drawing on their training in nurs‐ advocate such as Frances Swiney (1908) defined ing, educational psychology, social work, and oth‐ egalitarianism by calling for medical inspections er academic felds friendly to female scholars. of men who patronized prostitutes. Even femi‐ Others, through their work in voluntary organiza‐ nists who endorsed women's right to sexual plea‐ tions in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in the sure fell short of asserting the egalitarian position empire, systematically analyzed their clients to that women themselves might be the consumers-- contribute to a vast sexological literature that ad‐ rather than simply the providers--of sexual ser‐ vanced "an implicitly, if not explicitly, feminist vices. Prostitution is still a contested issue for perspective" (p. 2). feminists, as demonstrated by the recent public protests at the very doors of the Wellcome Library where Hall works as an archivist, as well as by the 2 H-Net Reviews debates about the protest that surfaced on the H- sense of self-respect prevented them from settling Net History of Sexuality list that Hall founded. for a mate, who, in Pankhurst's words, was "a The political discourse in this anthology man worthy of them" (p. 57). In addition to "sin‐ demonstrates that women sought sexual citizen‐ gleness," other writers discuss open marriages, ship before the term was coined. Christabel same-gender lovers, celibacy, single motherhood, Pankhurst disavowed a link between suffrage and sexual experimentation, and alternative sexual sexual freedom: "When women have the vote, lifestyles (as we now describe them) as means of they will be more and not less opposed than now breaking from the narrow confines of monoga‐ to making a plaything of sex and of entering casu‐ mous heterosexual marriage. Calls for sex educa‐ ally into the sex relationship" (p. 51). In reply, tion to stem women's appalling, and socially con‐ Clemence Dane praised the Divorce Act of 1923 as structed, ignorance of human biology and sexual "one of the most important scraps of paper in the behavior went along with demands for sexual history of women ... [because it] … concedes for freedom. On this platform, advocates voiced their the frst time her absolute right as a human being demands for birth control, abortion, and repro‐ to the same law and the same justice that man en‐ ductive control. These "outspoken women" evi‐ joys" (p. 95). Two generations before the welfare dence the development of a Marshallian under‐ state lessened the economic burden and social standing of sexual citizenship: self-determination stigma of single motherhood (i.e., "illegitimacy"), of the body, the right to engage in consensual sex‐ Lucy Re-Bartlett asked "what are we to ... think of ual acts with other citizens, and the right to infor‐ those women of to-day [1914] who claim the right mation about sexual and bodily matters, and right to bring children into the world ... simply because to the state's protection when those rights are vio‐ they wish to have a child ... treating the father as a lated.[2] mere passing phase?" (p. 51). Having set the parameters of sexual discourse Others demanded that the state protect wom‐ broadly, Hall seems to retreat when she decides to en from violence against the body. Annie Besant use only books and pamphlets in this anthology. asserted that marital rape should be a criminal of‐ While one can appreciate her willingness to sacri‐ fense in 1882; Catherine Booth decried Parliamen‐ fice some works for a more concise examination, tary proposals in 1884 to lower the age of consent her decision to limit her sources artificially limits to ten for girls. Equal citizenship for women has the discussion. Although Hall notes that magazine long been viewed as the demand for the vote, but articles on controversial topics such as abortion Butler and others attacked the Contagious Dis‐ and lesbianism should not be read in isolation, eases Acts on the grounds that it denied women she glibly dismisses the massive periodical litera‐ the right of due process established in the Magna ture, because of its give-and-take nature, as "a Carta. Maude Royden held that women who pro‐ whole project in itself." This move seems to un‐ vided sexual services to men should be protected dermine her earlier arguments that historians from "syphilis and gonorrhoea ..

Load more