Who was Josephine Butler, the Victorian woman who campaigned to deregulate sex work?
Victorian social reformer and early feminist activist, Josephine Butler, is remembered in her obituary as a woman of “great ability, unflinching courage, and…persistency of conviction”, and is particularly heralded for her work regarding the deregulation of sex work and social reforms for women.
A Christian born into a politically connected and progressive family, Butler received a homeschooled education where all siblings were treated equally by their father, John Grey, the cousin of British Prime Minister Lord Charles Grey. While she concluded her schooling in Newcastle, the ideals promoted by her family in the homeschooled environment gave Butler a level of social and political awareness that most Victorians, particularly women, would not have had.
Following her marriage to George Butler, a liberally minded Fellow of the University of Oxford, and the death of their daughter, Evangeline Mary, Butler began to focus on working with disadvantaged women and sex workers, providing shelter and establishing hostels.
It’s important to note that the sex industry has a long and complicated relationship with feminism and society as a whole, with many seeking to regulate, police, and abolish it altogether. The Contagious Disease Acts (1866) (1869) are a primary example of this.
These Acts gave police the power to conduct genital examinations on sex workers, subjecting them to demoralising and unjust inspections which condemned them as responsible for the spread of venereal diseases (STIs). Male clients were not inspected or denounced, and working-class, disadvantaged women as well as sex workers were targeted as the police could “examine” anyone they suspected of engaging in sex work. Moreover, those who refused to be examined, or were confirmed to have an STI, were imprisoned in a “locked hospital” for between six to nine months.
Minority groups such as sex workers are often at the forefront of social reform, leading to changes which benefit all women and society in general.
After women in the sex industry discussed their experiences with these regulations with Butler, she, along with Elizabeth Wolstenholme, established the Ladies’ National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act. This was Butler’s first major campaign and launched her into the public sphere as a voice for those who lacked the education or means to campaign themselves.
Of course, Butler received great criticism for this, as she essentially placed the onus back on the patriarchy and men. She perceived them as both benefiting from sex workers while also refusing accountability for their part in the spread of STIs, sentencing sex workers and disadvantaged women to unfair, hypocritical treatment which controlled the female body.
As is still the case today, any woman who speaks out against the patriarchy is stripped of her womanhood and harshly reprimanded. Butler was described by one journalist as “an indecent maenad, a shrieking sister, frenzied, unsexed, and utterly without shame”, and Sir James Elphinstone, an MP in the House of Commons said that she was “worse than the prostitutes.”
However, Butler was persistent, and while she did not endorse sex work as a profession, she recognised that regulation only serves to persecute women’s autonomy and sexuality and deny women their rights. She was tireless in her campaigns and arguments, and the CD Acts were suspended in 1883 before they were repealed in 1886.
Her campaign to repeal the CD Acts was not Butler’s only foray into social and legal reform. She was instrumental in raising the age of consent in England from 13 to 16, and, in 1875, she established the International Abolitionist Federation (IAF) (initially named the British and Continental Federation for the Abolition of Prostitution). The IAF campaigned against human trafficking and the regulation of sex work on an international level, recognising that regulation led to poor conditions and exploitation of women, and the registration of underage girls.
Butler felt that the deregulation of sex work, combined with better access to education and paid employment – other than marriage, which was seen as one of the only viable professions for women at the time – provided women with greater options and improved conditions in society.
She continued to campaign for social reform and women’s rights, with a focus on the sex industry and education, until she retired in 1903, and, according to her family, maintained a keen interest in international affairs until she died in 1906.
While Butler may not have necessarily called herself a feminist, her work in uplifting the voices of minority groups supported the rights of all women, and made monumental progress for the feminist movement through social reform.
However, over a century later, sex work is still regulated and not decriminalised in the United Kingdom, and this is one instance showing that society must continue the work that women like Josephine Butler continued to achieve throughout her life.
