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Monday, January 29, 2007

Josephine Butler: Protest Against State Regulation of Vice

This is the document I gave you in class.

Click here to read more about Josephine Butler.

What are her main points? Can her ideas truly be called a "crusade"? What things included in the Women's Protest most caught your eye? What is her POV?

Due: MIDNIGHT, Monday, Jan. 29

posted by RJS at 11:51 AM

7 Comments:

  • Wow. I feel rather saddened that humanity at one point actually had to debate over the truthfulness of this document. Butler makes a magnificent, multi-front attack against the Contagious Diseases Acts. Firstly, she points out the moral degradation which the laws encourage. They treat the physical symptoms of prostitution- soldiers crying in pain whenever it gets cold outside- in an effort to lower the damage caused by the vice. However, humans are semi-rational beings. If the cost of a particular activity is lowered, they will pursue it all the more vigorously. An effective deterrent is to make the cost ridiculously disproportionate to the commodity. The laws, however, not only make no economic sense, they ignore any attmepts to rememdy the immoral nature of prostitution in the first place. In a political sense, the laws punished one side of a felon while ignoring the other. Drug dealers today should indeed be arrested- but where would they be without customers? Demand creates suppliers- suppliers don't necessarily create demand.
    The use of the word crusade brings to mind the image of a fight against evil, not a political struggle. The fact that I happen to agree has no bearing on the obvious emotional strategy behind the use of that word in Butler's pamphlet. The same holds true for Butler's POV. She was indeed a feminist, a political actvisit- perhaps indeed a radical. Her views would indeed be swayed in that direction. But morality has a way of dispelling need of viewpoint in search of truth. The problem comes in our interpretaion of the truth- not the truth itself.
    One thing further. At some point in the pamphlet a mention is made of Parliament trying to make an excuse for the act by saying that it was passed at the end of a long, hard session. Why was the act passed if everyone felt uneasy about passing it?

    By Blogger ThomasBatson, at Monday, January 29, 2007 6:50:00 PM  

  • Butler's undeniable opposition to the vice regulations makes her a true feminist. She describes every reason these acts were degrading to the female gender and uses examples from her personal experiences. She focuses on how the Contagious Diseases Acts affect a woman's personal security and the flaws in this system.
    In this case, a 'crusade' is a vigorous concerted movement for a cause or against an abuse. Butler's movement is the epitome of a crusade. Women were treated unjustly and she led middle class women to take a stand against the law. During this time, a better life was all women wanted to achieve. That 'life' that women dreamed of was their promised land and the Ladies' National Association movement was going to take them there.
    The 7th statement is my favorite; most likely because I like when one is able to disprove another. It's just funny. Anyway, the protest stated that the government had no right to impose these Acts upon women because they did not have the sufficient evidentiary support needed to administer these laws. And also the fact that the government applied the laws to only one sex is just wrong.
    The Wikipedia account says her feminism ways were influenced mainly by the accidental death of her daughter; but without knowing how she died, I can't assume that that is why she had such a passion for the well-being of women. Maybe she was just distraught and wanted to help people in need. I think because Butler grew up around reform, she immediately became interested in it and her visits to Brownlow Hill workhouse influenced her involvement with prostitutes. Also, because she was a Christian, her religious views caused her to believe that prostitution is a sin but her feminist ideas made her believe it was the males' fault and that women were only victims to their actions.

    By Blogger taylor, at Monday, January 29, 2007 9:33:00 PM  

  • Josephine Butler is clearly against the Contagious Diseases Acts and concerned for the welfare of women (specifically prostitutes in this case) and the discrimination that this law puts forth. She points out that it gives complete control for some men over women, as they can detain and test any woman they suspect for venereal diseases. She also notes that it has not been effective in Paris at any possible goals it could have, neither reducing prostitution nor diseases linked to it.

    Can her ideas be called a crusade? Well, they already have been I suppose, but that's a terribly loaded term to use, at least now. She is striving to overcome a certain obstacle to something, so I guess that could be a crusade.

    Butler has the point of view of a woman from Liverpool, and industrial city, so therefore concerned for the working class historically.

    I'm unwilling to get into the "moral" of it, as I subscribe to the Nietzsche opinion of morals, in that they are strange and not necessarily fact anywhere, but simply a collective opinion based on your demographics, so I can't opinionate on the discussion there, morals just shouldn't be legislated as long as nobody's hurt.

    And Thomas, Parliaments always pass things carelessly, they are never vigilant enough to really put a stop to legislation that has no popular opinion against it yet. For instance, the Iraq War funding legislation was passed by basically everyone, including Hilary Clinton, because they don't feel like reading and are lazy in general if it's not going to be a close decision.

