REvIsIONS/REPORTS The Politics of Prostitution Judith R. Walkowitz In this essay, I shall outline some historical precedents for the current feminist attack on commercial sex, as represented by the Women against Pornography campaign.! The radical feminist attack on commercial sex has its roots in earlier feminist campaigns against male vice and the double standard. Past generations of feminists attacked prostitution, pornography, white slavery, and homosexuality as manifestations of un- Gifferentiated male lust. Their campaigns were brilliant organizing drives that successfully aroused female anger, stimulated grass-roots or- ganizations, and mobilized women not previously brought into the polit ical arena. The vitality of the women's suffrage movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries cannot be understood without reference to the revivalistic quality of these antivice crusades, which often ran in tandem with the struggle for the vote Nonetheless, these earlier moral campaigns were in many ways self-defeating. Frequently, they failed to achieve their goals; feminists started a discourse on sex and mobilized an offensive against male vice, Preparation of this essay was facitated by a grant from the National Library of Medicine, PHS-LM 2574-08, I would also ike to thank Phyllis Mack, Christine Stansell Rayna Repp, Gayle Rubin, and Daniel Walkowitz fr thelr critical suggestions and advice, 1, OF course, the Women against Pornography campaign protests aga lence as wells commercial sex. However, eater f enn violence althoogh thei efforts often victimized the women they were seeking to protect. Ise Jour ema in ate ot Suck 180, vl 01 Sipidyncenherty atch cge 00s 574080601 5051.00 123124 Walkowitz Politics of Prostitution but they lot control of the movement as it diversified. In part this loss puted from contradictions in their attitudes; in part, it reflected feminists! impotence to reshape the world according to their own image Tour recent works illuminate this process in Great Britain and the United States. Deborah Gotham’s “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon Re-examined”® and Edward Bristow's Vice and Vigilance? ox- plore the unhappy alliance between British feminists and repressive Pio sts in the agitation against white shwvery during the social purity motidde of 1870-1918. The public discourse on prostitution is also the Subject of Mark Gonnelly’s The Response to Prostitution in the Proms, sient while The Maine Papers an edited collection of letters by Former prostitute, sheds light on the lives and self-perceptions of pros Rhutes dhemselves, ‘These studies tell us how feminists and others di zed over prostitution and how their campaigns helped to define aoe onstr vet sexuality in the late nineteenth century; they also delineate ape lationship between public intervention and definitions of deviance Seth Britain and America, feminist moral crusades against male vice began witha struggle against the state regulation of prostitution.* In Tod. che British Parliament passed the first of three statutes providing for the sanitary inspection of pro specified military depots in forthe England and Ireland. Initially, this first Contagious Diseases dant was obliquely entitled, aroused little attention. However, public opposition to regulation surfaced in the 1870s, when & coalition of o Pre ecclass nonconformist, feminists, and radical workingmen chal- Tenged the acts as immoral and unconstitutional, and calle for their repeal. The participation of middle-class women in repeal efforts Fasc repeat hd shocked many contemporary observers, who regarded this female rebellion as a disturbing siga of the times, Wander the leadership of Josephine Butler, the Ladies National As- sociation was founded in late 1860 as a separatist feminist organization ‘A csLadies Manifesto” was issued, which argued that the acts 10% only Geprived poor women oftheir constitutional rights and forced them to 2, Deborah Gorham, "The Maken Tribute af Modern Babylon Reames nt Prone Spe nea of Choad in Late-Vicwoian England” Vieni Sales *) (Gpring 1978): 353-69. SS award Bristow, Vice and Pigilance: Purity Movement Gill & Maemitan, 197) Fc ar ae espns to Print i te Pragesve Bra (Cape He University of Novth Caratina Press, 1980). 15 The Bfainie Papers, ed. Ruth Ro Feminist Press, 1977). 1. Ny. perspective onthe history of feminist moral aides is informed not only by ve i eeeeste inthe works under review, ut Dy my ongoing ee 08 wl pronation in fte-Vitrin and Edwardian Brian Ses Jo Walkowitz, pois of ror an Sei: Won, Clas ad he Slate (New York: Cambrige Unive sity Pres, 1980). in Britain since 1700 (Dubin: n and Sue Davidson (Old Westbury, N-¥Signs Autumn 1980 125 submit to a degrading internal examination, but they officially sanc- foned a double standard of sexual morality. Like earlier female-reform tfforts, the feminist attack on state regulation reinforced women's self Conscious participation in a distinct female subculture. The feminist Campaign also drew hundreds of women into the politial arena forthe fiasttime by encouraging them to challenge male centers of power, such as the police, Parliament, and the medical and military establishments that were