The Spinster and Her Enemies - Feminish

THE DECLINE OF MILITANT FEMINISM
Earlier feminists had not restricted their campaign to the demand
for legislative change, but had understood the necessity for a
massive campaign of public education to change attitudes and
transform male behaviour. The ‘society’ Rathbone mentions
which was dedicated to acting around sexual morality was the
Association for Moral and Social Hygiene. The fact that the
AMSH, under the leadership of the spinster and feminist Alison
Neilans, maintained its dedication to feminist principles around
sexuality was no excuse for their abandonment by other feminists.
Rathbone’s abandonment of such a campaign could have been
encouraged by the change in sexual ideology since she mentioned
that ‘expert’ opinion was divided. She was quite right about
that. By the 1920s there existed a large body of professional
and progressive opinion which was promoting ideas about sexual
morality which were in total contradiction to that of a single
moral standard.
The main weapon which the sexologists used in the 1920s to
pressure women into adjusting themselves to men’s sexual
behaviour and to undermine the feminist critique of male
sexuality, was the concept of women’s frigidity. Feminists,
spinsters, lesbians, any women who showed reluctance to adjust,
were attacked as frigid man-haters. In the following chapter we
will see why the idea of the ‘frigide’ developed and the purposes
to which it was put.
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