Why birth control is so crucial to the transformation in women’s lives that feminists anticipated?…
In 1920, Margaret Sanger, released the article “Free Motherhood” which considered birth control the heart of feminism. Law banned not only the sale of birth control, but also distributing information about them. Sanger, an educated but rebellious woman, was well known for her role in the feminist movement. Without concern for legal repercussions, Margaret Sanger openly supported and advertised birth control in her journal, The Woman Rebel.…
Furthermore, in the 1800’s the Comstock law was created, that made birth control and other contraceptives “obscene and illicit” (PBS). Other states followed the Comstock Law as well, creating their own versions of that law which banned contraceptives. The strictest states were Massachusetts and Connecticut, people were not allowed to share information about contraceptives, or even use them. Even married couples were not allowed to use contraceptives with this law, if they were found using contraceptives, they could of been arrested as well as be sentenced to a year in prison. These laws stayed the same for many years, until Margaret Sanger came along. She is seen as an impactful women in reproductive health access. She challenged the Comstock law by opening the first…
Birth control today is widely available and talked about to keep people informed of all of their options. There was a span of time where people especially women had no knowledge of any sort about birth control or the ability to attain any. Margaret Sanger was the woman that was able to start informing woman of all of their options, and gave them a chance to be in control of their own reproductive systems, but why did Margaret Sanger advocate for birth control? What people now experience when it comes to birth control, and woman clinics such as plan parenthood comes from this one woman, and her fight to give woman control over their bodies.…
From 1914, when the term “birth control” was first created, to 100 years later, 99 percent of sexually active women report using at least one form of birth control at some point in their lives (Planned Parenthood, 2016). This drastic change causing contraception to be more readily available is chiefly credited to Margaret Sanger; who began a major reform, known as the birth control movement in the early 20th century. In Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement, this progress towards women’s rights described; specifically regarding new laws and new public roles available for women outside of the typical domestic spheres present during this time period.…
Baer, Judith A. Historical and Multicultural Encyclopedia of Women's Reproductive Rights in the United States. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002. EBSCOhost, 0-search.ebscohost.com.library2.pima.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=86636&site=eds-live&scope=site. Web. 11 Oct 2017…
Birth control pills today are seen differently and are accessible to many people. In the past, not many people talked about the topic of birth control and shied away from it because men were afraid that women would take over and attempt to fight for equality. The long endeavor to have birth control allowed women to have control of their own body without being criticized as much today. Margaret Sanger was a strong activist who fought for birth control was born in 1879 and died in 1966 had it easier for her to fight for her cause because of the place she was born in. Birth control in the late 1800’s was not a popular topic and it forced expectant mothers to do self-administered abortions and resulted in many deaths.…
Nelson, Jennifer. Women of Color and the Reproductive Rights Movement. New York, New York: New York University Press. 2003.…
As I think back to the 1960’s, this is a revolutionary item when it comes to the sexual revolution and women’s rights. Before the invention of the birth control pill and the legalization of abortion, women could have been considered baby factories. With the invention of the birth control pill, women were given a choice. It was up to women how they chose to live their lives and what they wanted to do with their body and this lead to women being able to control their future. When the Federal Drug Administration approved the pill for use as a contraceptive in the 1960’s, it was extremely popular despite concerns about possible side effects, and in 1962 an estimated 1.1 million women were using the pill. The pill also gave women the opportunity to obtain higher education and reach a level of educational equality with men. It was often said that with the invention of the pill, the women who took it had immediately been given a new freedom; the freedom to use their bodies as they saw fit, without having to worry about the burden of unwanted pregnancy. Women 's rights movements also proclaimed the pill as a method of granting women sexual liberation, and saw the popularity of the drug as just one signifier of the increasing desire for equality (sexual or otherwise) among American…
The introduction of the oral contraceptive pill in 1961 gave women the chance to achieve their potential. It gave them the freedom to choose when and if to bear a child. It provided women with the opportunity to concentrate on furthering their working careers, where available, thus leaving the domestic housewife image behind. It provided women with power over their bodies for the first time; they were in control of their sexual…
Sarah Weddington, a lawyer who represented Jane Roe, once said, “It is time to renew the battle for reproductive rights. We have been outmaneuvered, outspent, out postured, and outvoted by a group of single-issue activists…Let’s make sure it takes us a shorter time to replace protection for reproductive choice” (“Sarah Weddington Quotes”). The 1973 Supreme Court case of Roe v. Wade was a controversial turning point because it defined a woman’s constitutional right to privacy. While it gave women the right to control their own bodies it also sparked decades of ethical debate over a woman’s right to choose…
When women got the right to vote in 1919, women made a huge step toward equality but they still had a long way to go. But women continued making these steps toward equality for the remainder of the 20th century. 20 years after earning the vote, World War 2 occurred. Women took over almost of the workforce, and proved that they were an important part of society. Then later in the 1970s, the birth control pill was invented; women were now able to focus particularly on their career and having babies later. Two causes of the women's rights movement from 1940-1975 were influence of other rights movements and the need to achieve labor equality.…
As history has shown us, the mid twentieth century was a time for inspirational and instrumental societal change within the United States. Not only did we have the civil rights movement—a movement that peacefully and strategically fought for the rights and equality of African Americans—but we also had other social movements, such as the women’s reproductive rights movement, which was a movement that fearlessly fought for reproductive rights and overall equality for the women of the United States. Unfortunately, however, as will be discussed in the paragraphs that follow, while the reproductive rights that were acquired were originally intended to benefit all women, due to the nation’s (and white feminists’) racial and classed biases at the…
Our society has these roles we tend to follow growing up. Boys should play with toys like cars, tag an cops and robbers. While girls think they should be playing with dolls. Or at least that’s how we make it seem. Not every child follows these distentions though. Many choose to go their own direction. culture is has a huge part of gender roles , It’s all about your environment an what you are around plus the culture you are raised in, if you grow up being told males are ranked above the woman than that’s what you start to think over time. That leads us to the selective abortions, this was talked about in the “sex gender” article, and some environments choose to take the woman’s life at birth. Which to me, does not make since at all because as time goes by eventually we won’t have as many females and will be over populated with males. Sex is biological and includes physical attributes such as sex chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones, internal reproductive structures, and external genitalia. At birth, it is used to identify individuals as male or female. Gender on the other hand is far more complicated. Along with one’s physical traits, it is the complex interrelationship between those traits and one’s internal sense of self as male, female, both or neither as well as one’s outward presentations and behaviors related to that perception, found at www.asanet.org/ . All around the world things like this are going on. Woman get denied on all types of things like education, child mortality rates are higher, an most of the time they marry very young. A lot of the time these woman don’t have a choice to do what they want in life.…
Freedman, Lynn P., Isaacs, Stephen L. (Jan. – Feb. 1993). “Human Rights and Reproductive Choice”. Studies in Family Planning (Population Council) 24(1): 18-30…