implicated in the administration of the acts. Feminists thus tallied to the defense of members of their own sex, while opposing the Sexual and political prerogatives of men. ‘They rejected the prevailing social view of “fallen women” as pollutants of men and depicted them jnstead as victims of male pollution, as women who had been invaded by men's bodies, men’s laws, and by that “steel penis,” the speculum, ‘This entailed a powerful identification with the fate of prostitutes. Mid-Victorian feminists treated prostitution as the end result of the artificial constraints placed on women’s social and economic activity; inadequate wages and restrictions of their industrial employment forced ‘women on to the streets, where they took up the “best paid inclustry,"” prostitution. Prostitution also served asa paradigm for the female cond tion; it established the archetypal relationship between men and women, repeated in a more subtle manner within genteel society. Feminisis re, dlked that the popular sentimentalization of “female influence” and motherhood only thinly masked an older contempt and distrust for women as “The Sex,” as sexual objects to be bought and sold by men, “The treatment of prostitutes under the acts epitomized this underlying misogyny. ’Ry “mothers” and “sisters,” feminists insisted on their right to de- fend prostitutes, thereby invoking two different kinds of authority re- Iationships. The assertion of a mother’s right to defend “daughters” was both an extension of women’s traditional role within the family and @ political device aimed at subverting patriarchal authority: it gave Inothers, not fathers, the right to control sexual access to the daughters.” But it also sanctioned an authority relationship between older, middle- class women and young working-class women that, although caring and protective, was hierarchical and custodial. In other contexts, feminist tepealers approached prostitutes on a more egalitarian bass, as sisters, albeit fallen ones, whose individual rights deserved to be respected and ‘who had the right to sell their bodies on the streets unmolested by the police. This was the radical message of the repeal campaign, one that was inked to an enlightened view of prostitution as a voluntary and tempo- rary occtipation for adult working-class women. Although capable of enunciating a radical er 4, Josephine Buller to Mary Priesunan, May 4, 1874, no, 3327, Buller Collection, Fawcett Library, London. ‘3 { woul lke to thank Carroll Smith-Rosenberg for this observation,126 Walkowitz Politics of Prostitution middle-class feminists still elt ambivalent about prostitutes and the right ‘of working-class women to control their own sexuality. By and large, these anxieties remained submerged during the libertarian struggle against state regulation, but they soon surfaced in the more repressive campaign against white slavery. After the suspension of the Contagious Disewses Acts in 1883, Butler and her circle turned to the agitation against the foreign “traffic in women” and the entrapment of childyen into prostitution in London. When Parliament refused to pass a bill that would raise the age of consent and punish traffickers in vice, Butler and Catherine Booth of the Salvation Army approached W. T. Stead of the Pall Mall Gazette for assistance. The result was the “Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon,” published in the summer of 1885. “The "Maiden Tribute” was one of the most successful pieces of scandal journalism published in Britain during the nineteenth century. In prurient detail, it documented the sale of “five pound” virgins fo aristocratic old rakes, graphically describing the way, according to Gorham, the “daughters of the people” had been “snared, trapped and outraged either when under the influence of drugs or after prolonged struggle ina locked room” (p. 358), The series had an electrifying effect ‘on public opinion. A. public demonstration (estimated at 250,000) wat hold in Hyde Park to demand the passage of legislation raising the age of consent for girls from thirteen to sixteen. For one brief moment, feminists and. personal rights advocates joined with Anglican bishops ‘and socialists to protest the aristocratic corruption of young innocents, In their examination of the “Maiden Tribute” episode, both Gorham and Bristow part company with most historians, who, as Gorham notes, have traditionally “accepted the definition of the prob- lem that the reformers themselves offered” (p. 362). Other commen tators have accepted as a fact the existence of widespread involuntary promitution among British girls at home or abroad they ave also as Pimed that in pressing for age-of-consent legislation, moral reformers Nore motivated by a simple desire to protect innocent victims from sex~ wal violence. ‘Gorham and Bristow delineate the vast discrepancy between the reformers’ view and the reality of prostitution. Both observe that the tvidence of widespread involuntary prostitution of British girls in Lon= sea and abroad is slim. During the 1870s and 1880s, officials and re- fonmers were able to uncover a small traffic in women between Britain ett the continent, although the women enticed into licensed brothels in