A Petticoat Parley: Women in Ripperology

[Ally]

Hey there Baron, I notice you failed to answer my question about whether you wanted to stick to your statement that people who committed crimes, no matter what the crimes were, were bad.

It's really interesting how in order to maintain this line of argument, all who argue that they weren't prostitutes, have to constantly and consistently overlook, ignore and pretend things don't exist in order to maintain their world view. And of course, selectively cherry pick out three words in any argument to focus on to the exclusion of the overall point. Telling.

[The Baron]

Neither Ally nor I is saying that they were prostitutes

Turning a blind eye:


Ally:

>>Four of the five were definitely prostitutes



And forgetting:


Paul:

>>So, I'd say that historically, yes, we have to accept that the ripper's victims were prostitutes.


And this 'were' above is your emphasis!


What is it Paul?!
Are you sure everything is ok at the other side of "The Five" ?!



The Baron

[PaulB]

Interesting discussion. I'm more concerned that Rubenhold seems to have excluded existing evidence which didn't support her thesis about the character of the Victims. This is the mark of bad research, and bad scholarship.

Precisely. The point is that Rubenhold omitted and manipulated evidence that the victims were prostitutes so that she could argue that they weren't, and on that foundation building a theory based on a claim that the police and the press branded all homeless and destitute women prostitutes. Apart from prostitution providing an explanation for the victims being in the places where they were found, whether or not they were prostitutes has never mattered to anyone.

[Pcdunn]

Interesting discussion. I'm more concerned that Rubenhold seems to have excluded existing evidence which didn't support her thesis about the character of the Victims. This is the mark of bad research, and bad scholarship.

The comment about unfortunates who "abstained" from prostitution made earlier in this thread should be looked at from the perspective that many social welfare groups and churches offered charity to the poor based on their "good character" (which I suspect meant, in the case of females, avoiding selling one's body for sex). Of course more poor women will deny they have done so, on the record, than will admit to it.

[Mark J D]

Try to understand what the argument is before disagreeing with it, Harry.

You know, I can't help feeling that, quite apart from their obvious determination to not use a 'hurtful word' in connection with these poor women (and it's far from unusual for liberals to be vastly more upset about hurtful words than about *hurtful realities*...), part of the problem is commitment to some kind of weird essentialism that reductively makes the difference between 'being a prostitute' (=bad) and 'not being a prostitute' (=good) some kind of basic, immutable category, like being or not being a cat. For an old-school leftist like me, the liberal mind is a baffling as well as horrific thing; but it does seem that a nuanced and, above all, non-judgmental category like 'occasional subsistence prostitution' cannot fit into it -- and what results is sociological and philosophical illiteracy.

Somewhere in the back of my mind is a memory of a long-ago plane crash whose survivors had to eat human flesh for a time to survive. If Rubenhold ever writes about that disaster, we'll no doubt see the denial and exclusion of all evidence pointing to that 'occasional subsistence cannibalism' -- because it would have made the people *cannibals*, for gods' sake! (shriek!), and 'people don't like to be called cannibals!'...

M.

[PaulB]

No matter what explanations we supply Baron,Alley and others appear fixated with discrediting Rubenhold,and they cannot do it.It is blinding their judgement.You and I have answered Allys quesions,and the one inescapable fact is she will refuse to believe that the victims had other options than prostitution.Sure there is a suspicion that prostitution might have been a factor,I have said that,but the fact is there were thousands of women who were unfortunates and homeless(for those who wish to use statistics) who abstained from prostituting themselves.All or some of the five could have been among them.This obsession unfortuntes had to be prostitutes is akin to those who insisst a person who finds a body is automatically a suspect.Utterly futile reasoning.


.'

Even if I spelt it out to you with alphabet bricks, Harry, you would be unable to understand it. YOU are the FIXATED one around here. You cannot get it into your head that Rubenhold is saying that there is no evidence that the five were prostitutes. Neither Ally nor I is saying that they were prostitutes, we're saying that there IS evidence that they were. And others IS evidence. You may not think it constitutes proof, but nobody is saying that is it (although some may believe the evidence is sufficient to draw that conclusion). Now, evidence is not proof, but evidence exists. So, YES we can and have discredited Rubenhold's suggestion. And so have you - you have written, "Sure there is a suspicion that prostitution might have been a factor". A suspicion based on nothing is fantasy, a suspicion based on evidence isn't. A suspicion based on evidence is what starts the whole process of evolving a likely scenario.

Try to understand what the argument is before disagreeing with it, Harry.

[Ally]

I may have missed it. I've seen a number of people chuckle about the pawnshop suggestion, but I don't recall anyone actually looking up the appropriate statute to verify it.

Here it is: 9 & 10 Vict., c. 89

By statute, the pawnshops were closed at 9 p.m. most of the year, and at 8 p.m. in winter. (11 p.m. on Satuday nights to make the pubs happy!)

One can understand the reasoning, but it rather sucked if one needed money for a doss.

"Prisons are built with stones of law
Brothels with bricks of religion" --Blake.

