The Spinster and Her Enemies - Feminish

FEMINISM AND SOCIAL PURITY
The word temperance, she thought, had been narrowed down
till it only meant total abstinence. In America, the women of
the Christian Temperance Union had accepted it in its higher
meaning, the combatting of depraved appetite in every form,
and for the abolition, all the world over, of all laws that
protect depraved appetite. Intemperance worked more deadly
evil upon women than upon men, because women became
the victims of depraved appetites in men. When degraded,
they were doubly degraded—first, being enslaved by their
own appetites, and secondly by the appetites of men. 41
In America, when international conferences were held,
temperance often occupied almost as much space on the agenda
as social purity and campaigns to protect women and children.
Through the network of national and international social
purity organisations, women were able to exert considerable
influence over men’s consciences if not their behaviour, and to
validate the feelings of other women about male sexuality. They
saw themselves as part of the ‘women’s movement’ and identified
with all the women who were the objects of male sexual abuse.
They attributed responsibilty to men, unequivocally, for the
abuse they were fighting. By engaging in social purity work
women were able to express their anger and indignation against
men in a legitimate setting. Under the banner of social purity
and with the moral clout of the Christian religion behind them,
women were free to fight the forms of male sexual behaviour
they found oppressive and to name men as the perpetrators of
sexual injustice against women. There were elements within
social purity which opposed them and wished to eliminate vice
by restrictive legislation against women, but in the early days
of social purity, these were no stronger than the feminist tendency.
The social purity feminists concentrated on fighting sexual
abuses outside marriage, but through their campaigns against
such abuses they were able to promote continence and sexual
self-control for men and inspire guilt in men about their sexual
desires. Thus women who wished to avoid sexual intercourse
would be advantaged in their individual relationships with men.
The project of the transformation of male sexual behaviour
was undertaken by those women in social purity of a feminist
persuasion, in a way which distinguishes them from other women
working to the same ends. They took their message directly to
men through talks and propaganda for men’s chastity leagues.
Where later feminists put their trust in the vote or spiritual
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