Kntwerp and Brussels were by no means the young innocents epieed pits sensational stories, Similarly, there undoubtedly were some child prosticutes on the streets of London, Liverpool, and elsewhere; most of rece young girls were not victims of false entrapment, asthe vignettesin the “Maiden Tribute” would suggest. Why. then, cid feminist reformers endorse this crusade and allySigns Autunn 1980127 with repressive moralists and antisuffragists who were as anxious co clear the streets of prostitutes as to protect young girls from vicious arisio- Grats? Gorham brilliantly untangles the complex motives of feminists fand others in taking up the question of involuntary and child prostitu- tion. Her study is a model of cultural analysis, which examines middle- views of childhood, gender, and sexuality in the context of ongoing politcal struggles and socal divisions within Vietorian society. Although Porsitive to the distinct political agenda of feminists in the campaign, Gorham shows how their professed solidarity with working-class women ‘vas undermined by their allegiance to hierarchical notions of authority that divided women along class and generational lines. Like the instrumental violation of registered women under the Con- tagious Diseases Acts, the story of aristocratic corruption of vingins “gen- nated a sense of outrage with which a wide spectrum of public opinion found itself in sympathy” (p. 854). Feminist repealers undoubtedly be- lieved they could manipulate this popular anger first to secure the full repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts (they were finally removed from the statute books in 1886) and then o launch an assault on the double standard, They were also attracted to the radical message in Stead!s exposé of aristocratic vice. The disreputable performance of members of Parliament during the debates over the age of consent simply confirmed thei worst suspicions about “the vicious upper classes.” At the same time, this focus on licentious aristocrats and child victims inhibited a more scarching and critical analysis of prostitution. By portraying young prostitutes as sexually innocent and passive victims of individual evil nen, the reformers were able to assuage middle-class guilt without im- plicating members of their own class in the sexual oppression of workingeclass women and girls. “Had they allowed themselves,” suggests Gorham, “to see that many young girls engaged in prostitution not as passive, sexually innocent victims, but because their choices were so lim- ‘ted, the reformers would have been forced to recognize that the causes of juvenile prostitution were to be found in an exploitative economic structure” (p. 355). "According to Gorham, feminists tended to share the same feelings of anxiety over youthful female sexuality as other members of the mid- dle class, Although they felt obliged to redress the sexual wrongs done to working-class girls by men of a superior class, they registered the same Tepugnance toward incorrigible girls as they had earlier toward un- repentant prostitutes, For them, as well as for more repressive moralists, the desire to protect young girls thinly masked coercive impulses to control their voluntary sexual responses and (o impose a social code on them in keeping with the middle-class view of femate adolescent dle- pendency. Bristow considers the legal and institutional legacy of the “Maiden “Tribute” in Vice and Vigilance. Although he traces the history of antivice128 Walkowit: Politics of Prostitution crusades back to the Society for the Reformation of Manners of the 1690s, he concedes that the “heart” of his study lies in the period 1880 1918, when the social purity movement erupted on the national scene and altered the elimate of opinion about sex. Vice and Vigilance is witty, informative, and well researched, but it does not offer a rigorous inter- pretation of modern sexuality, nor does i fully explore the meaning and Tiining of these antivice crusades. Caught between @ popular narrative and 2 scholarly project, Bristow is at his best when describing the in- frastructure of purity organizations and their political maneuverings at the national and municipal level. “The public furor over the “Maiden Tribute” forced the passage of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, a pernicious piece of om- nibus legislation which raised the age of consent for girls from thirteen to sixteen but also gave police far greater summary jurisdiction over poor working-class women and children, a trend that Butler and her pvcle had always opposed. Finally, it contained a clause making indecent Sass between consenting male adults a crime, thus forming the basis of legal prosecutions of male homosexuals in Britain until 1967. Despite the public outery against corrupt aristocrats and inter~ national traffickers, the new bill was mainly enforced against the ‘working-class women, not thei social betters or foreigners, Under pres Ture from local vigilance associations, police officials cracked down om Sueetwalkers and brothel keepers. The prosecution of brothels in- Greased fourteenfold, and similar drives against solicitation were i stituted in the capital and major provincial cities. Bristow