The Fraud of Feminism

by Ernest Belfort Bax

The bogus nature of the reasons urged in favour of the most atrocious clauses of this abominable Act came out clearly enough in the speeches of the official spokesmen of the Government in its favour. For example, Lord Haldane in the House of Lords besought the assembled peers to bethink themselves of the unhappy victim of the souteneur. He drew a picture of how a heartless bully might beat, starve and otherwise ill treat his victim, besides taking away her earnings. He omitted to explain how the heartless bully in a free country could coerce his “victim” to remain with him against her will. He ignored the existence of the police, or of a whole army of social purity busybodies, and vigilance societies for whom her case would be a tasty morsel only too eagerly snapped at. If the “victim” does not avail herself of any of those means of escape, so ready to her hand, the presumption is that she prefers the company of her alleged brutal tyrant to that of the chaste Puritan ladies of the vigilance societies. To those who follow

the present state of artificially fomented public opinion in the matter, Lord Haldane’s suggestion that there was any danger of the precious “victim” not being sufficiently slobbered over, will seem to be not without a touch of humour. Furthermore, as illustrating the utter illogicality of the line taken by the promoters of the Act, for whom Lord Haldane acted as the mouthpiece, we have only to note the fact that the measure does not limit the penalties awarded to cases accompanied by circumstances of aggravation such as Lord Haldane pictures, which it might easily have done, but extends it impartially to all cases whether accompanied by cruelty or not. We can hardly imagine that a man of Lord Haldane’s intellectual power and general humanity should not have been aware of the hollowness of the case he had to put as an official advocate, and of the rottenness of the conventional arguments he had to state in its support. When confronted with the unquestionably true contention that corporal punishments, especially such as are of a savage and vindictive kind, are degrading alike to the inflicters of them and to those who are their victims, he replied that criminals in the cases in question were already so degraded that they could not be degraded further. One would imagine he could hardly have failed to know that he was talking pernicious twaddle. It is obvious that this argument, in

addition to its being untrue, in fact opens the floodgates to brutal penal legislation all round, so far at least as the more serious offences are concerned. One could equally well assert of murder, burglary, even abus de confidence in some cases, and other offences, that the perpetrators of them must be so degraded that no amount of brutal punishment could degrade them further. Everybody can regard the crime to which he has a pet aversion more than other crimes as indicating the perpetrator thereof to be outside the pale of humanity.

But as regards the particular case in point, let us for a moment clear our minds of cant upon the subject. Procuration and also living on the proceeds of prostitution may be morally abominable methods of securing a livelihood, though even here, as in most other offences, there may be circumstances of palliation in individual cases. But after all is said and done, it is doubtful whether, apart from any fraud or misrepresentation, which, of course, places it altogether in a different category, these ought to be regarded as criminal offences. To offer facilities or to act as an agent for women who are anxious to lead a “gay life,” or even to suggest such a course to women, so long as prostitution itself is not recognised by the law as crime, however reprehensible morally, would scarcely seem to transcend the limits of legitimate individual liberty. In any case, the constituting of such an action a

crime must surely open out an altogether new principle in jurisprudence, and one of far-reaching consequences. The same remarks apply even more forcibly to the question of sharing the earnings of a prostitute. Prostitution per se is not in the eyes of the law a crime or even a misdemeanour. The woman who makes her living as a prostitute is under the protection of the law, and the money she receives from her customer is recognised as her property. If she, however, in the exercise of her right of free disposition of that property, gives some of it to a male friend, that friend, by the mere acceptance of a free gift, becomes a criminal in the eyes of the law. Anything more preposterous, judging by all hitherto recognised principles of jurisprudence, can scarcely be imagined. Even from the moral point of view of the class of cases coming under the purview of the Act, of men who in part share in the proceeds of their female friends’ traffic, must involve many instances in which no sane person—i.e. one who is not bitten by the rabid man-hatred of the Feminist and social purity monger—must regard the moral obliquity involved as not very serious. Take, for instance, the case of a man who is out of work, who is perhaps starving, and receives temporary assistance of this kind. Would any reasonable person allege that such a man was in the lowest depths of moral degradation, still less that he merited for this breach, at most, of fine

delicacy of feeling, the flaying alive prescribed by the Act under consideration. Besides all this, it is well known that some women, shop assistants and others, gain part of their living by their reputable avocation and part in another way. Now presumably the handing over of a portion of her regular salary to her lover would not constitute the latter a flayable criminal, but the endowment of him with a portion of any of the “presents” obtained by her pursuit of her other calling would do so. The process of earmarking the permissible and the impermissible gift strikes one as very difficult even if possible.

The point last referred to leads us on to another reflection. If the man who “in whole or in part” lives on the proceeds of a woman’s prostitution is of necessity a degraded wretch outside the pale of all humanity, as he is represented to be by the flogging fraternity, how about the employer or employeress of female labour who bases his or her scale of wages on the assumption that the girls and women he or she employs, supplement these wages by presents received after working hours, for their sexual favours—in other words, by prostitution? Many of these employers of labour are doubtless to be found among the noble band of advocates of White Slave Traffic Bills, flogging and social purity. The above persons, of course, are respectable members of society, while a souteneur is an outcast.

In addition to the motives before alluded to as actuating the promoters of the factitious and bogus so-called “White Slave” agitation, there is one very powerful political and economic motive which must not be left out of sight. In view of the existing “labour unrest,” it is highly desirable from the point of view of our possessing and governing classes that popular attention should be drawn off labour wrongs and labour grievances on to something less harassing to the capitalist and official mind. Now the Anti-man agitation forms a capital red herring for drawing the popular scent off class opposition by substituting sex antagonism in its place.

If you can set public opinion off on the question of wicked Man and down-trodden Woman, you have done a good deal to help capitalistic enterprise to tide over the present crisis. The insistence of public opinion on better conditions for the labourer will thus be weakened by being diverted into urging forward vindictive laws against men, and for placing as far as may be the whole power of the State at the disposal of the virago, the shrew and the female sharper, in their designs upon their male victim. For, be it remembered, it is always the worst type of woman to whom the advantage of laws passed as the result of the Anti-man campaign accrues. The real nature of the campaign is crucially exhibited in some