Feminism is about listening to other people and their experiences. Unfortunately, in the past, the feminist movement has not done this much. This can be seen in how feminists from different demographics see the same topics and issues. Chapter 4 of Feminism: Issues & Arguments by Jennifer Saul and “Racism, Birth Control, and Reproductive Rights”, a chapter of Women, Race, and Class by Angela Davis, approach the topic of birth control very differently. In this essay, I will be discussing these differences. First, I will discuss the most striking differences in focus or subject matter between them. Next, I will discuss whether or not there are any ideas from Saul’s text that are helpful when applied to the issues described in Davis’s essay. Then, I will …show more content…
Although there are many that could possibly be related to Davis’s essay, Jaggar’s ideas make the most sense to apply to it. As Saul states, Jaggar believes that “decisions should be made by those who are most affected by them” (Saul 124). Thus, it does not make sense for someone to talk about their experiences regarding an issue if they are not affected by it. We can apply this concept to Angela Davis’s essay by considering the reactions that some white feminists may have to women of color and women of other marginalized groups that mistrust feminism and the birth control movement. As Davis said, “... the birth control movement has seldom succeeded in uniting women of different social backgrounds, and rarely have the movement’s leaders popularized the genuine concerns of working-class women” (Davis 1). As she explains later in her essay, women of color and poor women have been victims of the eugenics movement, which explains their aforementioned fear of feminism and the birth control movement. Therefore, it is ignorant and offensive for white feminists to not understand or mock women of color and poor women that feel this
During the 1950s and 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement for African Americans developed. Following, various civil rights movements for minorities began to emerge. These movements mainly focused on their own ethnic struggles, however, the feminist movement had no relation towards a culture. Generally, the feminist movement targeted women’s issues from reliable birth control, safe and legal abortion, and equal pay. At the same time, the movement failed to acknowledge the issues minories encountered besides sexism.
In the news article “Abortion: Every Woman’s Rights” Sharon Smith wrote an article about women’s rights to get abortions prior to the hearing of the Planned Parenthood v. Casey court case, “which threatened to severely restrict women access to abortion” (Smith). Women wanted reproductive control over their lives and felt that they were not equal to men no matter what advances they got at work and how high their level of education was. The women’s right movement wanted women to have the choice of abortion for all women, the rich and the poor. In the US, thirty- seven states did not provide
The Road to Women’s Birth Control “There is a striking kinship between our movement and Margaret Sanger’s early efforts…Our sure beginning in the struggle for equality by non-violent direct action may not resolute without the tradition established by Margaret Sanger and people like her” (qtd. in Knowles 11). Margaret Sanger was a radical outspoken woman who wanted to change social norms. She was the 6th out of eleven children that lived in poor conditions, even as she struggled to go to school she made it through nursing and focused on how she could help end unwanted pregnancies due to her own personal family tragedy.
Regardless of one’s views on the topic of contraception, Margaret Sanger’s Woman and the New Race helped to break new ground through encouraging women to take control of their bodies. Early in her writing, Sanger brings up overpopulation and how women’s primary role as mothers have contributed to this issue. “While unknowingly laying the foundations of tyrannies and providing the human tinder for racial conflagrations, woman was also unknowingly creating slums, filling asylums with insane, and institutions with other defectives. She was replenishing the ranks of the prostitutes, furnishing grist for the criminal courts and inmates for prisons. Had she planned deliberately to achieve this tragic total of human waste and misery, she could hardly have done it more effectively.” This artfully formed passage shows the passion behind Sanger’s beliefs. While on the surface it may seem that she is attacking women, the point of her idea is to frame the passive nature of women in Western Society up to this point.
