Jack the Ripper's victims were NOT prostitutes, says historian who claims sexist Victorian policemen unfairly labelled the working class women

Jack the Ripper's murder victims may not have been prostitutes, a historian has claimed.

Dr Hallie Rubenhold has argued that 'sexist' attitudes of policemen at the time and researchers in the 130 years since have led to inaccurate beliefs about the women who were killed. The historian, who is writing a history of the five known victims - Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly - said the women had working-class jobs as servants and laundry maids.

The Ripper killed his victims in Whitechapel, east London, between September and November 1888, but his identity has never been discovered. Dr Rubenhold, whose book will be called The Five, said researchers had 'fixated' on the Ripper but never thought about who the women were, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

She said: 'We glorify the Ripper, we have a whole industry based around him, a fascination with him, an unsolved murder mystery going on for 130 years.

'We have never questioned 19th-century orthodoxy - the world in which they were killed was a world in which women were disrespected and treated as second-class citizens.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6173193/Jack-Rippers-victims-NOT-prostitutes-says-historian.html

She could be right, then again so many working class women in this era apparently had to do this kind of thing now and again, it wasn't what they wanted to do but was sometimes the only way to get money for their families. I think in some of the evidence some of the women were homeless and trying to get money for a bed for the night. It's no shame on them that they had to sell their bodies in the circumstances, more shame on the government and the class system that saw them as nothing.

Vintage wrote:She could be right, then again so many working class women in this era apparently had to do this kind of thing now and again, it wasn't what they wanted to do but was sometimes the only way to get money for their families. I think in some of the evidence some of the women were homeless and trying to get money for a bed for the night. It's no shame on them that they had to  sell their bodies in the circumstances, more shame on the government and the class system that saw them as nothing.

I find it interesting how again such topics do generate new history view points Vintage

Who really knows here, but I will be very interested to read her research on this

I thought you might find this interesting, with your love of history...

It will be an interesting read I'm sure. There is always a certain slant on the facts because of the prevailing attitudes of the time events happen in.
We need to ask why were they out at such hours, although some as I said needed money for a lodging house, so had no fixed abode.
Were any of them arrested for soliciting, were they at least known to the beat constable for being on the streets.
Admittedly the Victorians attitude to women of the upper classes were bad enough, the poor were thought to deserve their lot by the majority of people, just look at the work house system.

Vintage wrote:It will be an interesting read I'm sure. There is always a certain slant on the facts because of the prevailing attitudes of the time events happen in.
We need to ask why were they out at such hours, although some as I said needed money for a lodging house, so had no fixed abode.
Were any of them arrested for soliciting, were they at least known to the beat constable for being on the streets.
Admittedly the Victorians attitude to women of the upper classes were bad enough, the poor were thought to deserve their lot by the majority of people, just look at the work house system.

Well that is a very interesting point of which I am sure this researcher followed up

Is it more and where she says that poor people were simple viewed this way at the time?

Its very interesting and why its perked my interest Vintage