The Spinster and Her Enemies

The Spinster and Her Enemies: Feminism and Sexuality 1880–1930
Cover of the first edition
Author Sheila Jeffreys
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Subject Social purity movement
Publisher Pandora Press
Publication date
 1985
Media type Print (Paperback)
Pages 232
ISBN 978-1875559633

The Spinster and Her Enemies: Feminism and Sexuality 1880–1930 is a 1985 book by lesbian feminist Sheila Jeffreys, in which the author discusses the change in sexual attitudes that occurred in Britain in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and criticizes the idea that this change represented a shift from sexual puritanism to sexual revolution. Jeffreys also examines feminist involvement in the Social Purity movement, arguing that the women involved were developing a critique of male sexual abuse of women and children.

The book received positive reviews, praising Jeffreys for her treatment of friendships between women.

Summary

Jeffreys discusses the change in sexual attitudes that occurred in Britain between 1880 and 1930 from a feminist perspective, criticizing the idea that "the sexual puritanism of Victorian England gave way to the first sexual revolution of the twentieth century." She examines feminist involvement in the social purity movement in the 1880s and 1890s,[1] arguing that the women involved were developing a critique of male sexual abuse of women and children which included a call for feminists to abstain from sex with men. She writes that they were politically defeated by the ascendency of sexology and the birth-control movement, both of which attacked spinsterhood and sought to recruit women back into heterosexuality. She warns feminists against what she sees as the dangers which sexual libertarianism poses to feminist goals.[2]

Publication history

The Spinster and Her Enemies was first published in 1985 by Pandora Press.[3]

Reception

Gay and feminist media

The Spinster and Her Enemies received a positive review from Mary Meigs in the gay magazine The Body Politic. Meigs praised Jeffreys's treatment of figures such as Havelock Ellis, Edward Carpenter, Iwan Bloch, and August Forel, endorsed her view that in 1880s Britain, passionate friendships between women were only acceptable when they posed no threat to heterosexuality, and credited her with documenting the use of accusations of lesbianism as a weapon against feminism in the 19th century. She concluded that Jeffreys "reminds us that patriarchal hostility to lesbians is as strong now as it was in the period she describes so thoroughly."[4]

The book was also reviewed by Eileen Barrett in Sojourner: The Women's Forum.[5]

Scientific and academic journals

The Spinster and Her Enemies received positive reviews from the biographer Phyllis Grosskurth in The Times Literary Supplement,[6] the historian Lillian Faderman in the American Journal of Sociology,[7] and Penny Summerfield in Victorian Studies.[8] The book was also reviewed by the feminist Anne Summers in Sociology of Health & Illness,[9] Judith Wishnia in Contemporary Sociology,[10] the historian Marilyn Lake in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society,[11] and Ruth Doell in the Journal of Homosexuality,[12] and discussed by the socialist feminist Margaret Hunt in Feminist Review.[13][14]

Grosskurth, writing in 1986, called The Spinster and Her Enemies one of the best studies on the "struggle of women in history" to have appeared within the last decade, and described the book as "splendidly documented, provocative and never dull." She considered Jeffreys's most original contribution to be her theory that the "sexual reformers" were actually working against the interests of women. However, she criticized Jeffreys for ignoring Ellis's "contribution to female sexual fulfilment."[6]

Faderman endorsed Jeffreys's view that the inequality of power between men and women in the area of sexuality is the basis of women's social inequality, and that spinsterhood or lesbianism are remedies to that inequality.[7] Summerfield credited Jeffreys with documenting "a sustained attack" on female friendships "arising from the threat they posed to male dominance", and with exposing "enormous male opposition" to what Summerfield referred to as "gyn/affection". She wrote that while Jeffreys depicted the hold of the "ideology of compulsory heterosexuality" as absolute, further documentary evidence was needed to determine the extent to which this was true between World War I and the 1970s.[8]

