From Right to Responsibility

Resonance and Radicalism in Feminist‐Led Reproductive Control Movements, 1905‐1942

Dados Bibliográficos

ID6170049
AutoresMargaret R Eby (0000-0003-1004-5934, autor correspondente)
Ano2023
Volume36
Fascículo2
Páginas166-184
Data de publicação2023-04-04
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoSociology Lens (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 2832-5796 • E-ISSN: 2832-580X
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/johs.12420
OpenAlexW4362549021
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas2
Referências citadas55

How do leaders of social movements leverage resonance and radicalism to achieve movement goals? As eugenics gained prominence from the end of the 19th century through World War II, feminist leaders of contraceptive access movements pushed for the acceptance of birth control simultaneously as a right for women and as a tool to further racist, ableist and ethnonationalist eugenic interventions. This paper analyzes the trajectories of two feminist birth control activists in the United States and Germany to trace the development and divergence of their movements alongside eugenics through three general framings over the first half of the 20th century: advocating the individual, advancing humanity, and augmenting the state. This research uses personal papers and social movement records to show that these cases present a kind of double resonance through which movement leaders could reframe reproductive control as a solution not only to the problems of their audiences, but also legitimize their politics and identities. By contextualizing eugenics alongside neo‐Malthusianism, birth control, abortion, and reproductive governance, this analysis helps to map reproductive control as a device historically wielded by white feminists to organize broader political support to fit varying and contradictory ideological projects

Birth control · Eugenics · Family planning · Ideology · Political radicalism · Political science · Politics · Population · Reproductive health · Reproductive rights · Social movement · Sociology · European history and politics · Gender Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · Law · Race, History, and American Society

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