Women and Their Bodies in the Popular Reading of 1910

Abstract

This article discusses the presentation of women's bodies in popular newspapers that reflects an awareness of reproductive health and access to the knowledge and language of sex, 'on or about December 1910'. Originating in Virginia Woolf's biographical writing, diaries and letters, it uses the popular reading of the British public in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, including features and adverts in newspapers, health manuals, and commercially successful novels, to show how Woolf's isolation of a single moment of change for human character was, for most of the population, part of a longstanding social evolution in popular sexual knowledge and moral standards.

Margery Spring Rice: Pioneer of Women’s Health in the Early Twentieth Century

“…47 One of Nou's biographers, Jenni Calder, 48 says the two women met through the Women's International League, which is possible, although there is no record of Margery being a member of that body. 49 Dick and Dominick had overlapped at Eton, but Dominick was a few years older (Dick was about seven years younger than Margery). Whatever the exact circumstances of the first meeting between them, a close friendship grew between the families, founded not only on the personal affection between the women but on their shared interests: leftwing politics, feminism, internationalism, Irish politics 50 and the birth control movement.…”

“…Clara wrote that she might come out for a visit: 'I don't think that will be much of an interruption to your Frenchification'. 49 However, the visit did not happen as Clara caught the flu and was ill enough to cause her family serious anxiety. Aunt Grace went to Aldeburgh to look after her, and Sam (having consulted his sister Elizabeth) rushed from London to Aldeburgh to be with her.…”

“…He includes a chapter suggesting various ways of preventing conception, such as inserting a quinine-soaked sponge into the vagina before intercourse, but the book also includes numerous advertisements for 'the best and most reliable Preventives' and a 'Descriptive Price List (Illustrated) of Neo-Malthusian Appliances and Hygienic Requisites'. 49 The emotional and psychological aspects of sex do not come into his picture. We do not know, either, whether Clara had told Margery anything.…”