Sexuality: Week #9 Reading Notes

Sexuality – Week 9 Reading Notes Kline (2001) – Motherhood, Morality, and the ‘Moron’ “But by 1915 white womanhood was considered no longer a marginal player in the evolution of the race but a central figure. As the ‘mother of tomorrow’, she controlled the racial makeup of future generations. Her larger-than-life presence symbolized the widespread cultural debate on the meaning of womanhood in the twentieth century. Specifically, by the early twentieth century, white female fertility had become a potential panacea for the problems of racial degeneracy. As feminist socialist Charlotte Perkins Gilman explained in Women and Economics (1899), women of the new century needed to recognized not only ‘their social responsibility as individuals, but their measureless racial importance as makers of men.’ (8) “During the 1890s a combination of factors led to an ‘unprecedented outpouring of racism’ in the middle class. Economic changes accompanying the growth of corporate capitalism threatened to annihilate the nineteenth-century ‘cult of the self-made man.’ (8) “Echoing these external, economic factors that threatened the power of the white middle class and, in particular, white manhood, internal symptoms of increasing fragility and weakness manifested themselves in the male body … While the white middle class appeared to be fading away, the strength and numbers not only of African Americans but also of the working class and immigrants seemed to increase.” (9) “Also threatening the authority of white middle-class manhood in the late nineteenth century was the ‘woman question’ … the ‘woman adrift’ and the ‘new woman’ … the working class ‘woman adrift’ appeared on the urban landscape at the end of the 19th century. New economic opportunities in retail and industry drew young single women into cities, where they lived apart from their families … Living and working independently outside the domestic sphere, these women challenged 19th century middle-class conceptions of womanhood. Not surprisingly, their presence generated a great deal of concern, and, in particular their sexuality became the focus of public anxiety.” (10) “The ‘new woman’ challenged the existing social order by demanding ‘rights and privileges customarily accorded only to white middle-class men’ … Choosing college and careers over marriage and motherhood, these women violated the 19th century ‘cult of true womanhood’ which placed middle-class women in the home. As a result, they raised questions about gender and morality.” (10) “Because they challenged the conventional standards of womanhood, these women were attacked as ‘unsexed’ or ‘mannish’. Their demand for equal rights called into question the sanctity of gender roles. Many men believed that economic equality threatened to merge the two sexes into ‘dangerous confusion’. (11) “Thus, as the growing presences and perceived virility of African Americans, immigrants, and the working class -- as well as the increasing visibility of working-class ‘women adrift’ -- threatened white middle-class male authority in both power and numbers, proponents of racial progress targeted another factor in middle-class decline: the limited fecundity of the new woman.” (11) “Linking fertility to war, Roosevelt raised the stakes of the white middle-class procreation. The white rise not only risked losing power but faced eventual extinction if women did not heed Gilman’s call to ‘social responsibility … as makers of men’. Roosevelt’s use of ‘race suicide’ generated a great deal of attention in the media.” (11) “Though Congress had outlawed the dissemination of birth-control information and the American Medical Association had succeeded in criminalized abortion by the late 19th cenutry, middle-class white women still managed to curtail conception.” (12) “Those who shared Roosevelt’s concern about race suicide blamed the new woman for neglecting her responsibility to be a maker of men … by presenting motherhood in terms of ‘race progress’, concerned commentators hoped that new women would see the error of their ways and return to the home and hearth. Concerned about the future of the white races, as well as the advancement of civilization, Progressive reformers became interested in remaking womanhood in racial and millennial terms.” (12) “Progressivism represented a widespread and varied response to the multitude of changes brought by industrial capitalism and urban growth in the late 19th century … Though it remains an ‘embattled concept’, Progressivism is still an essential, albeit challenging, ideology that helps to explain a complex era in US history.” (13) “In search of order in an increasingly complex world, they called for a new ‘social consciousness’ to strengthen American civilization. Within this context, the American eugenics movement emerged as a significant force that not only would shape immigration policy and sexual conduct during the Progressive era, but would outlive its Progressive roots to gain increasing authority in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s.” (13) “Eugenics elicited tremendous popular and professional support because it linked two issues of great concern to the white middle class in early-20th-cenutry America: race and gender.” (14) “By regulating the sexuality of working-class and immigrant women, eugenics would reform the sexual behavior of ‘women adrift’ and limit the procreation of the less ‘civilized’—that is, nonwhite and working class, races. And by encouraging middle-class white women to return to full-time motherhood, eugenics would both prevent the new woman from succeeding in her ‘vain attempts to fill men’s places’ and ensure that the white race once again would be healthy and prolific.” (14) “In the eugenic version of racial progress, the mother of tomorrow would save civilization from destruction in two ways. First, she would focus her energies on her domestic duties at home, as wife and mother. By choosing not to abandon domesticity and reproduction even in the face of new opportunities, she would restore the moral forces necessary to keep the American family intact as well as reaffirm male dominance in the public sphere. Second, by choosing procreation she would ensure that the white race would maintain its dominance.” (16-17) “The mother of tomorrow, an image of womanhood invested with a duty to her race, was a strong and long-lasting symbol of ‘positive eugenics’: the movement to promote the prolific procreation of white middle-class women, those who were considered to be the most mentally and physically sound and who would thus most effectively lead the advancement of civilization.” (19) “But the science of eugenics offered a new approach to understanding and treating this ‘girl problem.’ Such women were not depraved, sick, or victimized; rather, they were genetically flawed. The eugenic response to the problem of female sexual delinquency was appealing in the Progressive era for two reasons. First, as a science, it appealed to the Progressive belief that science provided ‘an objective method for resolving social and ethical questions’ rather than a moral rationale for regulating female sexual behavior. Second, it suggested a relatively simple solution to the problem. By restricting reproduction of “feeble-minded’ mothers to eliminate feeble-mindedness in future generations, it could curb sexual immorality and advance race progress.” (20) “This racial redefinition of feeble-mindedness, as an outward sign of a fundamental genetic flaw rather than of a slight mental impairment, had enormous implications both for those already housed in institutions for the feeble-minded and for those whose attitude, behavior, or appearance would target them The personal labeled mentally deficient was no longer for incarceration and sterilization in the future. deemed an object of curiosity of sympathy but a threat to the genetic health and stability of the race.” (25) “By redefining the boundaries of mental disability to correlate with standards of social and sexual behavior rather than with standardized levels of mental capability, the newly defined term feeble-minded also defined what constituted normal behavior.” (25) “The emergence of two opposing models of womanhood in the 1910s, the ‘mother of tomorrow’ and the ‘moron girl’, suggests that womanhood itself was undergoing reconstruction in the early 20th century … The eugenics movement tapped into this concern, countering the image of and individualistic new woman with the mother of tomorrow, a progressive, forward-looking, socially responsible, moral, and civilized women who would raise tomorrow’s children.” (29) “In an era which people supported increased state intervention and regulation, preventing the procreation of ‘prolific moron girls’ became an accepted response to the problem of female sexuality and the perceived racial decline of American civilization … But though the eugenics witnessed more activity and success with ‘negative’ strategies than with ‘positive’ ones in the 1910s and 1920s, it did not lose sight of its goal to influence white middle-class womanhood by promoting motherhood for the benefit of the race.” (30) Reagan (1991) – “About to Meet Her Maker” the State’s Investigation of Abortion, Chicago “This account drawn from the Cook County coroner’s inquest into Petrovitis’s death, illustrates this essay’s major themes: the state’s interest in obtaining dying declarations in order to prosecute abortionists; the intimate questioning endured by women during official investigations into abortion; and the ways in which physicians and hospitals served the state in collective evidence in criminal abortion cases.” (1241) “Hostility towards feminists, immigrants, and Catholics fueled the medical campaign against abortion and the passage of criminal abortion laws by state legislatures.” (1241) “The history of abortion reveals the complexity of the medical profession’s role in sexual regulation. Feminists, writing primarily in the 1970s, have tended to portray the medical profession as intent on controlling female sexuality.” (1243) “This essay analyzes the experience of ordinary people caught in criminal investigations, the routine procedures of the legal system, rather than analyzing the volume of cases that reached the courts or judicial rulings. In abortion cases, the investigative procedures themselves constituted a form of punishment and control.” (1243) “Our understanding of what punishment is needs to be refined and redefined, particularly in cases of women who violate sexual norms, to include more subtle methods of disciplining individuals. The penalties imposed on women for having illegal abortions were not fines or jail sentences, but humiliating interrogations about sexual matters by male