The Spinster and Her Enemies - Feminish

‘THE SORT OF THING THAT MIGHT HAPPEN TO ANY MAN’
fact that these were subject races—and dark at that—caused
the white man to lose control over his passions and be guilty
of abominable and unspeakable cruelties. Perhaps it is the
same feeling that they are dealing with a subject race that
makes instances of brutality to women on the part of socalled
working-men so common that they cause laughter in
court and serve as amusement for the magistrate and his
officers. There must be something rotten in a judicial system
which thinks ill-treating a woman is funny. 18
The efforts of the feminist press to publish details of sentencing
in sexual abuse cases was part of a broad propaganda effort to
change public opinion so that sexual abuse would be treated
seriously. The NSPCC called for such a campaign, as did several
women speakers at the 1914 conference on child assault. A Mrs
Hutchinson, at the conference, described how a group of women
in her area found out when child assault cases were coming
into court, attended and monitored the proceedings so that
through publicity and the weight of their presence in the
courtroom they might influence sentencing. She suggested that
his process should be put into operation throughout the country
and the idea was taken up with enthusiasm at the conference.
The Women’s Freedom League employed a similar practice.
Their Miss Edith Watson, close friend of Nina Boyle, pioneer
of the Women’s Police Volunteers, routinely attended the hearings
of sexual abuse cases for the WFL.
Women police
The movement to institute a women’s police service was
integrally connected to the campaign against the sexual abuse
of children and to a general movement to acquire women
magistrates, doctors and other officials to deal with women
and children. The idea was that women and child victims of
sexual offences needed to be looked after by members of their
own sex who would support them at the police station and
through the courts. Only then, it was felt, could the girl’s ordeal
be alleviated and enough confidence created for her to give a
reasonable statement and evidence in court.
In the 1880s and 1890s organisations such as the National
Vigilance Association were mounting public pressure for the
institution of women watchers or wardens at police stations
and courts, sometimes referred to as ‘police matrons’. The
resolution they sent to the 1889 women’s congress in Paris makes
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