simply reports these developments, but does not suggest how legal repression affected the structure and organization of prosttu- ton, Although we still await a detailed study of late-Vietorian prostitu- tion, some preliminary generalizations are possible. By providing for ‘easy, summary proceedings against brothel keepers, the 1885 act helped to drive a wedge between prostitutes and the poor working-class com- munity, Prostitutes were uprooted from their neighborhoods and had to find lodgings in other areas of the city and in the periphery. ‘Their activiy had become more covert. Cut off from other sustaining ve, iationships, inereasingly they were Forced to rely on pimps for emotional Security and for protection against legal authorities. Indeed, the wide prevalence of pimps inthe early twentieth century meant that prostitu- Peet had shifted from a female- to a male-dominated trade, and there existed a greater number of third partes with an interest in prolonging women’s stay on the streets.” ‘inthe wake of Stead’s “shocking revelations,” the National Vigilance [Association (NVA) was formed. First organized to ensure the local en: Paaceent of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, the NVA soon turned 6, See Abraham Flexner, Peston in Europe (New York: Gentry Cow 1914)Signs Autumn 1980 129 its attemtion to burning obscene books and to attacking music halls, ‘heaters, and nude painting. It condemned the works of Balzac, Zola and Rabelais and successfully prosecuted their British distributors stacked birth-control literature and advertisements for “female pills” {abortifacient drugs) on the same grounds. ‘To these moral crusaders, “pornographic Iterature,” broadly defined, was a vile expression of The seme “undifferentiated male lust”? that ultimately led to homosexuality and prostitution. As Bristow observes, the fact that pornography Was now bvailable in cheap editions heightened middle-class concern. They Uualized the masses, whose political loyalty they doubted, perusing Works that might further weaken their allegiance to the dominant moral order, ‘While the social purity movement served middle-class interests, it is ‘a common error among historians to assume, as Gorham does, that vorking-elass support for social purity was “ephemeral” or that both “before and after the summer of 1885 {social purity] remained almost exclusively a middle-class movement” (p. 878), Middle-class evangelicals ‘nay have predominated in the National Vigilance Association, but Bris- tow presents suggestive evidence that the values of social purity were internalized among some portions of the working class in the late nineteenth century. By the mid-cighties, Ellice Hopkins, the female pioneer in social purity, had already organized 200 ladies’ rescue committees and mele Fiastay leagues. She spoke on male chastity before meetings of work: fngmen, and she and others recruited thousands of respectable work: ingmen into White Cross armies, dedicated to promoting the single standard of chastity and attacking vice. The prescriptive literature dis- tributed by social purity groups seems also to have inffuenced child- rearing practices of the time, Edwardian working-class parents were potable for their strict schedules, puritanical treatment of masturbation, fand for the severe restrictions they placed on their teenage daughters’ social and sexual behavior. Although the late- Victorian and Radwardian years represented a “germination” period for the “new sexuality,” the Mvailable “facts” about adult sexuality in this period, the general decline n both venereal disease and prostitution, the high age of marriage and {ow illegitimacy rates, and the apparently limited use of contraceptives among the working classes would seem to support Bristow’s hypothesis that “sexual restraint” was indeed “spreading down through society” (p. 125). As we shall see in the American case, certain countervailing ten dencies were perceptible as wel. ‘Why was social purity so attractive to respectable workingmen? As Bristow notes, it provided an avenue of social mobility for some men, 10, Jeiey Weeks, Coming Out: Homosaua Pole Britain, fram he Wintenth Cty 1o the Present (London: Quartet Books, 1977), ps 18.130 Walkowite Politics of Prostitution like William Coote, a former compositor who became the national secre- tary of the National Vigilance Association. Sexual respectability became aR timark of the labor aristocrat, anxious to distance himself from the “estalty" of the casual laboring poor, as increased pressure was placed con the respectable working class to break their ties with “outcast groups. ther structural factors were at work as well, although Bristow docs not claborate on them, Changing employment patterns seem to have re- fnforeed patriarchal tendencies among skilled sectors of the working dass by the end of the century, as the proportion of married women ‘rorking ontside the home declined and the family wage for male work: ee peegne a demand of trade unions, Seen in this context, social purity, Shuieh called upon men to protect and control their women, served! asthe Weological corollary of the family wage, morally legiimating the pre” ogatives of patriarchy inside and outsice