‘Falling women’–‘saving angels’: spaces of contested mobility and the production of gender and sexualities within early twentieth-century train stations

Abstract

The banality of movement and the fascination with mobility meet at the very locations of arrival and departure. This contribution highlights social practices within and discourses about train stations which are interpreted as constitutive moments in the production of gender, sexuality and space. Train stations host the crossing between different spatial and social contexts, the negotiation of scales and between life cycles. Focusing on the historical moment of the early twentieth century we look at Swiss train stations as sites of heightened public concern which served to implement regulatory instruments to govern the social order of modernity. Narratives of the city as danger delineated train stations as critical turning points in the life-journey of young people, particularly for ‘impressionable’ young women. What is of interest here is how sexualities are discursively and metaphorically constructed and governed by social purity groups within the train station at the turn of the century. The way in which Station Assistance agents ‘received’, counselled and controlled the arrival of young people in the cities contributed to reiterating and (re)constructing gender and sexuality beyond national boundaries. The resulting protective and prescriptive constructions of sexuality reveal much about the complex perceptions and regulations of rural and urban sexualities and gender systems in their spatial nexus.

Les arrivées et les départs forment des endroits où la banalité du mouvement croise la fascination avec la mobilité. Le présent article souligne l'importance des pratiques sociales adoptées dans les gares ferroviaires et les discours portant sur elles. Les gares sont ici interprétées comme étant des moments constitutifs de la production du genre, de la sexualité et de l'espace. Les gares servent de passage entre les divers contextes sociaux et spatiaux, la négociation à l'égard des échelles, et entre les cycles de vie. Le début du vingtième cycle représente un moment historique sur lequel nous nous penchons dans cette étude des gares ferroviaires de Suisse. Celles-ci sont des sites qui revêtent une grande importance aux yeux du public et qui ont servi à la mise en place de dispositifs de réglementation dans le but de régir l'ordre social moderne. Les récits sur les dangers de la ville ont dépeint les gares comme des points tournants déterminants dans la vie et le périple des jeunes, en particulier les jeunes femmes qui sont «impressionnables». Ce qui retient toute notre attention dans ce cas est comment les sexualités sont construites de manière discursive et métaphorique et sont régies par des groupes revendiquant la pureté sociale à l'intérieur même des gares au tournant du siècle dernier. La façon dont le personnel responsable du soutien aux voyageurs «recevait», conseillait et contrôlait les jeunes au moment de leur arrivée dans les villes a contribué à la réitération et à la (re)construction du genre et de la sexualité au-delà des frontières nationales. De nature protectrice et prescriptive, ces constructions de la sexualité permettent de découvrir comment se manifestent dans l'espace les perceptions et les réglementations complexes entourant les sexualités de type rural et urbain et les systèmes fondés sur le genre.

La banalidad de movimiento y nuestra fascinación por la movilidad se encuentran justamente en lugares de llegada y salida. Este trabajo hace hincapié en discursos sobre, y las costumbres sociales de, las estaciones ferroviarias, los cuales son interpretados como momentos constitutivos en la producción de género, sexualidad y espacio. La estación ferroviaria es donde se cruzan diferentes contextos espaciales y sociales, y donde se encuentra la negociación de escalas y ciclos de vida. En este trabajo centramos nuestra atención en el momento histórico de principios del siglo veinte y estudiamos las estaciones ferroviarias suizas como sitios de elevado interés público, las cuales servían como sitios donde implementar instrumentos reguladores para gobernar el orden social de la modernidad. Narrativas que hablaban de la ciudad como lugar de peligro delineaban las estaciones ferroviarias como lugares decisivos en el viaje de la vida de los jóvenes, y en particular de las jóvenes e ‘influenciables’ mujeres. Lo que aquí tiene interés es cómo las sexualidades estaban construidos, discursiva y metafóricamente, por grupos de Pureza Social dentro de las estaciones ferroviarias al principio del siglo. El modo en que los Agentes de Asistencia en las estaciones ‘acogían’ y aconsejaban a los jóvenes y controlaban su llegada a las ciudades contribuía a la reiteración y la (re)construcción de género y sexualidad más allá de las fronteras nacionales. Las construcciones de sexualidad protectoras y normativas que resultaron de ello nos dicen mucho sobre las complejas percepciones y regulaciones de sistemas de sexualidades y género, tanto urbanos como rurales, en su nexo espacial.