Evaluations in books

Jane Egerton, writing in The Sexual Imagination from Acker to Zola: A Feminist Companion (1993), described The Spinster and Her Enemies as a major work.[2] The feminist Rene Denfeld, writing in The New Victorians (1995), criticized The Spinster and Her Enemies for being part of a repressive, anti-sexual trend within contemporary feminism. According to Denfeld, when she asked the National Organization for Women for information on its position on pornography, she was sent material that included an excerpt from Jeffreys's book. Denfeld considered this an endorsement of the work by NOW, which she found "shocking at first and then saddening."[15]

Jeffreys, writing in the second edition of Anticlimax (2011), commented that she wrote The Spinster and Her Enemies to "demonstrate that the 'sexual revolutions' of the 20th century liberated men by legitimising increased sexual access to women, rather than leading to women's empowerment."[16]

References

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Jeffreys 1985, p. 1.
  2. 1 2 Egerton 1993, pp. 132–133.
  3. ↑ Jeffreys 1985, p. iv.
  4. ↑ Meigs 1986, p. 32.
  5. ↑ Barrett 1986, pp. 43–44.
  6. 1 2 Grosskurth 1986, p. 298.
  7. 1 2 Faderman 1987, pp. 1037–1039.
  8. 1 2 Summerfield 1989, pp. 595–597.
  9. ↑ Summers 1987, pp. 101–102.
  10. ↑ Wishnia 1987, p. 704.
  11. ↑ Lake 1988, pp. 641–644.
  12. ↑ Doell 1990, pp. 117–120.
  13. ↑ Egerton 1993, p. 133.
  14. ↑ Hunt 1990, pp. 23–46.
  15. ↑ Denfeld 1995, p. 241.
  16. ↑ Jeffreys 2011, p. x.

Bibliography

Books

  • Denfeld, Rene (1995). The New Victorians: A Young Woman's Challenge to the Old Feminist Order. New York: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 1-86373-789-8.
  • Egerton, Jane; Gilbert, Harriett, Editor (1993). The Sexual Imagination from Acker to Zola: A Feminist Companion. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-224-03535-5.
  • Jeffreys, Sheila (1985). The Spinster and Her Enemies: Feminism and Sexuality 1880–1930. London: Pandora Press. ISBN 0-86358-050-5.
  • Sheila, Jeffreys (2011). Anticlimax: A feminist perspective on the sexual revolution. North Melbourne: Spinifex Press. ISBN 978-1-74219-807-1.
Journals

  • Barrett, Eileen (1986). "The Spinster and Her Enemies". Sojourner: The Women's Forum. 11 (11).  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • Doell, Ruth (1990). "The Spinster and Her Enemies: Feminism and Sexuality 1880–1930 (Book)". Journal of Homosexuality. 19 (1).  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • Faderman, Lillian (1987). "The spinster and her enemies (Book Review)". American Journal of Sociology. 92 (4). doi:10.1086/228619.  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • Grosskurth, Phyllis (1986). "Effects of reform". The Times Literary Supplement (4329).  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • Hunt, Margaret (1990). "The De-Eroticization of Women's Liberation: Social Purity Movements and the Revolutionary Feminism of Sheila Jeffreys". Feminist Review. 34 (1).
  • Lake, Marilyn (1988). "The spinster and her enemies (Book Review)". Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. 13 (3): 641–644. doi:10.1086/494459.  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • Meigs, Mary (1986). "Define and conquer". The Body Politic (125).  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • Summerfield, Penny (1989). "Dear Girl/The Spinster and Her Enemies/A Passion for Friends (Book)". Victorian Studies. 32 (4).  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • Summers, Anne (1987). "The Spinster and her Enemies: Feminism and Sexuality 1880-1930 (Book)". Sociology of Health & Illness. 9 (1).  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • Wishnia, Judith (1987). "The spinster and her enemies (Book Review)". Contemporary Sociology. 16.  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
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