The Spinster and Her Enemies - Feminish

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SPINSTERHOOD AND CELIBACY It cannot be assumed that those spinsters who were defending their right not to engage in sexual intercourse with men, were sexually inactive. The attack on the spinster was integral to the attack on the lesbian. Whilst the ‘spinster’ and ‘women’s friendships’ were respectable, then love between women could flourish in a variety of different forms. A new ‘respectibility’ was being created by the sex reformers, based upon a woman’s enthusiastic participation in sexual intercourse in or out of marriage. New categories were being created based upon sexual contact. Instead of the married woman and the spinster, there were now the actively heterosexual woman and the lesbian. In the period immediately before the First World War, the women’s movement was deeply divided over the issue of sexuality. There can have been no other issue which so clearly separated feminists into two opposite camps whose ideas and practice were at total variance. Feminists were divided about the correct tactics for the suffrage struggle—some espoused and some eschewed violence against property. But at least there were degrees of militancy and the goal was the same. Between Kathryn Oliver and Stella Browne, over sexuality, there was not merely a difference of tactics but a difference of aim. One camp advocated the joys and necessity of heterosexual intercourse in or out of marriage without any serious attempt to criticise the form of male sexuality and its effects on women, presumably because such criticism would have detracted from the strength of their campaign. The other camp pointed out that many women received no joy from sexual intercourse, suggested that there were large differences of interest between men and women over the issue of sexuality, launched a major critique of the form of male sexuality, and advocated noncooperation with the sexual desires of men. It is important to remember here that many women in the latter group loved women and were involved in passionate relationships with their own sex. They did not identify themselves as lesbian either because this would have been seen as invalidating their ideas—lesbians within feminism today remain silent for like reasons—or because they did not see themselves as ‘lesbians’. The sexological category of lesbian’ was not yet accepted. Any attack on the spinster is inevitably an attack on the lesbian. Women’s right to be lesbian depends upon our right to exist outside sexual relationships with men. When lesbians are stigmatised and reviled, so, also, are all women who live 100
SPINSTERHOOD AND CELIBACY independently of men. In the following chapter we will look at how the anathematising of the lesbian developed from the work of the sexologists in the 1890s on to the 1920s. 101
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Sheila Jeffreys is a lesbian and a
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THE SPINSTER AND HER ENEMIES FEMINI
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CONTENTS Acknowledgments Preface to
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In the Patriarchy S
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PREFACE TO 1997 EDITION of male sex
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PREFACE TO 1997 EDITION was now a t
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PREFACE TO 1997 EDITION accused of
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INTRODUCTION This book looks at a w
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INTRODUCTION sexuality is understoo
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INTRODUCTION frigidity was invented
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FEMINISM AND SOCIAL PURITY The expl
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FEMINISM AND SOCIAL PURITY standard
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FEMINISM AND SOCIAL PURITY pamphlet
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FEMINISM AND SOCIAL PURITY committe
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FEMINISM AND SOCIAL PURITY saw that
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FEMINISM AND SOCIAL PURITY suspecte
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FEMINISM AND SOCIAL PURITY from 188
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FEMINISM AND SOCIAL PURITY without
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FEMINISM AND SOCIAL PURITY Union in
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FEMINISM AND SOCIAL PURITY systems,
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CHAPTER 2 Continence and Psychic Lo
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CONTINENCE AND PSYCHIC LOVE as para
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CONTINENCE AND PSYCHIC LOVE from a
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CONTINENCE AND PSYCHIC LOVE of moth
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CONTINENCE AND PSYCHIC LOVE feminis
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CONTINENCE AND PSYCHIC LOVE medical
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CONTINENCE AND PSYCHIC LOVE on the
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CONTINENCE AND PSYCHIC LOVE Sex is
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CONTINENCE AND PSYCHIC LOVE birth c
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CONTINENCE AND PSYCHIC LOVE thought
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CONTINENCE AND PSYCHIC LOVE Evil. H
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Page 73 and 74: ‘THE SORT OF THING THAT MIGHT HAP
Page 91 and 92: ‘HENPECKING’ The servants were
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Page 115 and 116: SPINSTERHOOD AND CELIBACY ried girl
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Page 121 and 122: WOMEN’S FRIENDSHIPS AND LESBIANIS
Page 147 and 148: ANTIFEMINISM AND SEX REFORM and mad
Page 149 and 150: ANTIFEMINISM AND SEX REFORM My lady
Page 151 and 152: ANTIFEMINISM AND SEX REFORM men of
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Page 155 and 156: ANTIFEMINISM AND SEX REFORM the ide
Page 157 and 158: ANTIFEMINISM AND SEX REFORM proper
Page 159 and 160: ANTIFEMINISM AND SEX REFORM man. I
Page 161 and 162: ANTIFEMINISM AND SEX REFORM The vir
Page 163 and 164: ANTIFEMINISM AND SEX REFORM show th
Page 165 and 166: CHAPTER 8 The Decline of Militant F
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THE DECLINE OF MILITANT FEMINISM fe
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THE DECLINE OF MILITANT FEMINISM bi
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THE DECLINE OF MILITANT FEMINISM ma
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THE DECLINE OF MILITANT FEMINISM ce
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THE DECLINE OF MILITANT FEMINISM th
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THE DECLINE OF MILITANT FEMINISM se
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THE DECLINE OF MILITANT FEMINISM to
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CHAPTER 9 The Invention of the Frig
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THE INVENTION OF THE FRIGID WOMAN r
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THE INVENTION OF THE FRIGID WOMAN T
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THE INVENTION OF THE FRIGID WOMAN a
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THE INVENTION OF THE FRIGID WOMAN T
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THE INVENTION OF THE FRIGID WOMAN b
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THE INVENTION OF THE FRIGID WOMAN d
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THE INVENTION OF THE FRIGID WOMAN w
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THE INVENTION OF THE FRIGID WOMAN o
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THE INVENTION OF THE FRIGID WOMAN v
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THE INVENTION OF THE FRIGID WOMAN a
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THE ‘PRUDES’ AND THE ‘PROGRES
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AFTERWORD and girls, chal lenges th
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NOTES Introduction 1 Judith Walkowi
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NOTES TO PAGES 16-31 25 Ibid. 26 Na
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NOTES TO PAGES 46-57 33 Ibid. 34 Ch
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NOTES TO PAGES 68-78 42 The Vigilan
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NOTES TO PAGES 91-104 13 Cicely Ham
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NOTES TO PAGES 116-28 38 Stella Bro
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NOTES TO PAGES 137-49 29 Havelock E
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NOTES TO PAGES 159-68 30 Ibid., p.1
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NOTES TO PAGES 178-89 47 Ibid., p.2
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Abbott, Elizabeth. (19
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Davies, Margaret Llewe
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Gregg, W.R. (1862, Apr
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Lehmann, Rosamund. (19
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Reform? Woman’s Lead
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Vance, Carole. (ed.) (
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INDEX Abbot, Elizabeth, 153-4 Aboli
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INDEX Cree, Rev. Thomas, 65 crimina
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INDEX ‘homosocial worlds’, 103,
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INDEX National Council for Women, 6
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INDEX 180, 181-5; and ‘respectabi
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INDEX 86-7, 88-9, 112, 145-6, 173-4
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