Josephine and the Porno Queens

Being of a certain age, I have seen many fads and fashions come and go and in my lifetime have witnessed huge shifts in standards of morality, social behaviours, the rise of equality for women with a corresponding decline of religious faith and, dare I say it, respect for others, common sense, and discretion.
While I believe some of those changes have been a very good thing, I have also seen the faltering of feminism and a new and rather alarming modern young female creature come of age.
She is simply awful, this girl of the Noughties. She's proud of being stupid, never heard of subtlety, never mind decorum. Her mouth is muddier than that of any trooper and she blabs loudly and proudly into her permanently affixed mobile phone about how she's such a cool bitch. She wears stretchy clothes several sizes too small that expose spray-tanned flesh and an excess of studs and tattooes. She staggers about on ludicrous strappy heels that Germaine Greer so aptly described as "f***-me's". Her hair is a sprawling mess that has never known control either. She boasts about how she binge-drinks every weekend until she vomits and has lots of casual sex with men she doesn't like, or even know. She fills me with despair.

If we could transport some of those early female reformers and activists of the Victorian age to our present day, I wonder what they would have to say about her? Apart from an initial rude shock and a good dose of sal volatile, I'm sure they would be in turns disappointed, sad, and ultimately infuriated to think that this example is what has been achieved by womankind after they commenced that first struggle along the long, hard road to equality. 

I particularly wonder what one of my personal heroines from that age, Josephine Butler, would think? Josephine was no stranger to hookers and I won't go into her work here as it is well-documented elsewhere, but I'm sure she couldn't possibly have foreseen the day when porno queens rule OK.

On the other hand, being the brave and feisty individual she was, she just might roll up her leg o' mutton sleeves and tackle the problem from a new angle. She could even decide that the poor men who have to put up with these creatures are now the victims and need saving!
The photo on the right is of a stained glass window commemorating Josephine in the church at Kirknewton, Northumberland, where she is buried (© Phil Brown docspics 2009)