officials—often conducted at women’s deathbeds … media attention to abortion deaths warned all women that those who strayed from marriage and motherhood would suffer death and shameful publicity.” (1244) “The state’s attempt to control abortion reflected a turn-of-the-century trend toward growing intervention by the state in medical practice as well as in sexual and family matters … The state’s interest in enforcing marriage when premarital sex led to pregnancy reveals another area where it took over the functions of the male patriarch. The punishment of unmarried men for the abortion-related deaths of unmarried women may also have reflected the influence of feminists critiques’ of male sexual irresponsibility.” (1245) “Publically, the leaders of the medical profession opposed abortion; privately, many physicians sympathized with women’s need for abortions, performed abortions, or referred patients to midwives or physicians who performed them … If a women aided despite a doctor’s efforts, he would become a likely suspect in the criminal abortion case … The state could not investigate abortion cases without medical cooperation; state officials won doctors’ help by threatening them. Physicians learned that if they failed to report criminal abortion cases, the investigative process could be turned against them.” (1251) “Press coverage of abortion-related deaths warned all women of the danger of abortion: death and publicity … Newspapers sometimes highlighted police officers’ discovery of thousands of women’s names in an abortionist’s patient records. In doing so, they implicitly threatened women who had abortions with the danger that they too could be named and exposed in the newspaper. Public exposure of a woman’s abortion—through the press or gossip—served as social punishment of women who had abortions and members of their families.” (1257-1258) “Criminal abortion investigations reveal the importance of marriage, and especially the lack of it, in the eyes of state officials … To a man, all claimed to have ‘promised to marry her’. Perhaps men understood that this was the only way they could redeem themselves in the eyes of the law and the community.” (1260) “The actions of state officials toward unmarried men implicated in criminal abortion deaths reveal the state’s stake in enforcing marriage in cases where an unwed woman became pregnant. The state punished young men for the moral offense of engaging in premarital intercourse and then failing to fulfill the implicit engagement by marrying the women they have made pregnant … In contrast, husbands, who often had been just as involved as unmarried men in obtaining abortions, were very rarely arrested or prosecuted as accomplices when their wives died.” (1261) “Investigations and inquests into abortions forcefully reminded all involved not only of the illegality of abortion but also of the power of the state to intervene in the private lives of ordinary people in order to prevent and punish violations of sexual codes that demanded marriage and maternity.” (1263) “This study of the investigation of abortion in Chicago calls attention to the social punishment inherent in the state’s routine processes of investigation and illuminates the ways in which punishment has been gendered. The state may not have prosecuted women for having abortions, but it did punish women through persistent questioning by doctors and police and through public exposure of their abortions. The harassment of sick or dying women in the name of criminal investigation continued until the decriminalization of abortion.” (1263) “At a time when abortion is a political issue of national importance, the history of the enforcement of the criminal abortion laws should serve as a warning against recriminalized abortion. If abortion is made illegal again, we can expect that the punitive procedures of the past will be revived. … Today, as in the past, enforcement of any criminal abortion law will target the most powerless groups—poor and workingclass women, women of color, and teen women—and their healthcare will be harmed the most. The history of illegal abortion is a history that should not be repeated.” (1264) Tone (1996) – Contraceptive Consumers: The Political Economy of Birth Control in the 1930s “The McCall’s ad, one of hundreds of birth control ads published in women’s magazines in the 1930s reflects the rapid growth of the contraceptive industry in the US during the Depression … Capitalizing on Americans’ desire to limit family size in an era of economic hardship … Decades before the pill became a household word, the political economy of birth control in the US had already been shaped. It was during the Depression that the structure of the modern contraceptive market emerged … Through successful advertising they heightened demand for commercial birth control while building a permanent consumer base that facilitated the industry’s subsequent expansion.” (185-186) “Through successful advertising, they heightened demand for commercial birth control while building a permanent consumer base that facilitated the industry’s subsequent expansion … Neither legal restrictions nor medical disapproval thwarted the industry’s ascent, however. Instead, they merely pushed the industry underground, beyond regulatory reach. Contraceptive manufacturers in the 1930s exploited this vacuum to their advantage, retailing devices that