The Spinster and Her Enemies - Feminish

‘THE SORT OF THING THAT MIGHT HAPPEN TO ANY MAN’
states that the distinction could not be made on the grounds of
the damage caused since young girls could be made pregnant
and boys could not:
Is a boy so much more valuable than a girl? Is the girl so
much less rigorously protected? Or is the wickedness of the
crime judged on some scale which does not consider the
harm inflicted? And if so, why should the fixing of that scale
lie exclusively with men? 14
The comment attached to another ‘Comparison of Punishments’
feature was entitled ‘New Danger to Young Girls’. The ‘new
danger’ was the wave of patriotism in the First World War
which, in its admiration for the men who were defending their
country, promoted the idea that a soldier could do no wrong.
There was a ‘tendency on the part of some magistrates and
some newspapers to take a lenient view of criminal and other
assaults on women and girls, when these are committed by
men in uniform, or by men willing to enlist.’ 15 The magistrate’s
remark in the case of a soldier who had attacked four women is
quoted, ‘You look like a decent young fellow, and you are in
uniform. If it were not for that you would go to prison.’ 16 The
soldier was given a 40 shilling fine.
The writer of the feature did not simply want heavier sentences
for all offences. She wanted a reversal of the pattern of sentencing
so that offences against the person would always be treated
more seriously than offences against property. It is clear from.
this feature that feminists were not seeing sexual abuse in a
vacuum, as a uniquely horrifying offence. They saw it as one
of a series of crimes against women which included wifebattering,
which were not taken seriously by the male justice
system. The title of one comment section, which addressed itself
entirely to assault on female children, makes this clear. It is
called ‘Crimes against Women’. 17 A feminist interpretation from
the Vote about why wife-battering was not taken seriously by
the courts shows that the feminists were not just taking a punitive
law and order line. Their concern was with the way in which
women were treated as second-class citizens. This writer uses
an analogy between race and class oppression to make her
point:
A man recently tried to excuse the conduct of certain white
men when dealing with coloured races. He said that an
unconquerable and inexplicable aversion arising from the
59