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Infectious agents of racial degeneration

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TitleInfo
Title
Infectious agents of racial degeneration
SubTitle
legislating vice, hygiene, and prostitution in the British metropole
Name (type = personal)
NamePart (type = family)
Sparks
NamePart (type = given)
Lacey
NamePart (type = date)
1987-
DisplayForm
Lacey Sparks
Role
RoleTerm (authority = RULIB)
author
Name (type = personal)
NamePart (type = family)
Giloi
NamePart (type = given)
Eva
DisplayForm
Eva Giloi
Affiliation
Advisory Committee
Role
RoleTerm (authority = RULIB)
chair
Name (type = corporate)
NamePart
Rutgers University
Role
RoleTerm (authority = RULIB)
degree grantor
Name (type = corporate)
NamePart
Graduate School - Newark
Role
RoleTerm (authority = RULIB)
school
TypeOfResource
Text
Genre (authority = marcgt)
theses
OriginInfo
DateCreated (qualifier = exact)
2012
DateOther (qualifier = exact); (type = degree)
2012-05
CopyrightDate (qualifier = exact)
2012
Place
PlaceTerm (type = code)
xx
Language
LanguageTerm (authority = ISO639-2b); (type = code)
eng
Abstract (type = abstract)
Nineteenth-century British debates on prostitution and the Contagious Diseases Acts contained racialized rhetoric. In their discussion of white prostitution and the C.D. Acts in the metropole, regulationists and repealers alike utilized disease discourses that indicated not only a moral infection of the prostitutes’ clients, but also racial infection that led to the degeneration of the race. Regulationists advocated state control over women's bodies, because only state intervention could protect military and civilian men from sinful and diseased women. They believed that prostitution was an unfortunate but necessary social evil to be managed, not eradicated. In gathering support, regulationists relied on misogynistic arguments that questioned the racial superiority of white prostitutes. Repealers came to the same racialized conclusions from a different perspective and thus saw different solutions. Repealers argued that men owned women's bodies as well as governed the economy, and were thus responsible for what happened to them, including resorting to prostitution. Repealers believed that prostitution was the great social evil and must be eradicated. Anglo-Saxon mens' immoral sexual choices led to prostitution, which victimized women, and thus men’s racial superiority was called into question. Regulationists made their accusations down the social ladder, a strategy that was par for the course for oppressors controlling the oppressed. Men with every social privilege blaming the inferior race, class, and gender were unsurprising. Repealers, however, inverted that logic and challenged the privileged male regulationists by making their accusations up the social ladder. Whiteness was a social currency that repealers wielded in a subversive way to shape British law in favor of white working class women. By asserting the value of the whiteness of the disenfranchised white groups of women and the working class, repealers gained rights for them by distancing them from the racial Other in an empire built on whiteness. In the British Empire, Anglo-Saxon whiteness served as the currency for social power. By wielding the power of whiteness, repealers transgressed traditional race, class, and gender hierarchies, effected a change in the law, and embarked on a path to establishing further women’s and working class rights in the metropole.
Subject (authority = RUETD)
Topic
History
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Rutgers University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = RULIB)
ETD
Identifier
ETD_4103
PhysicalDescription
Form (authority = gmd)
electronic resource
InternetMediaType
application/pdf
InternetMediaType
text/xml
Extent
v, 96 p. : ill.
Note (type = degree)
M.A.
Note (type = bibliography)
Includes bibliographical references
Note (type = vita)
Includes vita
Note (type = statement of responsibility)
by Lacey Sparks
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Prostitution--Great Britain--Colonies--History--19th century
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Prostitution--Great Britain--History--19th century
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Sexually transmitted diseases--Law and legislation--Great Britain--History--19th century
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Women--Great Britain--Colonies--History--19th century
Identifier (type = hdl)
http://hdl.rutgers.edu/1782.1/rucore10002600001.ETD.000065062
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Graduate School - Newark Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = local)
rucore10002600001
Location
PhysicalLocation (authority = marcorg); (displayLabel = Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey)
NjNbRU
Identifier (type = doi)
doi:10.7282/T3V69HJQ
Genre (authority = ExL-Esploro)
ETD graduate
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Rights

RightsDeclaration (ID = rulibRdec0006)
The author owns the copyright to this work.
RightsHolder (type = personal)
Name
FamilyName
Sparks
GivenName
Lacey
Role
Copyright Holder
RightsEvent
Type
Permission or license
DateTime (encoding = w3cdtf); (qualifier = exact); (point = start)
2012-05-04 18:23:51
AssociatedEntity
Name
Lacey Sparks
Role
Copyright holder
Affiliation
Rutgers University. Graduate School - Newark
AssociatedObject
Type
License
Name
Author Agreement License
Detail
I hereby grant to the Rutgers University Libraries and to my school the non-exclusive right to archive, reproduce and distribute my thesis or dissertation, in whole or in part, and/or my abstract, in whole or in part, in and from an electronic format, subject to the release date subsequently stipulated in this submittal form and approved by my school. I represent and stipulate that the thesis or dissertation and its abstract are my original work, that they do not infringe or violate any rights of others, and that I make these grants as the sole owner of the rights to my thesis or dissertation and its abstract. I represent that I have obtained written permissions, when necessary, from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis or dissertation and will supply copies of such upon request by my school. I acknowledge that RU ETD and my school will not distribute my thesis or dissertation or its abstract if, in their reasonable judgment, they believe all such rights have not been secured. I acknowledge that I retain ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use all or part of this thesis or dissertation in future works, such as articles or books.
Copyright
Status
Copyright protected
Availability
Status
Open
Reason
Permission or license
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Technical

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786432
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Checksum (METHOD = SHA1)
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