The Five: Finally, Jack The Ripper's victims have a voice

I remember when I first learned about Jack The Ripper. I was obsessed with Victorian London as a child. I was a real, tiny historian - fascinated by cobbled streets, macabre social and political impacts, and the rotten diseases which flooded the capital.

Nothing was more sadistically interesting than Jack. The image of a dark clothed, tall serial killer stalking the streets of Whitechapel for prostitutes to attack was like something I would read in a thriller period novel. But he was real, mysterious, and deadly.

While I was obsessed with how he got away with five (perhaps even six) murders in such a small area and time period, I became aware as I grew into my feminist self that I had little idea about his female victims. I was, as many others, were always told 'they were just prostitutes', 'the bottom of society', and 'spinsters'.

The victims have always been portrayed as something subhuman. Almost like the rats which crawled the dirty streets of the East End. How did I, as a young girl, who loved horror fiction and heroine characters, not see sooner how badly these women were treated in history lessons throughout school?

Sex workers or not, they were victims who have had their names dragged through the dirt for over 100 years.

That is, until Hallie Rubenhold, a social historian whose expertise lies in exposing previously unknown women in history, wrote a groundbreaking book: The Five: The untold lives of the women killed by Jack The Ripper.

Indeed, after delving into this book, I realised their stories were completely untold. Each five, Mary Ann 'Polly' Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly, have only been known by name, but not by nature.

In fact, the assumption that all five women were prostitutes is almost completely demolished by Rubenhold. She shows the misconceptions made about these women, who were judged by the circumstances they found themselves in when they were killed, or even who they were seen with at the time.

It was simply too easy to suggest that Jack was only after prostitutes. It made it easy to categorise these killings and even justify them by blaming the women for working in a dangerous profession. When, in fact, Rubenhold's findings show that Jack was not necessarily after working women - he was simply after women in general. They were misogynist attacks, regardless of job status.

It is incredibly saddening that when you google search for Jack The Ripper's victims, all see is images of their corpses, rather than them during life.

While this is a non-fiction book (and I am far more inclined to pick up a fiction novel) this text reads less like a boring history lesson, and more like an intriguing tale. She sets the scene perfectly, putting you into the heart of poverty stricken London, where children were forced to share a bed with deceased siblings before they were buried and women were trapped in loveless, abusive marriages due to the sexist laws surrounding divorce. It's a dark, sinister place to start any story - but it was the reality for many.

If, like me, you've heard enough about Jack The Ripper - you know every suspect, conspiracy theory, brutal stabbing, organ removal and bodily mutilation - but actually know nothing about the women who were killed, this is a must-read. Travel back in time, but don't concern yourself with who held the knife, but who was truly on the receiving end, and how the course of justice never did run smooth.