the family. Thus, soci) purity aoa er andermine working-class solidarity, while tightening def- Sons of gender among respectable workingmen and working women. ‘What was the subsequent relationship between feminism and social purity? Initially, feminists filled many committee pos of the Na- ral Vigilance Association, but this connection was short-lived fox But- er and her circle, who resigned when the repressive direction of the NVA became apparent. Throughout he late eighties and nineties, But- sen Marned their workers to “beware” of the repressive methods of the social purity societies, but their warnings were too late. ‘The ney social purity movement had passed them by, while absorbing goodly hhumber of the Ladies National Association rank and file, ter cervative suffragists like Millicent Paweett and Elizabeth [Blackwell still remained within the ranks of social purity, but they nevey seared the direction of the movement. On the other hand, social purity permanently eft its imprint on the women's movements its theme eae perual wrongs perpetrated against women by men permeated cr feminist consciousness, After the 1880s, the “wornen's revol” ber date puritan and not Bohemian. It is uprising against the tyranny of Grganized intemperance, impurity, mammonism, ad selfish motives." vTese, then, are the historical links between feminism and repres- sive crusades against prostitution, pornography, and homosexual. Begun ata lertarian struggle against the state sanction of mate vice the repeal campaign helped to spawn a hydracheaded assatht against sexual Freee on ofall kinds. The struggle against state regulation evolved into dewiavoment that used the instruments of the state for repressiyé Pit poses. It may be misleading to interpret these lates crusades as “blind” Pepressive atacks on sexuality, as Bristow suggests, river they ex- eee the meaning of sexuality. According to Michel Foucault, (his Le he New Woman,” Homans Signal (November 29, 1890Signs Autunn 1980 131 discourse on sex was a strategy for exercising power in society By ferreting out new areas of illicit sexual activity and defining thers ine eejstence, a new “technology of power” was created that facilitated con caterer an ever-widening circle of human activity. However, power is ver immanent in society; its deployed by specific human agencies. Day. inthe repeal campaign, feminist leaders were able to control and shape tne publi discourse on sex; but, according to Bristow, they “rapidly lost aoe eel ofa spreading and diversifying movement and social purity had begun to lose sight of [Butler's] ideal of the ‘supremacy of conscience’ ects non-repressionist implications. Purity reform came to mean the Harassing of prositutes and systematic blind repression in the ats and entertainment” (p. 77) ‘The story ismuch the same in America."* In the 18608 and 187% ‘American feminists and other moral reformers were able to forestall the roduction of regulation for prostitutes in U.S. cities. The one excep- Yon was St. Louis, where systematic medical inspection of prostitutes was tstablished in 1870; within a few years, however, purity forces overs famed the ety ordinance. Out ofthe antiregulationist struggle grew the social purity movement (which Josephine Butler always regarded as 2 sreracerisically American phenomenon transplanted to British soil. cree British counterpart, purity reform in America was particularly vane cened with youthful sexuality, hostile to working-class cultare, and seady to use the state to enforce a repressive sexual code. American feminists helped propagate the message of social purity and were drawn to what seemed to be an attack on aggressive male sexuality and the Touble standard. But itis unclear how much they dictated public policy. More than in Britain, corporate interests, as represented by the corpora tion executives who bankrolled Anthony Comstock and by John D- Rockefeller’s Bureau of Social Hygiene, came to dominate antivice of forts at the national level and in some locales. In 1913, for example, the Durea of Social Hygiene sponsored George Kneeland’s investigation into Commercialized Vice in New York," which give added momentum to the repression of street solicitation and brothel Keeping in New York ‘The heavy involvement of corporate phitanthropy in purity efforts doubtedly reliects the more advanced stage of capitalist development in progressive-era America than in Britain and the power of monepely ism at this time. Mark Connelly's The Response (o Prostitution in the Progressive Era participation in purity work than with the “anti-prostitution.” The book has the vir~ capit is less concerned with femi widespread phenomenon o| 12, Michel Foucault, The Hisory of Secualy, vol. 1, An Introdution, trans, Robert Hurley (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978). 