"Square girls" : Prostitutes and prostitution in Dunedin in the 1880s

Abstract

The study of prostitutes and prostitution in New Zealand has usually been subordinate to a more general analysis of women and crime. As prostitutes were, and still are, regarded as criminals in New Zealand, this has been a valid approach. However, prostitution was a particular sort of crime, in that it was essentially a crime against middle class morality. As a consequence, a study of prostitution, in itself, not only allows a fuller appreciation of the nature and extent ,of prostitution in New Zealand, but also an insight into the social structure and attitudes pertaining to sexuality and morality in colonial New Zealand. [extract from Introduction]