There are a range of female activists and spiritual champions of women’s and the girl child’s right to protection, autonomy set within a context of interdependence, respect and dignity. If you have an inspiring person to bring to the CHASTE board of inspiration please let us know who and why they are an inspiration for our work.
Josephine Butler (1828 – 1906)
A tireless Anglican woman campaigner for the recognition of women and children caught in prostitution in the nineteenth century. She was committed to the provision of educational opportunity and dignified work for women in the newly industrialising cities of the nineteenth century, and believed a great deal of prostitution was the result of poor educational, work and life opportunities for women. Butler was insistent that women should be regarded as created by God in dignity and equality with men, which meant that those caught in prostitution were daughters, sisters, and mothers, people in relationship first and foremost as God’s daughters and not a different class of women the designated ‘common prostitute’ of her times.
Butler campaigned successfully to the overhaul of the deeply flawed Contagious Diseases Acts which ‘persecuted women’ in garrison towns and large cities forcing any perceived by the police to be ‘common prostitutes’ to undergo enforced health checks in lock hospitals. Butler became involved with the Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts (NARCA) along with other leading female inspirations of her era including Florence Nightingale to campaign against these highly discriminatory laws and saw their repeal in 1886. Josephine Butler also drew attention to the rise of ‘white slave trade’ in the brothels of Europe, where young girl children were sold from impoverished households frequently unwhittingly to brothel owners and pimps, and moved across Europe. Countries involved included Switzerland, France, the United Kingdom, Austria and Belgium. Together with Catherine Booth’s whose work amongst young working class girls and women frequently referred to as the ‘Hallelujah lasses’ was a constant encouragement to Josephine Butler as she turned her attention to protecting young girls from early unwanted pregnancies and grooming through raising the age of consensual sex for women to 16.
Butler was angry with the double standard which she saw operating in her time which meant that men were free to buy sex whilst women themselves were in chains. She frequently alluded to this fact in presentations to special Committees of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, as well as in many of her speeches to working mens associations, churches and city gatherings.
Josephine Butler’s spiritual resources were drawn from the life of Catharine of Siena, whose fourteenth century journey had led her into prophetic rebuke for those in power and the praxis of Christ. For St Catharine nothing appalled her more than the ‘belief that any sinner must be left to perish as outcasts from God and hope’ and was committed to the efficacy and power of prayer in all circumstances. Butler’s use of the scriptures included a powerful new reading of the story of Hagar, a woman who could have been driven to prostitution by the actions of those in power around her, and a deep commitment to the renewing power of Christs love and compassion for all.
Hildergard of Bingen (1098-1179)
...was a remarkable woman, a "first" in many fields. At a time when few women wrote, Hildegard, known as "Sybil of the Rhine", produced major works of theology and visionary writings. When few women were accorded respect, she was consulted by and advised bishops, popes, and kings. She used the curative powers of natural objects for healing, and wrote treatises about natural history and medicinal uses of plants, animals, trees and stones. She is the first composer whose biography is known. She founded a vibrant convent, where her musical plays were performed. Although not yet canonized, Hildegard has been beatified, and is frequently referred to as St. Hildegard. An inspiration for women to effect leaders in government, religion and criminal strongholds.
St Brigid (451-525)
Born to an enslaved mother in the court of her father Dubhthach the Irish Chieftan of Leinster. in Dundalk County Louth and died in Kildare. She is widely cited as an adventurous and unprectable religious, who founded a double convent along with St Patrick. Over one hundred years after her death an Irish Monk called Cogitosus wrote that ‘Brigit exercising with the most strength of her ineffable faith, blessed (a pregnant woman who had been brought to her) caused the fetus to disappear without coming to birth and without pain, She faithfully returned the woman to health’ – an excellent motif for women who are brought out of the trade of trafficking with the scars of unwanted pregnancies and invasive abortions.
Ni bu Sanct Brigid suanach
Ni bu huarach im sheire Dé,
Sech ni chiuir ni cossens
Ind nóeb dibad bethath che.
Saint Brigid was not given to sleep,
Nor was she intermittent about God's love;
Not merely that she did not buy, she did not seek for
The wealth of this world below, the holy one.