1 Ber an imerpretation of the American social purity movement see David vat, ‘Pury Crusader Seve oval and Seca Centel (Westport Conn: Greenvood Pres, 1976) TF George Knceland,Conmercadzed Vice in New York (New York: Century Co. 1918).132 Walhowits Politics of Prostitution tues, and some of the vices, of traditional cultural history. Connelly astutely dissets literary genres associated with discourse on prostitution Guring the progressive era: white-slave narratives, vice commission ro- ports, medieal erature on venereal disease, cven the clauses of the Fann Act. His discussion of that “rare exotic literary genre,” the white- slave tract is superb, ‘These narratives served as “spicy cultural counter part to the stuffy vice commission reports’; they were “vicarious vour puides to the red-light districts for individuals who would not go there fh person.” Like the exposés of child prostitution in the "Maiden ‘rib- de" the child-woman figure of the white-slave tract “reflected an in- ‘bility to confront prostitution as amanifestation of adult sexuality totally Outside the prescription of civilized morality. Childish vietims were haps easier to deal with psychologically than libidinous men. anc] Mmen" (p. 127). Connelly also provides a judicious guide (o the more “ecientific” vice commission reports. As social documents, these reports ‘can not be read ‘straight’ but if properly decoded, they can yield a wealth SFafermation about the social profile of prostitutes, thelr material cul- tare, and community life, By focusing exclusively on the documents as texts, however, Connelly fails to use them to construct a rounded descrip~ tion of prostitutes and their response to the crisis precipitated by the police crackdowns. Whercas Bristow presents a breezy narrative of the personages and events of British social purity, Connelly is committed to the task of un- tvering the larger cultural meaning of the public discourse on Amey: fan prostitution. In trying t0 do so, Connelly homogenizes he progres: Shee whose specific identities are rarely discussed, who all seem to be ecaltch defenders of Victorian morality, iddled by the same psycho- togical blind spots. ‘They may have employed different literary mbleats pe fundamentally they spoke with one voice. When he considers why the theory that women resorted (0 the streets because of inadequate wages enjoyed such currency among progressives, Connelly concludes that "anxieyy seems as strongly provoked by the fact that women, were srorking in industrial jobs a all as by the low wages they received “This sore te dismiss,” he hastens to add, “the very genuine concern over the economic plight of working worien expressed by many who addressed the wagevand-sin issues” (p. 35). Yet he never tells us who in fact held these varying positions, under what conditions these differences were eX pressed, and why one opinion prevailed over another, The dco tse prostitution represented a power struggle among disinet social con- Prenenelee, inside and outside the bourgeois. As the British case dem- see hat conflict reflected both class and gender divisions. Con- wrelly's generalized discussion of cultural anxiety posits bourgeois Hegemony, but ignores Raymond Williams’ critical reminder (het the “reality of any hegemony -- always domi-Signs Autumn 1980 133 nant, itis never either total or exclusive.”* The struggle between cul- tures is 2 dynamic histotical process; unfortunately, Connelly’s well- crafted book tends to obscure that process. This problem aside, Connelly’s book illuminates many aspects of prostitution that interest feminist scholars. His discussion of clandestine prostitution is particularly insightful. The obsession with “clandestines! or amateurs,” Connelly argues, was a reaction to changing sexual and Social mores. Even before the First World War, traditional moralists were shocked by the perceptible increase in “flappers,” female adoles- ‘cents in open rebellion against rigid Victorian sexual standards. ‘The free and easy sexual habits of this small vanguard were symptomatic of the more widespread departure of women from traditional social and eco nomic roles, Although the majority of young, single women working and living alone in the city were not conscious feminists, and though they had 1s their goal marriage and child rearing, “they nevertheless had achieved a degree of autonomy outside the context of a male-oriented or domestic Setting and, at least for several years in the late teens and early twenties, Jed lives markedly different from their mothers” (p. 39) “The desire of young working women to lead lives different from those of their mothers may have constituted an unprecedented change in popular female consciousness. This partial break with traditional gender roles took many forms. In the early twentieth century, # new eadership cadre of trade-union organizers, suffragists, and radical agitators was recruited from the ranks of working-class women. But can one equate the sexual rebellion of flappers with these more self- conscious, focused, and politicized acts of emancipation? ‘Let us consider the case of Maimie Pinzer, a former prostitute and author of the letters collected in the Maimie Papers. Maimic's letters to Fanny Howe, a Boston patrician and philanthropist, constitute a brilliant autobiography of a survivor struggling to maintain her independence and self-respect against tervible odds. Writen between 1910 and 1922, they reveal litle of Maimie's experience in prostitution (she was never a streetwalker but seems to have carried on a discreet trade with gentle- men in the afternoon), The letters