In this thesis, the regulation of prostitution in Uppsala during the 1880’s is investigated with the aim of finding out more about the living circumstances of the women who were considered or suspected of being licentious or prostitutes. The theoretical framework drawn upon for analyzing and understanding the living circumstances of these women is Carole Pateman’s The Sexual Contract. The paper consists of three parts: first, an overview of the source material. Second, a collective biography of 103 women who had notes made about them during the 1880’s. Third, a case study where five women were followed from the cradle to the grave. What was discovered was that the archives from this period in Uppsala are inconsistent and difficult to understand. Many of the women who had their names recorded in the source material were not prostitutes but rather women who in some way or another got caught by the authorities for perceived suspicious behaviour. Some underwent gynaecological examination and were never mentioned again. Others remained under the control of the authorities for decades, even when they were no longer regarded as being prostitutes. The conclusion is that, despite many of these women sharing similar backgrounds, their living circumstances both before and after their time being under the eyes of the authorities varied. This sheds a new and nuanced light both on earlier research about women regulated in prostitution during this time, how the authorities in Uppsala were administering women that were deviating from the norm, and how these women were perceived by contemporary society.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-531953 |
| Date | January 2024 |
| Creators | Thylwe, Stina |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Historiska institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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