All three of these are letters by women in response to a woman called Miss. Garrett who apparently wrote a letter defending the Contagious Disease Acts. The first letter I looked at was Justina's reply to Miss. Garrett's defense of the Contagious Disease Acts. Overall these two women disagree on whether the Contagious disease act is a good thing but there are a few points they seem to agree on. Miss Garrett apparently contradicted herself in her original letter by saying first that people should trust professionals in their opinion that the Contagious Disease Act is a good thing and then later by saying the public must scrutinize decisions by medical professionals. Justina of course does not agree that people should blindly follow professionals but thinks that public debate of these issues is necessary for a healthy government. Justina also points out that there were at least two medical doctors that disagreed with the Contagious Disease Act and that for them to disagree they must have had some very strong objections because they would be undermining their own power as doctors and men by stopping this legislation. She also points out something that I found quite funny when she says that if legislation worked for preventing the spread of disease then parliament would be legislating against bronchitis and consumption also.
The second woman who wrote in response to Miss. Garrett was Mrs. W.T. Malleson. In this writing they both agree that venereal disease causes great suffering and should be controlled if possible, but Mrs. W.T. Malleson is not sure that the Contagious Disease Act is the best way to control it. She points out that although the legislation is supposed to target prostitutes it has the potential to be used against any women. She also believes that even if it does only taget prostitutes it may be counterprductive in stopping the spread of veneraeal disease. If prostitutes fear being held indefinitely in hospitals when they come in for treatment they are much less likely to seek treatment for venereal disease, possibly putting more people in danger if they remain untreated.. Mrs. W.T. Malleson thinks that there must be a better way than punishing these women to stop the spread of disease and possibly help women out of the immoral work of prostitution.
The third response is targeted at Miss. Garrett and Mr. Berkley Hill. I did not have much time to look over this one so I only have a vague idea as to what it is about. In this one, the writer whos name I do not know, argues that the Contagious Disease Act unfairly targets women. She believes that men hold an equal blame in the spread of venereal disease becaue they are the ones patronizing prostitutes and taking diseases home to their wives. She says that the men are more to blame than women because even though they are not the prostitutes they are in the position of power in socieyt so should be protecting and caring for these women rather than using and punishing them.
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Wow, this synopsis helped me to follow the conversation in these three documents. It also makes me curious about authorship and aim. Is there anything in the documents to help us know who "Justina" is and why one writer published anonymously? How could we find out if this was a common practice in the London Lowlife Collection?
ReplyDeleteI found it very interesting that Mrs. Malleson was the only one who used religon in her arguments. I wish there were a way to find out who her husband was - especially if his occupation were church-related.
ReplyDeleteAs to publishing anonymously, we could look at phamplets about similar topics and very different topics, and see if the author's choice to publish without his/her name was related to the topic, or rather just commonplace for the time or location from which she published. It would also be interesting to track various printers and publishers in the London area to see if there were any who regularly required women, especailly unmarried women, or writers of certian topics to publish anonymously.