were often useless and/or dangerous in a manner that kept with the birth-control business on the right side of the law.” (486) “Because neither the government nor the medical establishment condoned lay use of commercial contraceptives, consumers possessed no reliable information with which to evaluate the veracity of a product’s claim … Within this highly profitable and unfettered trade, women became the market’s most reliable and, by extension, most exploited customers … Women became favored recipients of this selfcongratulatory encomium.” (486) “Depression-era manufacturers and retailers of birth control adopted the same consumption/liberation formula to sell women lipstick, Hoover vacuum cleaners, and Chrysler cars to construct the first contraceptive mass market in the US.” (487) “Just as consumption was trumpeted as a characteristically female freedom, so, too, was reproduction portrayed as a distinctively female task … Drawing upon and simultaneously reinforcing the prevailing gender system, the birth control industry reified the naturalness of women’s twin roles as consumers and reproducers. Conjoining these functions, manufacturers, and retailers urged women to use their purchasing ‘power’ to assume full responsibility for pregnancy prevention.” (487) “Contraceptive manufacturers did not create the desire to control fertility, but they preyed on and compounded women’s fears of pregnancy to reap higher profits … Could a woman in the ‘modern age’ afford not to buy the news contraceptives?” (488) “Congress enacted the Comstock Act in 1873 … any article whatever for the prevention of conception … criminalized the circulation of contraceptive devices and information within state lines.” (488) “After the Comstock restrictions were passed, birth control continued to be sold, marketed for its therapeutic or cosmetic, rather than its contraceptive, value. Significantly, however, commercial contraceptive use became more closely associated with economic privilege. The clandestine nature of the In effect, market prompted many reputable firms to cease production altogether … contraceptive information, like contraceptives themselves, became a privileged luxury.” (489) “The Voluntary Parenthood League, successor of the now-defunct National Birth Control League, pursued a different tactic. Fearful that a doctors-only strategy would make contraception a privilege of the elite, the League lobbied to have birth control struck from federal obscenity laws. It, too, was unsuccessful.” (490) “The cumulative effect of these activities—the sensationalist tactics, the organizational impetus, the failed legislative initiatives, and the expansion of public clinics—was to make Americans ‘birth control conscious.” (491) “PX, a less-known brand, sold a liquid disinfectant that ads claimed could be used interchangeably for ‘successful womanhood’ or athlete’s foot.” (493) “ The paucity of information impeded the development of informed consumerism. In advertising text and in many women’s minds, the euphemism ‘feminine hygiene’ continued to signify reliable contraception. For unscrupulous manufacturers eager to profit from this identification, feminine hygiene continued to be a convenient term invoked to sell products devoid of contraceptive value.” (493) “Neither the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) nor the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was in a strong position to rally to consumers’ aid … Sadly for the growing pool of female contraceptive consumers, without regulation and reliable standards for discrimination among products, the only way to discern a product’s safety and efficacy was through trial and error.” (494) “… the longevity of a marriage depended upon the right commercial contraception …Having divulged the ugly and myriad hazards of unwanted pregnancy while saddling women with the burden of its prevention, advertisements emphasized that peace of mind and marital happiness were conditions only the market could bestow.” (495) “The gradual expansion of government regulation of commercial contraceptives had a similarly negligible impact on the feminine hygiene sector of the industry … FDA regulations encouraged manufacturers of condoms to adopt stricter quality-control measures. They did little, however, to safeguard the health and safety of feminine hygiene consumers.” (499) “The escalation of industry profits followed closely on the heels of the construction of the female contraceptive consumer; by World War II, not only did sales of feminine products surpass those of condoms, but more women depended on feminine hygiene for birth control than on any other method.” (500) “The commercialization of birth control in the 1930s illuminates the important but overlooked role of industry in shaping birth-control developments in the US … The events of the 1930s suggest that we need to recast this story to include the agency of a new set of actors, birth-control manufacturers. The commercialization that manufacturers engendered at this time left an indelible imprint on the lives of ordinary women and men. It also revealed a world in which industry, gender, and reproduction were frequently and intimately intertwined.” (500-501) ● Capitalism allowed for the free market exploration in the development of different birth control products that would not have been possible with closer FDA/government regulation ●