The Spinster and Her Enemies - Feminish

THE INVENTION OF THE FRIGID WOMAN
but enough is known to make us aware that in entrusting
responsibility towards individuals and the State to elderly
virgins we may be acting unwisely. 28
The cruelty of this statement is remarkable considering the
conscientious and self-sacrificing social service rendered by
virginal spinsters at this time in voluntary social work, teaching
and all kinds of work within the community. The definition of
spinsters was changing at this time. Whilst previously the word
spinster had simply meant unmarried woman, it was coming to
mean, specifically, women who had not done sexual intercourse
with men. Thus ‘spinsters’ like Stella Browne and Rebecca West
were able to use ‘spinster’ as a dirty word to attack women
who were not experienced with men. 29 Spinsters who did do
sexual intercourse, though not married, were able to feel highly
superior. This new meaning is much closer the present-day
meaning of the word. Now, when women are expected to engage
in sex with men whether married or not, the word ‘spinster’ is
generally reserved for those who do not. Haldane identified the
problem of the virgin as being that she might, in later life,
develop masculine characteristics, and the further her habits
and interests ‘deviate towards the male, the greater must be the
danger of her influence’. 30 She described those who had ‘deviated’
as the ‘intermediate sex’ which is the term used by the
homosexual rights reformer Edward Carpenter to describe
homosexuals in his pioneering work. 31 It is unlikely that Haldane
did not know the meaning of the term she chose to use. She
seems to have been very alarmed about unmarried women
becoming lesbians. The ‘intermediate’ women were only, in
her opinion, suited to:
subordinate positions which do not call for great emotional
development, or great experience of life, and for a wide and
generous point of view in the executant…. But in dealing
with education or in nursing, or medicine, intermediate
women may do an enormous amount of harm. 32
The influence of the virgin intermediates had ‘grown alarmingly’
in the past few years she said:
Their fanaticism and crankiness have caused them to take
up freak science, freak religions, and freak philanthropy.
They are the chief supporters of movements such as antivivisection,
which does its best to retard the advance of
experimental science in this country; of dogs’ homes and
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