The Spinster and Her Enemies

The Spinster and Her Enemies received positive reviews from the biographer Phyllis Grosskurth in The Times Literary Supplement,[4] Mary Meigs in the gay magazine The Body Politic,[5] the historian Lillian Faderman in the American Journal of Sociology,[6] the historian Marilyn Lake in Signs,[7] Penny Summerfield in Victorian Studies,[8] and Ruth Doell in the Journal of Homosexuality,[9] and mixed reviews from the historian Anne Summers in Sociology of Health & Illness and Judith Wishnia in Contemporary Sociology.[10][11] The book was also reviewed by Eileen Barrett in Sojourner: The Women's Forum.[12]

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."[4] Meigs praised Jeffreys's treatment of figures such as Ellis, Carpenter, Bloch, and 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."[5]

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.[6] Lake described the book as an "important reinterpretation of the nineteenth-century feminist movement", and endorsed Jeffreys's view that "a critique of male sexual behavior was central to nineteenth-century feminism". However, she believed that the book would not win her "many admirers among male historians who prefer to understand feminism as fighting for masculine goals such as the right to vote and the right to work."[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] Doell described the book as "thoroughly researched and eminently readable". She credited Jeffreys with providing a careful analysis of literature on sexuality in late 19th century and early 20th century Britain, endorsed her analysis of changes in attitudes toward sex and women during this period, and argued that it was relevant to contemporary debates about sex.[9]

Summers credited Jeffreys with presenting a study "based on much research and a careful reading of texts", believing that it had "many strengths and insights". She praised her discussions of figures such as Hopkins and Butler. However, she noted that many of her arguments would provoke objections. She described her "critique of heterosexuality" as a "polemic", criticizing her for overlooking that "some women actually enjoy intercourse with men", and for presenting unflattering estimates of Stopes and Browne. She also believed that she failed "to situate the sexologists' writings within the general context of inter-war changes in marriage and birth control" and to consider some relevant sources.[10]

Wishina credited Jeffreys with providing a "well-argued rejection of the accepted analysis that there has been a progression from the sexual repressiveness of the Victorian era to the sexual freedom of today where women are free to choose sexual partners and to enjoy sex as much as men." However, while she believed Jeffreys offered a "fresh analysis" of her subject, she believed that it suffered from "a one-issue analysis of male domination" that over-emphasized sexuality and neglected economic and social factors. She argued that this undermined Jeffreys's analysis of prostitution. She also criticized Jeffreys for focusing too much on middle-class men and women and not enough on working class women. She concluded that the book's radical lesbian analysis needed to be complemented by the socialist feminist analysis of Rowbotham, Dubois, and Gordon.[11]

In Feminist Review, Margaret Hunt wrote that the book increased her scepticism about radical feminism, arguing that its implicit message was that contemporary feminists should follow the example of the social purity movement by making comparable efforts to influence sexual practice. She criticized Jeffreys's analysis of the social purity movement, faulting her treatment of Hopkins, maintaining that Jeffreys ignored Hopkins's support for "coercive actions directed against poor women." She also criticized her for suggesting that women who chose heterosexuality were not making an authentic choice, and faulted her understanding of love and her criticism of the birth control activists such as Browne and Russell.[13]

The feminist writer Jane Egerton described The Spinster and Her Enemies as a major work.[14] The feminist writer Rene Denfeld 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 (NOW) for information on its position on pornography, she was sent material that included an excerpt from The Spinster and Her Enemies. She considered this an endorsement of the work by NOW, which she found "shocking at first and then saddening."[15] The historian Michael Mason compared Jeffreys's views to those of other historians of feminism sympathetic to the anti-sexual views of some feminists. However, he considered her more outspoken, noting that she was open about the involvement of Victorian feminism in "moralistic propaganda", admired people who were "admittedly reactionary", and rejected sexual liberation.[16] In 2011, Jeffreys 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."[17]

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