Dapper Jack
Sian Norris had a Twitter exchange with the PR guy for the shiny new Jack the Ripper museum in east London the other day.
Today, on Twitter, the museum’s PR representative attempted to defend the tourist attraction from charges that Jack the Ripper’s murders were sexually violent. In a clumsy attempt to prove that the museum was not condoning sexual violence, he instead denied that the murders had anything to do with sexual violence at all.
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When I suggested that he was wrong to ignore the sexually violent aspect of these murders, he accused me of “sensationalising” – arguing that it isn’t known what Jack the Ripper’s motives were.
Disregard the fact that the victims were all prostitutes. It would be sensationalistic to draw any conclusions from that.
It’s true that there are many things we don’t know about Jack the Ripper. We don’t know his name and, on some level, we don’t know his reasons for killing women. However, the one thing we do know is that he targeted women in prostitution and that after he cut their throats he deliberately ripped out their wombs. From those facts, we can make a pretty good guess at at least one of his motivations. He was a man who hated women. He was a misogynistic killer who targeted women’s bodies in a highly gendered way.
My, what a sensationalistic thing to say. Feminists are so dramatic.
The Ripper Museum, and the defence of its existence, would perhaps matter less if such crimes were confined to the past. But the simple truth is that male violence against women is not a historical curiosity. It is not a mystery to be explored via an audio tour and a few exhibition boards. It is happening to women today all over the UK and all over the world.
In the UK, between January and August this year, an estimated 85 women have been killed by men. That’s one woman every 2.8 days. Many of these women will have been killed by current or former partners – in fact, on average, two every week. At the same time as the Ripper museum opens its doors, government cuts mean the refuges which save women’s lives are closing theirs.
But we don’t know that they are killed because they’re women. Maybe it’s because they burned the potatoes.
When the museum’s PR tries to deny that sexual violence had a part to play in these murders, when newspapers look to the nagging or cheating wife in spousal homicide cases, they are ignoring the stark and frightening reality of male violence against women. As a society we are all too quick to ignore the fact that Jack the Ripper, and violent men throughout history, choose to abuse and kill women. In Jack’s case, our decision to ignore that has led to him becoming a cult figure who exerts a grotesque fascination over the public imagination.
On the museum’s merchandise, Jack the Cult Figure stands tall and menacing under the lamppost.
The women he killed are reduced to a smudge of blood at his feet.
Really? So I clicked on the link, and saw how the “museum” is advertising their lad Jack.
That is one very romanticized image. He looks Byronic and dashing. His victims? Oh nobody wants to look at them, they were poor and lumpen and female and whorey.
I just read some of the autopsy reports. They’re not very glamorous.
Updating to add:
I forgot to point out the ad copy on the page for the Jack the Ripper shot glass £6.00.
We can neither confirm nor deny that Jack The Ripper did shots. But if he did, he probably had a neat looking shot glass.
Isn’t that just adorable?
A few years ago, my hometown of London, Ontario briefly had a professional baseball team called the “London Rippers”. Team ownership claimed that there was no connection to the English serial killer.
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Canadian-team-draws-heat-for-8216-Jack-the-Rip?urn=mlb-wp27055
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Rippers
They folded part way through their inaugural season. And there was much rejoicing.
I did a lot of reading on the Ripperology website a couple of years ago.
There were at least forty something other women whose bodies were found at the same time. People argue about whether other women should be included amongst the women whose names we know. They focus on just those five women and ignore the other women murdered in exactly the same period.
Then as today, women were murdered routinely and horribly and their murderers were never discovered. We like the story of Jack the Ripper because we can pretend these murders are an aberration, not the norm.
It’s horrendous.
Is that museum suggesting that the fictitious man called Jack the Ripper is “cool’?
I’m going to pop off and hyper-ventilate, now.
So, they’ve dropped all pretense of caring about women’s history at all.
Because if they cared about women’s history at all, or even wanted to pretend their museum does, they would be the ones insisting that the women’s existence *as women* made them targets. They would be pointing out information about misogyny in Victorian times, and comparing it to other historic periods. They would contrast the poor women of the East End with the “barques of frailty”, courtesans who managed to keep some social status, because the poor and the rich are never treated equally, even when they do the same things. Even *with* their crappy idea for a theme, you could still talk about women’s history.
But they can’t be bothered to even pretend anymore.
Not all agree we dont know the killer’s name. Gruesome best-selling crime fiction writer Patricia Cornwell wrote her non-fiction Portait of a Killer – Jack the Ripper Case Closed (c) 2002 which names him as one Walter Sickert.
My pocket edition is isbn 0-7515-3359-9 .
Cornwell’s Sickert story has never been taken too seriously. A critical reading of her book shows that she’s massaging the (extremely limited) data to her a priori conclusion.
So, John, are you saying Cornwell would agree then? ;-) Negating my counter-example.
Must be over ten years since I laboriously read her book, bought at an airport, and I don’t feel like doing a replay now, and certainly not to retrace her steps through sources, but you may be right.
She did have some data anyway, and presented it in the notes.
The popular story has long hinted at a major coverup in order to protect royalty. If so, that would explain the scarcity of evidence, I guess.
