Addams - Prostitution

Prostitution

Addams defined the commercial use of sex as a "social evil,"a term "used to designate the sexual commerce permitted toexist in every large city, usually in a segregated district, whereinthe chastity of women is bought and sold." [39] Prostitutionwas a continuing theme in her writings, and she even devoted anentire book to the subject. She firmly believed that prostitutionwould be eliminated as society advanced to superior levels of"consciousness." [40] For Addams, the position of theprostitute was analogous to that of a slave. The outlawing ofcommercial ownership of another's body was a step toward the outlawingof commercial use of another's sexuality. Addams, moreover, sawthe Chicago Vice Commission, of which Thomas was a member, asan aid in dispersing information about this problem. [41]

Writing in l911 on a socially unacceptable topic, Addams statedthat "sympathetic knowledge is the only way of approach toany human problem." [42] Thus she predated by six years Thomasand Znaniecki's concern with the "human coefficient"in the study of society. [43]

Part of her work was devoted to a discussion of the White slavetraffic, and the recruitment process for that and other formsof prostitution remains the same today as it was in the past:the betrayal of male lovers, loneliness, economic necessity, neighborhoodand family influences, weariness, and discouragement. Writingon social isolation in the city she notes the dichotomy betweenour public and private lives. [44] "It is as if we had tobuild little islands of affection in the vast sea of impersonalforces lest we be overwhelmed by them." [45] Moreover, thelives of many working women were incredibly dreary. Often, youngwomen would be required to turn over all their wages to meet the"family claim," and they were expected to live livesof constant drudgery. "Hundreds of working girls go directlyto bed as soon as they have eaten their suppers. They are tootired to go from home for recreation, too tired to read and oftentoo tired to sleep." [45] When they have the rare opportunityto be away from these constraints, they go too far, too fast.Again, predating Thomas' work on the "unadjusted girl"published in 1923, and The Polish Peasant, published from1918 to 1920, Addams wrote about rapid social change that underminesthe old order: "The social relationships in a modern cityare so hastily made and often so superficial, that the old humanrestraints of public opinion, long sustained in smaller communities,have also broken down." [47]

The strain of domestic work, where women--not men--are the majoremployers, caused many women to seek a more profitable and lessisolating existence. Women employed in this occupation accountedfor half of the prostitutes at that time.

In an account of the social organization supporting prostitution,Addams portrayed the various members of the male recruitment andpolitical process. The "spieler" tells the woman a falsestory, either that he loves her or that he is so wealthy thathe can take her away from financial worry. [48] "Such a boyis often incited by the professional procurer to ruin a younggirl, because the latter's position is much safer if the characterof the girl is blackened before he sells her and if he himselfcannot be implicated in her downfall." [49] After the initialsexual contact, the man would turn the "ruined" womanover to commercialized sex. This was possible because if a womanengaged in one "erring" sexual act, she became literallyan outcast of society. Not only could one occasion cause a totalchange in her status, even the appearance of such an event couldhave serious, damaging consequences.

A homeless young girl looking for a lodging may be arrested forsoliciting on the street, and sent to prison for six months, althoughthere is no proof against her save the impression of the policeman.A young girl under such suspicion may be obliged to answer themost harassing questions put to her by the city attorney, withno woman near to protect her from insult, she may be subjectedto the most trying examination conducted by a physician in thepresence of a policeman, and no matron to whom to appeal. [50]

As a group, men benefited from the exploitation of the prostitutewith few social sanctions.

Addams pointed to the need to understand the "historic connectionbetween commercialized vice and alcoholism, [and the] close relationbetween politics and the liquor interests, behind which the socialevil so often entrenches itself." [51] Thus, prostitutionis only able to continue as a result of police corruption andcollusion.

When the legal control of commercialized vice is thus tied upwith city politics, the functions of the police become legislative,executive, judicial in regard to street solicitation: in a sensethey also have power of license, for it lies with them to determinethe number of women who are allowed to ply their trade upon thestreet. [52]

Addams assured women that it was logical to fear the prostitutewhen the circle of consideration was only one's immediate family.But again, this "narrow" family claim blinded womento their common sisterhood. "Nice girls" (a conceptonly recently revived) should learn to see the profit that menmake from selling women. [53] Women needed to understand the harshnessof sexual standards, and their false criteria when applied toonly one of the sexes. Addams (contrary to the modern versionof the rejection of the "double standard") believedthat

As woman, however, fulfills her civic obligations while stillguarding her chastity, she will be in position as never beforeto uphold the "single standard" demanding that men shalladd the personal virtues to their performance of public duties.Women may at last force men to do away with the traditional useof a public record as a cloak for a wretched private character,because society will never permit a woman to make such excusesfor herself. [54]

Acknowledging that some women had, nonetheless, engaged in sexualintercourse outside marriage, she believed that "insofaras such women have been treated as independent human beings andprized for their mental and social charm, even although they areon a commercial basis, it makes for a humanization of this sordidbusiness." [55] Optimistically, she ended her book with theassertion that social rejection of prostitution was inevitable:

Certainly we are safe in predicting that when the solidarity ofhuman interest is actually realized, it will become unthinkablethat one class of human beings should be sacrificed to the supposedneeds of another; when the rights of human life have successfullyasserted themselves in contrast to the rights of property. [56]

ENDNOTES

39. Jane Addams, A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil (hereafter referred to as A New Conscience). (New York:Macmillan, 1914), p. 9.

40. See also George Herbert Mead, "Social Consciousness andthe Consciousness of Meaning," Psychological Bulletin 7 (December 1910):397-405; "Psychology of ConsciousnessImplied in Instruction," Science 31 (May 1910):688-93.

41. The Vice Commission of Chicago: The Social Evil in Chicago (New York: Arno, 1970,c. 1911).

42. Addams, A New Conscience, p. 11.

43. W.I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki, The Polish Peasant InEurope and America, 2nd Ed., vols. 1 and 2 (New York: Dover,1958. c. 1917-1918), vol. 1, pp. 1-89. Addams is clearly advocatingthe use of "sympathetic introspection," a methodologicaltechnique later formalized by Charles H. Cooley in "The Rootsof Social Knowledge", American Journal of Sociology 32 (July 1926):59-79. Since Cooley was also influenced by Addams,her writings can be seen as a resource for him. See ch. 1, n.36 for a discussion of this.

44. See Peter Berger, Brigitte Berger, and Hansfried Kellner,The Homeless Mind (New York: Random House, 1973).

45. Addams, A New Conscience, p. 33.

46. Ibid., p. 73.

47. Ibid., p. 34.

48. Ibid., p. 50.

49. Ibid.

50. Ibid., p. 191.

51. Ibid., p. 46.

52. Addams, "If Men Were Seeking the Franchise," p.111.

53. G.L. Fox, "Nice Girl: Social Control of Women throughValue Construct," Signs 2 (Summer 1977):805-17.

54. Addams, A New Conscience, pp. 211 - 12.

55. Ibid.. pp. 216-17.