I did look this up and cut out the part in the podcast where I said I'd researched when the pawnshops were open because it was a throwaway sarcastic line and I basically just ad hominemed Hallie by ridiculing her even including that suggestion in the book (which ironically she's now saying she didn't do, apparently it being in black and white is not an all an impediment to her arguing something), and the podcast was like 4 hours long and loads had to be cut from it, so thank you for putting it up.

I also did some reading and from what I understand, the later time on Saturdays wasn't actually to keep the pubs happy but because people would go in late on Saturday to "rent" clothes for church the next morning, and then re-pawn them on the following Monday (although, to be fair, your pub suggestion is probably more the reality and the suggestion of "church renting clothes" more the excuse for why it was left open that late.)

[Mark J D]

... abstained...

The longer they keep this going, the more the vocabulary of middle-class moral outrage creeps into what they say...

M.

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

No matter what explanations we supply Baron,Alley and others appear fixated with discrediting Rubenhold,and they cannot do it.It is blinding their judgement.You and I have answered Allys quesions,and the one inescapable fact is she will refuse to believe that the victims had other options than prostitution.Sure there is a suspicion that prostitution might have been a factor,I have said that,but the fact is there were thousands of women who were unfortunates and homeless(for those who wish to use statistics) who abstained from prostituting themselves.All or some of the five could have been among them.This obsession unfortuntes had to be prostitutes is akin to those who insisst a person who finds a body is automatically a suspect.Utterly futile reasoning.


.'

Hi Harry,

Disputing the likelihood of Polly actively soliciting that night is sidetracking away from the actual issue that was up for debate.

Rubenhold willfully, and in what can only be seen as bad faith, withheld information that didn't fit her narrative. This is a fact.

The historical accuracy of William Nichols claim is not the point here, it's the fact that Rubenhold deliberately left it out, then audaciously stated that the historical evidence never existed. Not that it was disputed, that it never existed.

That, combined with her claiming as proven historical fact things that she plain made up, should set off alarm bells in any rational mind.

It's bad history Harry.

[rjpalmer]

I may have missed it. I've seen a number of people chuckle about the pawnshop suggestion, but I don't recall anyone actually looking up the appropriate statute to verify it.

Here it is: 9 & 10 Vict., c. 89

By statute, the pawnshops were closed at 9 p.m. most of the year, and at 8 p.m. in winter. (11 p.m. on Satuday nights to make the pubs happy!)

One can understand the reasoning, but it rather sucked if one needed money for a doss.

"Prisons are built with stones of law
Brothels with bricks of religion" --Blake.

[Ally]

No matter what explanations we supply Baron,Alley and others appear fixated with discrediting Rubenhold,and they cannot do it.It is blinding their judgement.You and I have answered Allys quesions,and the one inescapable fact is she will refuse to believe that the victims had other options than prostitution.

.'

And yet when asked to list one job they could have been doing to earn their doss at 2 am, you couldn't come up with a single idea. And you say we're blind. Keep thrashing Harry, I love watching monkeys dance and this is almost as amusing.

[harry]

No matter what explanations we supply Baron,Alley and others appear fixated with discrediting Rubenhold,and they cannot do it.It is blinding their judgement.You and I have answered Allys quesions,and the one inescapable fact is she will refuse to believe that the victims had other options than prostitution.Sure there is a suspicion that prostitution might have been a factor,I have said that,but the fact is there were thousands of women who were unfortunates and homeless(for those who wish to use statistics) who abstained from prostituting themselves.All or some of the five could have been among them.This obsession unfortuntes had to be prostitutes is akin to those who insisst a person who finds a body is automatically a suspect.Utterly futile reasoning.


.'

[Ally]

I cannot believe I have to explain that to you!

Prostitution is a criminal offence, criminal offences are Bad!

Ah. Criminal offences are bad. Like....say, helping escaped slaves escape to freedom, which was a crime, also bad? Being gay? Bad? Are you really going to stand on the notion that if one commits a crime, no matter what that crime may be, they are "bad"? Well that's a .... choice.

And which survive are you talking about?! Don't we read the claim that they spent their moneys on Alcohol?!

Is that your understanding of sex work in order to survive?!

The Baron

And there I believe we have it. Thanks for playing.

[The Baron]

Thank you for finally admitting that you believe people who engage in sex work in order to survive are doing something bad. It's been quite the ordeal to get you to this point. Now, let's unpack why precisely you believe they're doing something "bad"? What precisely is the "bad"? I mean, is it "good" to starve?

I cannot believe I have to explain that to you!

Woman don't like being described as prostitutes, so describing them as prostitutes is Bad!

Prostitution is a criminal offence, criminal offences are Bad!


What I think about sex working to survive has nothing to do here, why are you trying to change the goalpost?!

And which survive are you talking about?! Don't we read the claim that they spent their moneys on Alcohol?!

Is that your understanding of sex work in order to survive?!



The Baron

[Ally]

From Cambridge Dictionary:


to believe something good about someone, rather than something bad, when you have the possibility of doing either:

Thank you for finally admitting that you believe people who engage in sex work in order to survive are doing something bad. It's been quite the ordeal to get you to this point. Now, let's unpack why precisely you believe they're doing something "bad"? What precisely is the "bad"? I mean, is it "good" to starve?