The Spinster and Her Enemies - Feminish

‘THE SORT OF THING THAT MIGHT HAPPEN TO ANY MAN’
deserved no consideration or protection. The campaigners around
sexual abuse fought these attitudes, though they were sometimes
unable to reject them without ambivalence because the dominant
sexual ideology left its residues within them.
The women campaigners argued fiercely against allegations,
by magistrates and judges and in the press, that the abused
children were seductive. Lady Astor in the House of Commons
fulminated against a judge’s conclusion that a little girl of 7
had encouraged the assault upon her. ‘Nobody can say that a
little girl of 7, 8, 9 or 10 could lead a man on,’ she asserted. 29
The Shield frequently carried expressions of indignation at this
form of victim-blaming. As late as 1937 the editorial was still
making the same point. Amidst anger that girls of under 16
years were being described as a danger to men, and the fact
that they could get three years’ detention in a home whilst the
man was acquitted or bound over, it stated:
We wish judges would not encourage people to think that
decent men are morally defenceless creatures against the
wiles of unscrupulous girls under 16, and that their seduction
by the girl, even if they themselves are over 30, is mainly
the girl’s iniquity. 30
Votes for Women in 1915 in one of its ‘Comparison of
Punishments’ features gave a strong feminist reaction to victimblaming.
The writer roundly criticised the press for saying little
girls are to blame: ‘the practice of putting the blame for these
discreditable outrages upon the child or the young woman is an
abominable one, and would not be tolerated in any country
where women are regarded with honour and respect.’ 31
The way the child victim was treated by the authorities
depended upon the attitudes of clergy and social workers
towards her. The women campaigners were engaged in a
struggle to combat the view that the ‘fallen’ child was evil and
corrupting. Examples of this latter attitude came from
representatives of the church at the 1914 Child Assault
conference. The chairman, the Lord Bishop of Ely, gave a
viewpoint which was significantly lacking in Christian charity:
It [sexual abuse] is a crime degrading and terrible in itself
and has the worst effect on the rising generation. These poor
children ought to be precluded from association with other
children, for without any fault of their own they are moral
lepers. 32
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