The Contagious Diseases Act
In the late nineteenth century, for more than twenty years, the Contagious Diseases Act was a thorn in the eye of progressive women.
It was introduced with the aim of stopping the spread of venereal disease among members of the armed forces. To this end, women who were suspected to be sex workers were required to undergo medical examinations. Whoever was found to be infected would be imprisoned in what was called a “lock hospital” until she was no longer infectious.
When it was first introduced, in 1864, it applied only to a number of port towns. Two years later, in 1966, the Act was extended to cover a larger number of port and garrison towns,
By the late 1870s, the Act had become increasingly unpopular, not just with women, but in the wider population. There was a wider perception that it was unjust: while men could engage in prostitution with impunity, women were held responsible and punished for it. Medical examinations were often invasive and humiliating, with women being subjected to vaginal and anal examinations. This was a clear violation of women’s bodily autonomy.
Not all women, however, objected to the Act, and a notable exception is Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. She endorsed the notion of blaming women, arguing that it was “fallen women” who accounted for the spread of “one of the most serious plagues of modern times”.
While the campaign that opposed the Act was led by the Josephine Butler (who was based in the Midlands), many of the women who played a had strong links to Bloomsbury. Two of them were Elizabeth Garrett Anderson’s sisters Agnes Garrett and Millicent Garrett Fawcett, and another their cousin Rhoda Garrett. Also involved was Emily Davies, who was part of the Langham Place Group, and Elizabeth Blackwell (who taught at the London School of Medicine for Women) put forward the view that “it is a physiological untruth to suppose that sexual congress is indispensable to male health”.
The Contagious Diseases Act was finally repealed in 1886.