    By Blogger Unknown, at Monday, January 29, 2007 10:41:00 PM  

  • Being a woman, Josephine was inclined to feel sympathetic to women. Furthermore, she was a middle class woman, and because middle class women experienced repression from inability to gain further education they empathized with the poor women that were driven to prostitution by a male dominated society. Josephine agreed that men could not blame women for man’s lustful behavior, as they did, but should take responsibility for it and not say it is just a necessity.
    The Petition states that a woman in such a position as those which the petition concerns were driven by men and government to lower themselves and were further repressed by men and government because they lowered themselves. She does not think it fair that a few in the government passed the law without much consent or agreement, that many were unaware of the law, and that those who suffer under the law were uninformed of the offence which the law concerns. I find this document’s portrayal of the logic of man and government very interesting because, as the repression of the logical ability of women continued during this time, men proved to be irresponsible (as they could only blame others for their own errors in judgment), illogical (as they did not see that not only women carry disease), and unreasonable (as they stripped mother from child and imprisoned only that which they had created).
    In the sense that it was a rally around a cause, of course her ideals were a crusade. I’ll even go so far as to say that in a round-about way, she was fighting for religion (and women) against prostitution by fighting against those that created and secretly encouraged it.

    By Blogger TeganLove, at Monday, January 29, 2007 11:30:00 PM  

  • In this segment, Josephine Butler writes on how the differences in the treatment of men and women are unjust. Her strong feminist standings are incredibly apparent the farther I read. In the first point she uses 'sex', and in the next 'sons', but by the third point(6) she is using 'women' to show the unfairness of the law. In number 4, she says why arrest the victims of and let the commiters of this so called crime wander free? Also, she claims that things being addressed are moral not physical, that people are too focused on what caused problems then how to fix them. I don't think her ideas are so much a crusade as they are just observations. I've always thought of a crusade as having holy motives, and Butler is just pointing out how unfairly women are treated. The 7th point caught me eye especially. It says that there is no proff that the measures taken have even effected the spreading of the disease at all, and that no legislation will ever be able to removie it. I found that sort of ammusing, or maybe its my half awake state, that other people in England thought that locking up a few women would magically end any diseases.

    By Blogger manxomefoe, at Tuesday, January 30, 2007 1:04:00 AM  

  • A few of Butler's primary points are that not only do these acts fail to diminish the spread of disease, but, in actuality contribute to its spread. By targeting the prostitute as the guilty party, the costumers actually have easier access to prostitution. She also goes on to point out these acts regulate not only a vice, prostitution, but also the systematic degredation and personal violation of women. The acts in no way better the situation in any conceivable manner. Being locked in a hospital rather than given financial aid or a job opportunity seems, for lack of a better word, crude, and somehow childlike. Is it not children, who when faced with something difficult or frustrating, bear the tendency to simply push it away into a less noticable corner?
    As for her ideas being considered a crusade, it really depends on the definition of crusade. Crusades tend to call to mind the endless forced baptisms of countless non-Catholics, however, taken in a broader sense it could be taken to mean a fight for ones beliefs in an effort to press them onto others. In this particular sense I would say the women's rights movement was a crusade.
    A few particular things that caught my eye while reading the article was the mention that the Contagious Diseases Acts were passed during the very tailend of a long an tiring parliament. This was also used as an excuse to Parliament for the absurdity of passing these acts. It is, however, extremely hard to sympathize with giving the ok to widespread moral degredation which will in no way allievate any situation simply due to laziness or 'stoic indifference'.
    Butler is speaking as a politically active women's rights activist and as a middle class woman, traditionally the economic and social class that has long lobbied for better treatment of others.

    By Blogger laura, at Tuesday, January 30, 2007 8:29:00 PM  

  • Josephine Butler's ideas did in fact lead a movement, a struggle, and therefore a crusade by definition that had more than one major point to fight on. Most obviously she was appalled at the violation of a woman's body at the word of a policeman. In few cases was the social situation of that woman ever healed from the shame, whether the allegations proved true or false. A very interesting point she made, which wouldn't have been entirely expected, was how the acts basically cleaned up the world of prostitution and made it safer for men to indulge in it, only encouraging the very vices that the government condemned. Butler definitely made clear the male upperhand by pointing out that men could just as well spread the diseases and yet were not also affected by the acts. I as well found it interesting that the question of veneral diseases spread by homosexual men was raised by the movement, which would place women entirely out of the picture.
    Within the Women's Protest, Josephine's personal views on prostitution were made apparent. The effects of years spent working with the underprivilaged women and prostitutes of England lent her many sympathies to their plights, and as a sign of this she proclaims the acts as having "brutalized even the most abandoned" in the system that catered to "male animalism".

    By Blogger Victoria, at Wednesday, January 31, 2007 11:12:00 PM  

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