Friday, October 09, 2015

The war and wanton women

Sexually Active Women Were Quarantined During World War II - The Atlantic

Well, no, I hadn't heard about this before.  This bit in particular:
At first, health officials focused on sex workers who had been arrested
near military bases or factories. As the war progressed, however, the
focus widened from sex workers to “any women who were somehow viewed or
under suspicion as being delinquent,” Parascandola said. Some places
dispatched health workers to bars and dance halls to scout out women who
appeared too sexually forward; in other cases, officials would wait at
bus stops, questioning the women who came off the bus about their
reasons for traveling to the town.
Women who didn’t agree to submit to testing could still be quarantined
via court order if officials suspected her of having an STD—a caveat
that was interpreted liberally. “For example, they might arrest a woman
who they found hanging around the camps under vagrancy charges,” he
said, “and they might use some claim of suspicion for venereal disease
because this women was hanging around with all these men.”
Can't remember this aspect of the war being featured in a movie before...

2 comments:

Not Trampis said...

sex worker??

you do mean prostitute.

Steve said...

Yes, although I did not get to chose the terminology in the article.

In any event, I was more interested in the way women who were merely seen to be just hanging around the guys too much could be caught up in the net.