Hey kids, let’s have a museum of women’s history!
What shall we put in it?
Pause
for
thought
I know! Jack the Ripper!
A museum originally billed as a celebration of east London women has been branded a “sick joke” after it was unveiled to be devoted to the crimes of Jack the Ripper.
Hey, come on, he killed women didn’t he. That makes him part of women’s history – the most important part, probably. What have women ever done?
The team behind the project had promised to transform a disused Victorian building into the ‘Museum of Women’s History’ featuring images of suffragettes and other campaigners.
“It’s like some sort of sick joke,” said a resident who lives near the Cable Street site.
“You propose a museum celebrating the achievements of women and then it turns out to be a museum celebrating London’s most notorious murderer of women.”
Well being murdered is so feminine, you see. It’s passive, it’s weak, it’s being a victim, and it’s not what the woman wants. Perfect score!
The Ripper was the title given to the man behind a series of barbarous and unsolved murders of sex workers in London’s East End between 1888 and 1891.
He has never been definitively identified, and killed 11 women before he disappeared.
He sounds kind of cozy, now, like something you tell stories about over the fire on winter evenings. He doesn’t sound like those psychopaths who like to watch women bleed to death.
The original museum scheme was given the go ahead last year after plans were submitted on behalf of former Google Diversity Chief Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe.
As part of the application, architects wrote: “Our vision is to create a world class museum that celebrates the historic, current and future contribution of the women of the East End.
That’s the part that’s really pissing people off, I think. It’s fraudulent. It’s getting planning permission by making a fraudulent claim. It’s like saying you want to create a vegetarian restaurant and instead opening a slaughterhouse.
According to the Evening Standard newspaper, Mr Palmer-Edgecumbe admitted the plan to do a museum about social history of women had been scrapped to develop a project with “a more interesting angle” from the perspective of the victims of Jack the Ripper.
“It is absolutely not celebrating the crime of Jack the Ripper but looking at why and how the women got in that situation in the first place,” he said.
Ah yes – the situation they “got into” by being WHORES.
You couldn’t make it up.
So this “museum” is performing a public service! It teaches women how not to get murdered by a 19th century serial killer. Much more practical and effective than teaching 19th century serial killers not to murder women…
That’s incredibly annoying, considering how many useful and interesting things could actually be said about the history of women in the East End.
Yes, it’s lazy and pathetic. How many more times does the Jack the Ripper case need to be gone over? This guy is a ghoul.
“…teaching 19th century serial killers not to murder women…”
Don’t be ridiculous. Whom would they murder then? The answer “lions” is not acceptable.
This story is almost a perfect tale of cluelessness. All it needs is Donald Trump.
This makes you wonder some things about Google.
As a recent tourist of London, I can assure you that there is no aspect of the Jack the Ripper case that is not being adequately memorialized by any number of organizations; from the academic to obscene.
This museum is not only offensive, it is superfluous.
It’s like when I went to Salem, MA and thought, “what this place really needs is some sort of tourist information about the witch trials.”
Eleven victims? I’m not a big crime reader but even I know that there were just five. So you know these are serious Scholars here….