The Spinster and Her Enemies - Feminish

THE INVENTION OF THE FRIGID WOMAN
cats’ homes; of missionary societies and ‘Kill-joy’
propaganda. 33
Spinsters were dangerous, she argued, because they had interests
which were not identical with those of men: ‘Only the normal
wife and mother will consider her interests identical with those
of her husband and children.’ 34 She considered that spinsters
were likely to become antagonistic to the mother and, more
worryingly, they were guilty of having created hostility between
the sexes by going outside the role of wife and mother: ‘They
have unconsciously or deliberately fomented “sex-antagonism”
by competing with men economically and refusing to conform,
or to allow women in general to conform to the masculine
ideals of sex relationships.’ 35 Spinsters, it seemed, were upsetting
the compromises and adjustments which heterosexual married
women had made to fit in with men’s wishes and demands.
Men’s anger at the threat to their dominance was blamed on
spinsters. They were scapegoated and sacrificed as women like
Haldane rushed to reassure and comfort their men and keep
their relationships with them peaceful.
Weith Knudsen saw frigidity in women as a ‘threat to
civilisation’. It is clear that by the word ‘civilisation’ he meant
male dominance. He sought to explain why ‘psycho-erotic
deficiency’ was ‘worth making such a fuss about’ and how it
was connected with feminism:
it is not possible thus to dismiss the lurking social-biological
danger that this sexual anaesthesia, so prevalent among
civilised women, will intensify the misunderstanding between
the sexes and contribute to make them even greater strangers
to each other than Nature has already made them. Thus this
(relative or absolute) feminine erotic sensibility actually
reinforces the threats to our civilisation, which in a higher
degree than in any former culture is based on the assumption
of mutual understanding and co-operation between the
sexes. 36
Weith Knudsen’s conclusion is that allowing what he calls
‘erotically impotent’ women to have any political power would
be dangerous to other women and men. No political power
could be given to women since it was impossible to separate off
‘erotically impotent’ women from those who were potent. If
women were allowed any political voice he considered, then
decisions would:
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