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Sanger’s Control of Female Fertility
Margaret Sanger (1879-1966), the founder of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the International Planned Parenthood Federation, has been hailed as a great feminist foremother, a pioneer in the work of female liberation. Yet her feminism might not be recognizable to women today. Intimately linked with her belief in the goodness and necessity of birth control was a eugenic desire to control the reproduction of the unfit. Birth control was for fit women like herself, who wished to be freed from the difficulties of childbirth and child rearing in order to pursue a bourgeois, romantic vision of sexual freedom. But it was also for those women who were unfit, who recklessly perpetuated their damaged genetic stock by irresponsibly breeding more children in an already overpopulated world. If the latter did not voluntarily embrace birth control, according to Sanger, it should be forced upon them.
Quality not Quantity
Population control was a natural extension of Sanger’s eugenic desire for population quality, not quantity. She insisted, A qualitative factor as opposed to a quantitative one is of primary importance in dealing with the great masses of humanity. She was one of the first activists to extend the influence of eugenics by concentrating on population control (that is, facilitating quality by focusing on the not quantity side of the eugenic equation as applied to the fecund poor), and her organizations made sure she would not be the last. Demography’s attitude toward people was also determined by the quantity vs. quality dichotomy. Thus, the concern for reducing the number of people born was interwoven with the eugenic desire to reduce the number of unfit people born.
How could such eugenic sentiments be advanced by a feminist? And how could organizations such as Planned Parenthood, whose ostensible purpose is the promotion of women’s rights, support such activities? As surprising as it might be to those unaware of the seriousness of Sanger’s commitment to eugenic ideology, many forms of feminism have not been immune to oppressive tendencies and to androcentric cooptations of the feminist ideal. In order to point out the warning signs of such cooptation, I will summarize the elements of the ideology that we have seen in Sanger’s thought.
more…
Margaret Sanger (1879-1966), the founder of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the International Planned Parenthood Federation, has been hailed as a great feminist foremother, a pioneer in the work of female liberation. Yet her feminism might not be recognizable to women today. Intimately linked with her belief in the goodness and necessity of birth control was a eugenic desire to control the reproduction of the unfit. Birth control was for fit women like herself, who wished to be freed from the difficulties of childbirth and child rearing in order to pursue a bourgeois, romantic vision of sexual freedom. But it was also for those women who were unfit, who recklessly perpetuated their damaged genetic stock by irresponsibly breeding more children in an already overpopulated world. If the latter did not voluntarily embrace birth control, according to Sanger, it should be forced upon them.
Quality not Quantity
Population control was a natural extension of Sanger’s eugenic desire for population quality, not quantity. She insisted, A qualitative factor as opposed to a quantitative one is of primary importance in dealing with the great masses of humanity. She was one of the first activists to extend the influence of eugenics by concentrating on population control (that is, facilitating quality by focusing on the not quantity side of the eugenic equation as applied to the fecund poor), and her organizations made sure she would not be the last. Demography’s attitude toward people was also determined by the quantity vs. quality dichotomy. Thus, the concern for reducing the number of people born was interwoven with the eugenic desire to reduce the number of unfit people born.
How could such eugenic sentiments be advanced by a feminist? And how could organizations such as Planned Parenthood, whose ostensible purpose is the promotion of women’s rights, support such activities? As surprising as it might be to those unaware of the seriousness of Sanger’s commitment to eugenic ideology, many forms of feminism have not been immune to oppressive tendencies and to androcentric cooptations of the feminist ideal. In order to point out the warning signs of such cooptation, I will summarize the elements of the ideology that we have seen in Sanger’s thought.
more…