The more I look into this “museum” the more disgusting this whole thing gets.
learie @ 3 – yes that absolutely is what it’s doing. Just go to their shop page, it tells us all we need to know.
http://www.jacktherippermuseum.com/store/c1/Featured_Products.html
Unnecessary hypothesis. The scarcity of evidence is adquately explained by the fact that standardized forensic investigation was still in its infancy.
Most reputable investigators, weighing the available evidence, think the murderer was likely a slum dweller, like his victims.* Decidedly unglamorous.
* There were a couple of close calls; whoever it was was very familiar with the area and able to blend in.
OMG. (It’s interesting that it really did take a minute for that not-very-subliminal message to sink in. Or do I mean appalling?)
It’s PUA’s taken to the next level and given hallucinogens. Way to nurture the next generation of men who act on their misogyny and need for a sense of power. They are inviting people into the place and SELLING stuff suggesting that murdering women makes you slick and cool? And, I don’t know, a role model? Did I already say OMG?
Aaron Koszminscki* was the man the Scotland Yard inspector believed was guilty. He was a butcher living with his brother and sister-in-law who was committed to an asylum. As Lady Mondegreen said about glamour and the lack of it. Walter Sickert wasn’t in Whitechapel at the time of one (or two?) of the murders. So, not him. The Prince of Wales theory is up there with Area 51. It’s just nonsense. (I’m embarrassed that I know about this at all.)
I really don’t understand this Jack-the-Ripper stuff any more. Seriously, the five women could have been killed by anyone. Just like the forty plus other women murdered just as horribly. Women were murdered every day – why pretend the “Ripper” was a singular phenomenon?
*I think I have too many s’ in there
well obviously, so dipshits like the people who run this “museum” can make money.
Well, “women’s history” was clearly a mere bait. Still, should I be shocked?
Torture museums were mentioned here many times. Check also some gangster museums in America, together with the souvenirs which you can buy there (Bonnie and Clyde? Al Capone? So cool, aren’t they?)
I tried to wonder what it is exactly that you are campaigning for. (Outcome: no matter what it is, I stand with you!)
– you want the commercial enterprises to stop pretending and lying about their real aims. And yes, of course, I’m with you on this. Naturally, they won’t stop lying…but exposing someone from time to time brings a refreshing effect and clears the atmosphere (if only just a little bit), so why not?
– you find this concrete museum particularly irksome and you want it to become more sensitive about the victims (just this concrete museum – nothing more general than that). This would be a very modest aim. Even though I find many other places (books, movies) equally irritating, I can symphatize.
– your perspective is more general: you want the commercial enterprises to stop feeding sick and morbid fascinations. Perhaps even more ambitiously, you want a pure world in which no one has any morbid fascination at all – especially relating in any way to problems of the contemporary world. Famous gangsters? But gang crime is still a serious problem, so not cool, how dare you! Torture? But people are still tortured all over the world, so not cool, how dare you! Death? Just wait until someone beloved dies on you; not cool, how dare you! Let us all become pure and let all of this stop at once!
If the last, I’m also strongly with you. In fact, I wouldn’t lose such an opportunity for all the gold in Fort Knox, as I’m hopelessly, sickly and morbidly fascinated with lost causes.
I doubt that’s really Ophelia’s perspective (Ophelia?), but in any case, if it’s yours, Ariel, I wish you’d realize that you’re making some unwarranted assumptions.
I mentioned in an earlier thread that I’m one of those people who is fascinated by true crime and by horror fiction. I’ve read books about the Whitechapel murders–and, you may be surprised to learn, learned a great deal about the slums of Whitechapel and the day-to-day lives of Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly.
Not everybody who has such interests (“morbid preoccupations”) is “sick” or identifies with the bad guys, OK? This particular “museum” began as an offensive bait-and-switch, and is obviously an attempt to make a cheap buck. No need to generalize from there.
“Wait until”!?
Some of us are sadly well acquainted with loss, thank you.
Where do you think the fascination comes from?
Interest in the dark side of life is not, in itself, morally or psychologically suspect.
Lady Mondegreen:
That’s also what I think. If it weren’t for their initial make-believe game, no one’s brows would be raised and their “attempt to make a cheap buck” would go unnoticed – as in many other, otherwise similar, cases.
However, once it started, very quickly the criticism went far, far beyond that. They were accused not just of cheating and being a cheap tourist trap, but also of glorifying sexual violence, making fun of the murder and mutilation of women, or – in one commenter’s words – of “nurturing the next generation of men who act on their misogyny and need for a sense of power”. Please, read the last two paragraphs of my previous comment in this light. They are written tongue-in-cheek. Totally.
Yes, I remember. Believe me, I’ve got a fair share of “morbid preoccupations” myself.
From personal histories – often not of a particularly pleasant sort. (No worries, I’m not planning to dwell on mine.)
Sincerely, I don’t know. In my own case I would say that it is psychologically suspect, but I do not treat it as a general judgment. (On the other hand, I think sometimes that what’s really psychologically suspect is not to be psychologically suspect … ah, forget it. It’s only too easy to become lost in stupid rationalizations.)
@Ariel, ah, well, despite my defensive reaction, I realize that we’re rarely the best judge of whether or not our own interests are psychologically suspect!
Thanks for the clarification.