Keywords:

• mobility
• prostitution
• heterosexuality
• gender
• space
• internationalism

Keywords:

• mobilité
• prostitution
• hétérosexualité
• genre
• espace
• internationalisme

Keywords:

• movilidad
• prostitución
• heterosexualidad
• género
• espacio
• internacionalismo

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their gratitude to the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on this piece. Special thanks are also due to Jon Binnie, Tim Edensor and Rob Kitchin for helpful comments on earlier drafts, and to Zoe Thompson for stylistic improvements of the text.

Notes

 1 The sources consulted here consist of minutes, pamphlets, annual reports, statutes, revisions of statutes, budgets, newspaper articles and so on produced by Swiss train station agents and the Union of Friends of Young Girls in Gosteli Archiv, Worblaufen, Berne (Gosteli Foundation, < www.gosteli-foundation.ch>). We have considered these materials leaning on a Foucauldian discourse analysis looking at the production of meanings through textual and visual materials as they relate to the practices of these social purity groups.

 2 See, for instance, the recent UK home office initiative Pentameter launched in February 2006 which warned arriving young women about the dangers of sexual exploitation at UK airports.

 3 Though Ellice Hopkins and other purity activists would later point out that rural areas had little to be complacent about, the general view prevailed that women would arrive in the city with virginal identities on the basis of their non-metropolitan origins and that the city, urbanization and industrialization were the cause for the paramount and ubiquitous danger upon entry to the city.

 4 However, the resulting geographies of fear do not correspond with the geographies of danger and threat. This misrepresentation persists despite the continuous efforts of feminist writers to point out that most sexual violence happens within the home.

 5 While in 1845 41 per cent of all passengers in Britain travelled first class, 42 per cent second class and 17 per cent third class, by 1922 a mere 1.7 per cent travelled in first class, 0.3 per cent in second class and 98 per cent in third class.

 6 Urry (2000) has argued that the respective and uneven reach of networks and flows needs to be investigated. He also raises the question of how agency is constituted through the mutual intersection of objects and peoples but argues that these are more persuasive now because global processes are producing a shrinking world. We are not disputing here that contemporary flows and networks of globalization are qualitatively different, rather we wish to point to preceding forms of movements within and across societal borders.

 7 Mitteilungsblatt zum Jubiläumsjahr FJM, 1877–1977. Bern, April 1997, p. 27. FJM, Gosteli Archiv, Worblaufen, Berne. All translations are our own.

 8 Union Internationale des Amies de la Jeune Fille, 1905, L'oeuvre des arrivantes. FJM, Gosteli Archiv, Worblaufen, Berne.

 9 See Note 8.

10 A name which persists to this day, see the comment of a regional newspaper on the end of the activities of the ‘angels’ in a local train station. ‘Die Bahnhofsengel haben ausgeflattert’ (‘No more flying for the station angels’), < www.rz-online.ch/news2000/Nr19-22sep/05.htm> (accessed December 2005).

11 As indicated earlier, it proved increasingly difficult at the time to distinguish women of upper and middle class from elegantly dressed prostitutes, for example. The agents in the stations were thus subject to misinterpretations which led to introduction of uniforms (the Swiss committee was amongst the first in the international network to render agents more easily recognizable by travellers in the late 1920s). The idea was soon adopted by the Italian and French committees who asked for the patterns (Berna Frauenzeitung, 24 January 1930) Gosteli Archiv, Worblaufen, Berne.

12 VFJM Kantonalsektion Bern, Protokolle Vorstand 1893–1900 (Berna Frauenzeitung, 24 January 1930) Gosteli Archiv, Worblaufen, Berne.

13 See Note 8.

14 Union Internationale des Amies de la Jeune Fille, Statuts. FJM, Gosteli Archiv, Worblaufen, Berne.

15 Journal de Bien Public 1926: 38f. Gosteli Archiv, Worblaufen, Berne.

16 Internationaler Verein der Freundinnen junger Mädchen, 1911, Was ist dieser Verein? Central-Bureau, Neuchatel, p. 13. FJM, Gosteli Archiv, Worblaufen, Berne.

17 Internationaler Verein der Freundinnen junger Mädchen, 1889, Sein Ursprung. Seine Beschaffeneheit. Seine Ausdehnung. Bern, p. 13. FJM, Gosteli Archiv, Worblaufen, Berne.

18 Flyer, c. 1909. FJM, Gosteli Archiv, Worblaufen, Berne.

19 See Note 8 (p. 15).

20 Internationaler Verein der Freundinnen junger Mädchen, 1889, + Sein Ursprung. Seine Beschaffeneheit. Seine Ausdehnung. Bern, p. 9. FJM, Gosteli Archiv, Worblaufen, Berne.