do, however, tell usa great deal about her subsequent working life outside prostitution and about the circum. stances that might have impelled “self-respecting errant girls” like her- self to move into prostitution ‘As Ruth Rosen notes in her sensitive introduction, Maimie's social background closely paralleled that of other working-class girls in the progressive era. A crisis in the family economy, caused by the death of her father; an estranged relationship with her mother; early sexual ex- 15. Raymond Williams, Mansion and Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 197), p. 118.134 Wallkowite Politics of Prostitution pesiences with men of her own class—all forced Maimie and thousands bf her contemporaries to leave their families and strike out on their own fn their late teens. Many of these young working women eventually drifted into prostitution as a temporary solution to uneasy circumn- Sances. Their move into prostitution, Rosen reminds us, was still Choice, because prostitutes were not simply “passive victims of im: personal economic and social forces” (p. xxv), but active historical gents, women who made their own history, albelt under restrictive con- ditions. ‘Judging from Maimie’s experience, however, one shoul not underestimate the practical impediments to female self-sufficiency: Maimie tried all the options available to women at the time: marriage, prostitution, female employment within the tertiary sector, from office Mork to rescue work. In New York, Montreal, and Philadelphia, Maimie Confronted sexual harassment on the job, dead-end positions, seasonal employment, and grossly inadequate wages. Having lived comfortably Off the “wages of sin,” she subsequently found the exploitative con- Gitions of respectable employment unbearable. As she explained, “My trouble i that Lam a working girl who has lived like a lady" and its hard to curb my desires and live as the working git! should” (p. xxix). Tronically, her most satisfying venture turned out tobe rescue work In 1913, with financial backing from middle-class benefactors, she opened a mission in Montreal for “self-respecting errant girl” ike Stella Phillips, the “most beautiful git! in Montreat” and Maimie's alter eg Maimie interpreted Stell’s move into prostitution as an act of self awertion: "That her parents and environment are sordid is an accepted fact; and that {she and her type] have refused to drop into the same Fut ‘end have an idea to outgrow the conditions they were born into, makes them ‘different™ (p. 272). For Maimie, sexual expression represented a form of female rebellion. Although she evinced little interest in politics ad feminism, she had this much in common with the female political sativists of her generation: Maimie, like Rose Schneiderman of the Women's ‘Trade Union League (WTUL) or Annie Kenney of the Wom- ene Social and Political Union (WSPU), struggled personally against the fatalism and acquiescence of her class and gender. By 1922, when the correspondence ends, Maimie had closed the mission and settled into a monogamous, privatized relationship with her ecand husband, ra Benjamin. Her life continued to parallel larger Historical developments, for the postwar years witnessed the dis: appearance of segregated red-light districts and the demise of a so ap Pesjous women’s culture that had earlier energized the women's rights sorstment and antivice crusades. In the 1920s, women were told that they had achieved emancipation and that happiness lay in working ot Close, intimate relationship with a man. Concern over prostitution, Con ely tells us, “dissipated almost as rapidly s had emerged two decadesSigns Autunn 1980 135 earlier.” It remains tobe seen, however, whether the 1920s truly marked fhe end of an era. Although the market for prostitution may have tered since the prewar period, the same modes of class and gender domination organize social relations today. As the Women against Por ography campaign demonstrates, commercial sex can abit 3101 fosale anger and mobilize women into symbolic crusades against male vice, ‘Yet, if there is any moral lesson to be learned from these moral cqusaders, it is that commercial sex is a hot and dangerous issue for feminists, In their defense of prostitutes and concern to protect women from male sexual aggression, earlier generations of feminists were st limited by their own class bias and by their continued adherence 10 “separate sphere” ideology that stressed women's purity, moral supren ae eaeal domestic vires. Moreover, feminists lacked the cultural and politcal power to reshape the world according «© their own images Mihough they tried to set the standards of sexual conduct, they did not control the instruments of state that would ultimately enforce these norms, There were times, particularly during the antiregulationist cam- paign, when feminists were able to dominate and structure the public Fiseourse on sexand arouse popular female anger at male sexual license. Yet this anger was easly diverted into repressive campaigns against male tice and sexual variation, controlled by men and corporate interests ‘whose goals were antithetical to the values and ideals of feminism. Department of History ‘Rulgers University