Motherhood Betty Rollin Analysis

“The most important force in the remaking of the world is a free motherhood.” This quote from Margaret Sanger highlights many first wave feminists views about the restrictions of motherhood, marriage, and household responsibilities. Many women saw being a mother as a chore or as something out of their control. Sanger fought these restrictions through bringing birth control to the general public who suffered from poverty due to large families. Others, like Charlotte Perkins Gilman, wrote social critiques in her texts “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Herland to bring attention to how society treats women and ideally how motherhood should be. Both of these women believed motherhood was a responsibility of women and they should take it more seriously to create better future generations. This goes beyond the suffrage and equality movement because it dictated that women’s sexual emancipation was equally important as women’s legal emancipation. Being a mother was considered a woman’s most crucial task at this time, therefore the power behind female sexual education and birth control challenged society to feminist.

"The Mother," by Gwendolyn Brooks, is a sorrowful, distressing poem about a mother who has experienced numerous abortions. While reading the poem, you can feel the pain, heartache, distress and grief she is feeling. She is both remorseful and regretful; nevertheless, she explains that she had no other alternative. It is a sentimental and heart wrenching poem where she talks about not being able to experience or do things with the children that she aborted -- things that people who have children often take for granted. Perhaps this poem is a reflection of what many women in society are feeling.

Attention Getter: “No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body. No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother.” –Margaret Sanger

"No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother." Quoted by a women’s rights activist Margaret Sanger. Sanger is responsible for the word birth control and fighting to make it legal.

"A free race cannot be born" and no woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body. No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother"(Sanger A 35). Margaret Sanger (1870-1966)said this in one of her many controversial papers. The name of Margaret Sanger and the issue of birth control have virtually become synonymous. Birth control and the work of Sanger have done a great deal to change the role of woman in society, relationships between men and woman, and the family. The development and spread of knowledge of birth control gave women sexual freedom for the first time, gave them an individual

“Before you can cultivate a garden, you must know something about gardening.” This quote is from Margaret Sanger’s “The Children’s Era” speech given in 1925. Sanger believed that nurturing children is an art and has to be done properly in order for the children to be successful. In this illuminating speech, Margaret Sanger illustrated the lack of birth control options and overpopulation of unwanted children in order to persuade the people of New York, along with the Chairman, that it is time for a change when relating to women’s rights and children. Upon closer examination of this speech, Sanger used analogies, alliterations and focused on the children all while appealing to her knowledge along with the emotional and logical side to present her case about children being brought into the world unwanted, and that women should be in complete control of childbearing.

New Right Sociologists believe that this pattern will then be passed from generation-to-generation if nothing is done to prevent it. However, Feminist Sociologists remain heavily critical of these views and deem them as being ‘sexist’ as they are suggesting that women are incapable of bringing up a child who is free of patriarchy. They argue that through the benefits that women receive as being single-parents they can help the child avoid any domestic violence and abusive relationships and therefore a single-parent living environment could be a better place, in terms of the child, than a nuclear family in which domestic violence is present at the hands of mean because the relationship is being ‘forced’.

Birth control seems to be a fundamental part of people’s lives in this day and age. Some people simply do not want to have children until they feel the timing is right. Others, may never want to have children. It would seem logical to respect their choice and allow them the freedom to decide what is best for themselves. Yet, in the late 18th century the Comstock Act prevented the mailing of any type of contraceptives within the United States (PBS). One brave woman in particular was willing to stand up and challenge not only the Comstock Act but also the idea that contraceptive use is immoral. This woman is Margaret Sanger. Margaret Sanger took a stand for women’s rights by using her writing as a means of education, which challenged government regulations and eventually resulted in a shift in the overall acceptance of birth control.

“To the woman who wishes to have children, we must give these answers to the question when not to have them.”. This was an eloquent quote from Margaret Sanger that she delivered in her book, Women and the New Race. Margaret was a very prominent feminist and she believed that women should be educated by knowing they have the right to control what happens with their body. This person is considered, by Time Magazine, to be one of the most influential individuals of the 20th century, mostly due to her role sex education, birth control activism, and also for her writings pertaining to those issues. This is why Margaret Sanger was such an important individual. She changed course for women’s rights by advocating the legalization of the use of contraceptives

Often times, benevolent sexism is mistaken for a well-intentioned compliment. However, there are real world dangers that come with assigning a stereotype to an individual. Within business, one of the most common forms of benevolent sexism is assuming that because a woman has the ability to bear children she should engage in any nurturing roles. Melanie Tannenbaum elucidates the issue with labeling women as more caring, maternal, and compassionate in the 2013 article, “The Problem When Sexism Just Sounds So Darn Friendly”. Tannenbaum states:

The next minor claim Willis presents is that the life of an unborn child is less valuable than that of a woman who already has a history and has experienced life. According to Willis, a woman has more worth because she has “feelings, self-consciousness, a history, social ties” (2005, p. 515). By having to carry a baby, all of these important parts of her life are in jeopardy of being harmed (Willis, 2005). The concern Willis expresses for a woman’s life changing

In order to break free from the shackles of predestined breeding, Sanger suggests that women “assert their right to voluntary motherhood.” Through thinking on their own, women can be in command of their own bodies and in turn determine how to live their lives. While this may seem absurd to a modern mind, this was truly innovative and dangerous for Sanger to suggest. She was challenging traditions that dated back hundreds of years. “Even as birth control is the means by

In a world in which abortion is considered either a woman's right or a sin against God, the poem "The Mother" by Gwendolyn Brooks gives a voice to a mother lamenting her aborted children through three stanzas in which a warning is given to mothers, an admission of guilt is made, and an apology to the dead is given. The poet-speaker, the mother, as part of her memory addresses the children that she "got that [she] did not get" (2). The shift in voice from stanza to stanza allows Brooks to capture the grief associated with an abortion by not condemning her actions, nor excusing them; she merely grieves for what might have been. The narrator's longing and regret over the children she will never have is highlighted by the change in tone

Not only are woman subjected to society norms based on their personality characteristics, but also on their life choices and “domestic responsibilities” questions arise for woman like “who will care for you children and husband”. Montague Kern and Paige P. Edley state that women will continue to be “criticized for abandoning their traditional family roles” (1). This topic is not something that is brought up to their male counterparts. I don’t believe I have ever heard a man be questioned on who was going to assume the responsibility of raising their children. So until society genuinely accepts that raising children and other domestic issues are shared endeavors, then women will continue to face this barrier. (Robson, 208)

"Voluntary motherhood implies a new morality—a vigorous, constructive, liberated morality. That morality will, first of all, prevent the submergence of womanhood into motherhood. It will set its face against the conversion of women into mechanical maternity and toward the creation of a new race." (Sanger, Woman and the New Race)