Jack The Ripper Argumentative Essay

1172 Words5 Pages

Another, more serious, way that has proven the influence of Jack the Ripper’s legacy is the various outbreaks of many forms of discrimination that have been caused in his name or as a result of his case. Jack the Ripper’s murders were committed in Britain’s Victorian Era, a time where the British majority population was filled with “moral superiority;” in other words, a sense of nationalistic pride that had very strong undertones of xenophobia and racism (Murder). The primary victims of this nationalism’s discriminatory views were Britain’s Jewish population, and the case of Jack the Ripper’s Whitechapel murders would only serve to increase the anti-Semitism already found in Victorian Britain’s society (Murder). It is no secret that Jack the …show more content…

Not only was anti-Semitism a result, but misogyny as well. It can easily be assumed that Jack the Ripper himself, should he indeed be a man as most commonly believed, was misogynist. He was known for the gory murders of five all-female prostitutes, after all. But even now, the misogyny involving Jack the Ripper continues, as strong as ever. To begin, it created misogyny during the time of the murders. As stated previously, the British majority held dear to their hearts a haughty sense of nationalistic pride, revolving around their supposed moralistic and intellectual superiority (Murder). Naturally, in such a society, occupations such as prostitution were looked down upon heavily, which did not help to ease the impacts these murders would have on women. Jack the Ripper went rather quickly from being a murderer to a sort of boogeyman in the eyes of the British population (Engelhart). The murders served as a cautionary tale to women who dared to walk the streets alone, and a means of “keeping them disciplined” (Still Public). A direct result from these murders was a phenomenon that still happens very, very often today: victim blaming (Our Jack). In other words, these murders have been blown off often with a, “she had it coming” instead of properly attributing the fault of the murder to the murderer (Our Jack). Women of the time were terrified to have to walk the streets alone for any reason, and would be shamed for doing so should anything happen to them regardless of their situation (Our Jack). It also sparked many “puritan campaigns” against prostitution, which shows where the people’s priorities truly lied (Still Public). This leads into today’s time, in which not much at all has changed. Regarding the Jack the Ripper museum, the man behind it has been quoted as saying that his museum, “is absolutely not celebrating the crime of Jack the Ripper but looking at why and how