Prostitutes, wimmin, and Police misogyny

[Sara]

Reading a few threads in this section, and thinking about Rippers various, I came across this article which gives much food for thught, to the women amongst us at least

http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/11-8-2002-29915.asp

Even if you don't read it right through, don't miss the last para/sentence

[Scott Nelson]

What about the "Funny Blonde Jokes" link at the bottom, Sara?

[Robert]

Sara, if you're looking for tough attitudes towards rape etc you won't find them in the Guardian. They're more likely to ask the perpetrator "Are you a victim of poverty/racism/elitism/broken home/let down by your doctor/let down by the local council/let down by your social worker/let down by society/let down by Popeye the Sailor Man/any other copout?"

[White-Knight]

Sara.. I remember reading Joan Smith's Mysoginies when it came out in the early 80's ( a book referred to in the article).The chapter on Sutcliffe was the most interesting and I remember wondering when somebody might do the same sort of study of Victorian policing in relation to the Whitechapel crimes.To my knowledge so far, nobody has. Perhaps it could be you?

I for one would be very interested to know more about our principal police players attitudes to women ..and particularly to those so called 'unfortunates' which make up the canonical victims.I don't think they consciously were women haters as such and certainly they wanted to solve the crimes as they were constantly ridiculed for not being able to do so. The chief criticism ,if I remember correctly of the police in Yorkshire ,was that they minimized their resource input compared to other murder victims, a criticism it would be difficult to level at the city and met police in 1888 who appear to have used all the limited resources at their disposal. I still think it would be a worthwhile study though, it may well be that certain lines of inqury were minimized due to mysogynistic attitudes....!?I still think ,for example that some of the female 'witnesses' may have been rather crudely questioned....by both journalists ,and the police. ....Go for it....!

[Stephen Thomas]

http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/11-8-2002-29915.asp

Even if you don't read it right through, don't miss the last para/sentence

Sara

That's interesting. Is it true?

White Knight

I've read all your posts so far and may I say I like your style. Welcome.

Robert

Two Social Workers find a man lying in the street after being robbed and half beaten to death. One says to the other 'Whoever did this needs help'.

[Cap'n Jack]

I have long dwelt on this subject, Sara, and have spent a lifetime sifting through trial transcripts, and police reports from the LVP in the hope of reaching some kind of opinion and judgement, which I have failed to do.
My gut feeling is that the forces of law and order in the LVP were inclined, and conditioned, to acting like gentlemen when public attention was forced upon them, as in the Whitechapel Murders case; whereas the forces of law and order in the 1980's, the LEP if you like, were inclined and conditioned to acting to a new Freudian way of thinking... that women were the enemy and a legitimate target for the rapist and serial killer, especially when those women demanded money for sex.
In the LVP they only wanted a bed for the night.
Freud and Ebbing Kraft cheese slices set the rat trap that we now call 'profiling', which basically means the women were 'asking for it'.
As you know I detest these bastards.

[Robert]

Hi Stephen

Police are hunting a serial killer. An officer said : 'It's vital we get to this man before the do-gooders can forgive him.'

[claire]

I think you're quite right, Cap'n J. Further, I think there was a perception that unfortunates were to be pitied and helped (hence the proliferation of missionaries of various colours and persuasions in the East End). A hundred years later (and I agree that, by then, anything to do with sex had been rigorously Freudianised, with the appropriate coatings of guilt applied), working girls were dehumanised...perhaps because of the rise of the psychoanalytic/ secular society. Reading some of the contemporary reports in 1888, it's more usual to see commentary along the lines of 'these poor women,' and the problem was articulated as a social one that could be addressed with religious work. In the 1980s, though, the 'religious' work that could be done (ie. psychology) was no longer about saving the souls of the weak, but about understanding the minds of the disturbed. (And I'm sure that your common or garden copper was as frustrated by the reapplication of resources to 'programmes' as anyone.)

How much easier it was when good and evil were clear and distinct.

Just an aside, though...I don't necessarily think that the police's sending of a card to Sutcliffe in Broadmoor indicated any kind of cameraderie. I read it as being a mocking or taunting gesture.

[Byzantine]

I for one would be very interested to know more about our principal police players attitudes to women ..and particularly to those so called 'unfortunates' which make up the canonical victims.I don't think they consciously were women haters as such and certainly they wanted to solve the crimes as they were constantly ridiculed for not being able to do so.

To be honest, I would also be looking at the treatment of women in other cases of the time to determine how a woman involved in a legal case would be treated. For example Maria Coroner, one of the few people writing Jack the Ripper letters actually caught. She was held in custody with no bail accepted, was subjected to a public trial and had her name published in newspapers. "She was fined £20 and bound over to keep the peace for six months, being told that if she “again transgressed she would go to gaol.” She was 22.

Miriam Howells, a housewife, was arrested on similar charges. Perhaps her case is worst because she used her "Jack the Ripper" letters as death-threats against specific neighbors. She got off lightly with a minor fine and public apologies towards her targets. However her name did get published.

Charlotte Higgins, a domestic servant, was yet another female letter-writer arrested. She wrote her "Jack the Ripper" letters as threats towards her employers. She was only 14 years old. She was also found to have stolen two ribbons from her employers' daughter and to have placed them on her own doll. She was held in the gaol for three weeks and then send to a reformatory for three years.

No contrast their cases with the fourth letter writer arrested in 1888. He was arrested in Glasgow but found to be a member of a "respectable family". The "lad" was never placed on trial, citing his "youth" and fright at the prospect of being formally charged. A weak excuse that he had written but not posted his letter, claiming to be unaware of who did post it, was also used as a point on his defense. The case was reported by the press but his name was never reported. No public trial, humiliating press reports, fines or prison time. How much younger than Higgins could he be?

I am not sure if this is misogyny or more evidence that members of respectably affluent families could get away with anything. But it does suggest a much different treatment reserved for the ladies and/or the lower classes.

[Sara]

What about the "Funny Blonde Jokes" link at the bottom, Sara?

Didn't find that Nelson (were they funny?) -
but I did find this, which will make you larf or cry, depending....

http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/8-11-2006-105210.asp

I'd certainly be interested in researching the police atitudes to the Whitechapel and other crimes against women, but I think there are many people - even using this forum - better qualified than I am to do it

I wrote a piece a few years ago for Rare Book Review on Jack Sheppard - I was fascinated by the parallels with today's celebrity culture among other things - and I did a great deal of research for the piece, inc a lot on the Victorian Web. The mag doesn't pay well, but I like to get things right...

I was fairly appalled when the chap who'd written the DNB entry on Shappard wrote in pointing out a few mistakes (not all of his carpings were valid btw, and one was about an incorrect caption, which had been transposed by the designer!). The editor very valiently stuck up for me, for which I was greateful but it's left me a bit wary of publishing stuff on topics where I don't have much grounding I'd taken my 'facts' from reputable academic resources, but this feller had spent a lifetime researching Sheppard. It's the only complaint that's ever been made aobut anything I've had published, but even so it hit a nerve!

[White-Knight]

Sara- that's a shame ,the Sheppard experince you had..what was it my mum always told me ..no matter how clever or strong you think you are there's always some bugger will come along.....i can only re-iterate, i for one would be very interested ..you seem eminently qualified to me, having read a lot of your posts...
whilst on the back slaps...thanks Stephen for your welcome..much appreciated! hope you don't revise your opinion too much after the post I made today on Tumblety and Cutbush which i somewhat flippantly spat out as ,apart from Sam , nobody seemed too interested in my unresearched and admittedly slightly wildish musings....anyway ..glad to be here, thanks very much!