“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
Today, the availability of birth control is taken for granted. There was a time, not long passed, during which the subject was illegal (“Margaret Sanger,” 2013, p.1). That did not stop the resilient leader of the birth control movement. Margaret Sanger was a nurse and women’s activist. While working as a nurse, Sanger treated many women who had suffered from unsafe abortions or tried to self-induce abortion (p.1). Seeing this devastation and noting that it was mainly low income women suffering from these problems, she was inspired to dedicate her life to educating women on family planning—even though the discussion of which was highly illegal at the time (p.1). She was often in trouble with
In her chapter “Our Bodies, Ourselves: Reproductive Rights” she displays how the different society classes and race played a role in women’s rights (reproductively) as for the access to legal abortions, for most of the African Americans and the poor were not able to receive access to legal abortions due to cost. This chapter compares to Andrea Tone’s novel by illustrating how women of color were not privileged, which resulted in many having illegal abortions, as well as the right to choose when they could have children due to their demanding
They affirmed that women must have the freedom to access safe and effective birth control, the freedom of financial equality, and the freedom to vote. Although these women were advocating for financial equality and birth control over a hundred years ago, women today still do not have equal pay; in 2015, women earned seventy-eight cents for each dollar that a man earned for equal work. Moreover, during the 2016 Women’s March, Americans marched to express that they do not support cutting funding to Planned Parenthood, an organization that, like Margret Sanger’s, provides affordable, safe, and effective birth control to women. Many of the efforts that Progressive feminists fought decades ago are still being fought today; the topic is arguably as relevant as it was during the
These strategies continue to undermine the choices that the Women of Color have in deciding whether or not they want to have children because they do not want to be stigmatized with poverty. Obviously, the adverse and psychological effects of the various interlocking forms of oppressions that limits Women of Color’s reproductive rights makes it very important to understand them.
Though she attempts to appeal to their motherhood by referencing her children being “sold off to slavery,” the majority of white women did not work for the right’s of black women after white women gained their suffrage. This reminds me of Angela Davis’ lecture on Liberation and her examination of slaves being considered human. Should “women’s rights” not include all women? If the women seeking equal rights were truly seeking equality, they would have rallied around black people being forced and threatened out of the polls. Are black women truly not women?
One of birth control’s biggest shifts in the U.S came with the release of the new contraceptive pill and it not only shaped the view of women, but birth control also altered a woman’s economic status, religious views, and even her political status. The pill served as a liberating factor for women and helped women achieve sexual and professional self-realization.
We’ve all been told different stories of the ‘birds and the bees’, whether it be from your parents or classmates. What most of us don’t really understand is the different types of contraception and how sometimes it’s uneasy to get a hold of. All through time birth control has received different opinions, and several people have tried to ban it altogether or even make it harder to get a hold of. In this essay, the struggles women face while accessing birth control, why it shouldn’t be banned, and the different viewpoints on this subject overall, will be discussed to provide a different perspective on why birth control should be available to all women.
In the context of the essay’s claims of intersectional awareness, a meaningful aspect of this principle lies in its acknowledgement of the American Eugenics Movement, a period of forced sterilization of women of color that is frequently neglected in the dominant narrative regarding reproductive justice. As author Andrea Smith argues, hegemonic feminism’s investment in paradigms such as the ‘pro-life vs. pro-choice’ debate “reifies and masks the structures of white supremacy and capitalism” which have historically stripped “the other” of self-determination in their reproductive decisions (Smith 2005: 120). Behind the entrenched stance of ‘pro-choice’ lies a history of sterilizing contraceptives given to women of color without informed consent, and behind ‘pro-life’ lies one of stigmatization and criminalization of women of color who “are less likely to have alternative strategies for addressing unwanted pregnancies” (Smith 2005:130 & 134). Therefore, it is vital to note that the platform demands “the freedom to choose both whether to have children and when to have them,” while also alluding to a discriminatory history which has served as a source of complication in regards to these mainstream concepts (IWS
“No woman can call herself free who does not control her own body, nor can no woman call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother.” Margaret Sanders, an early feminist and birth control activist, strove greatly for women, especially in their stand for contraceptives that would help prevent unwanted pregnancies. She understood that women become greatly affected by the choice of having an abortion for that right alone assures them that they are in complete control over their bodies. Denying women of this right would not only make it unconstitutional, it would make it to where the woman does not even have the right to decide matters regarding her own body. Stemming from that, there have been many
Women have fought tirelessly through the centuries to gain rights such as voting, recognition of competency in the workforce, jobs and control over reproductive health. Women have made tremendous strides towards the goal of equality, however our progress is being threatened by a new “conservative” president and government majority with an outdated agenda of rehashing previously “moot” issues, a sub-group of feminists, an attack on planned parenthood’s established reproductive services, and a societal