The Spinster and Her Enemies
Cover of the first edition
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| Author | Sheila Jeffreys |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Social purity movement |
| Publisher | Pandora Press |
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Publication date
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1985 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 232 |
| ISBN | |
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.
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, 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.
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."
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