Vivie Warren:
Seeing this photo reminds me of when I found out about my mother’s job and how she was hiding so much of her life from me.I didn’t know what to do or how to feel. I felt like my life was a lie. All that time, I was trying to become my own person. I didn’t want to be tied down by a man. That’s why I always got irritated when my mother kept asking me about Frank. I pride my education and how hard I worked to become an educated, young woman. To find out that my mother has been a prostitute my whole life was absurd. I have been trying to defy gender stereotypes, that women can make a name for themselves and not just have to serve men, yet my mother is doing exactly that! And to make it even worse, the money that helped me fund my education is the money she earned from the disgusting things she did. I am furious with myself that I have not found out about this sooner. And on top of this, I don’t even know my own history. I don’t even know who my own father is. He could've been involved with my mother during the time when she had this job of prostitution. I am just utterly shocked and sickened by this news. I hope to never become what my mother is and work hard to earn money on my own with a real job. I have to confront my mother, I have so many questions. I know that my mother did this for me.
Editorial Commentary:
This photo was part of a book that was published in the early 1840s. These books showed clubs and bars that prostitutes worked in. They treated women like animals. They controlled them and took advantage of them. Many women who were involved in prostitution did it for economic purposes. Women could always have a job within prostitution because there were so many men who went to these bars and pubs to meet women. Women would dance on stage for these men. Sometimes only men whose names were on a list could get into the bar or pub. “Women turned to prostitution as a result of social destruction” (Queen). Women who weren’t secure in their marriages or relationships would turn to prostitution for their sexual needs and desires. Many women would keep this part of their life secret because it was not a socially acceptable job. This is where women met potential “love interests” because men would “promise them love, but only use them for sex” (Queen). By reading Vivie’s commentary, you can see how frowned upon prostitution was, especially from the New Woman. The New Woman was all about giving women the rights and freedoms that they deserved and worked so hard to get toward. Prostitution was not a part of this new movement. The whole point of prostitution was for women to give up their bodies and for men to use them for their own sexual desires. It was very wrong, but also a common way for women who were in economic need to make money. That is why Vivie’s mother went into this business, so she could make the money to create a better opportunity for her daughter than she had herself.
Queen, Melissa. “Victorian Prostitution: A Historiographic Analysis.” Texas Woman's University, https://twu.edu/media/documents/history-government/Melissa-Queen-Revised-Final-18.docx.pdf
Shaw, George Bernard. “Mrs. Warren’s Profession.” COVE Studio’s, 1894. https://studio.covecollective.org/anthologies/engl-1102-11-10am-f23/documents/mrs-warrens-profession-d90ebf1b-cb8b-4513-b347-008a6259c9c2
“The New Swell's Night Guide.” The British Library, 6 Feb. 2014, http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-new-swells-night-guide