The Spinster and Her Enemies - Feminish

FEMINISM AND SOCIAL PURITY
women’s point of view in the forming of its policy. The Union
report stated, ‘while in hearty sympathy with much of the work
of the Church of England Purity Society, we think the exclusion
of women from its councils a fatal mistake.’ 39 The CEPS replied
that they did not think prostitution or sexual misbehaviour to
be suitable subjects for discussion by women. The Union was
most indignant. Another example of the Union’s spirited defence
of feminist principles is the way in which they severed
connection with the National British Women’s Temperance
Association. Lady Henry Somerset, president of the association,
executed a dramatic volteface and decided to condone the
‘regulation of vice’ for the British army in India. This would
mean the registration of prostitutes and compulsory examination
for disease, which condoned the double standard and removed
women’s civil rights. Lady Somerset was also president of the
British branch of the International Council of Women and her
treachery in betraying the women’s cause on prostitution caused
consternation amongst feminist ranks.
The spectrum of organisations concerned with the protection
of women and children was broad, ranging from the Vigilance
Association for the Defence of Personal Rights, which
concentrated on civil rights, through men’s and women’s
organisations which campaigned around the elimination of the
double standard from a civil rights perspective—such as the
Social Purity Alliance, the Moral Reform Union and the National
Vigilance Association—to organisations which included
proponents of both regulation and anti-regulation opinions such
as the Ladies Associations, and groups like the Central Vigilance
Committee and the Church of England Purity Society which
were unequivocally promoting legislation against women. The
Moral Reform Union was firmly established in the part of the
social purity movement which upheld feminism and the civil
rights of women.
The internationalism of feminist social purity workers shows
that the crusade to eliminate the double standard was constantly
cross-fertilised by ideas from women in other countries. In
particular whatever we find happening in Britain is likely to be
reflected in events in the United States and vice versa. Delegates
from the Moral Reform Union were invited to international
conferences such as the 1891 International Congress of Women
in Chicago. The internationalism is demonstrated by the fact
that the woman who was due to represent the Union was unable
to attend and Frau Fischer-Lette of Berlin went on behalf of the
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