ABSTRACT
Josephine Butler is particularly a good example of a mid-Victorian woman who took on the male establishment in the explosive area of sexual exploitation. In the history of British feminism, Josephine Butler occupies a marginal position. She has been overshadowed as a feminist pioneer by the dramas surrounding Florence Nightingale, the Pankhursts and the militant suffragettes. Yet in her campaign against the Contagious Diseases Acts, Josephine Butler fundamentally changed the terms of women's political lives. In the half-century before the formation of her Ladies National Association in 1869, women had actively supported anti-slavery, the Anti-Corn Law League and temperance and suffrage movements, but no woman had become a national political activist. The Contagious Diseases Acts regulated prostitution in order to control venereal disease. The following day activists decided to form a National Anti-Contagious Diseases Acts Association. This was intended to encompass both sexes, but the women decided to form their own grouping the Ladies National Association (LNA).
