Talk:Eugenic feminism

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 20 January 2021 and 21 April 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Shetty.in.

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Undo of mass removal

User Onetwothreeip has removed large chunks of the article body without first discussing their reasoning here on the talk page. Some of their editing has merit, but not at the expense of removing such large portions of the article. I am performing a rollback and will cover below why I believe them to be problamatic

[1] Reason:No evidence of Margaret Sanger being a "eugenic feminist" rather than supporting both feminism and eugenics

Rebuttle: The NYU citation refutes this, it does state upfront that Sanger is often unfairly criticised with the lead paragraph:

In one of the seminal texts in this extremist assault on Sanger, the 1979 Margaret Sanger: Father of Modern Society (both its title and cover – pictured here– prepare the reader for the many leaps of faith to come), the author suggests that Sanger, through her "eugenic" writings and speeches, put into motion a "‘polite' genocide with an army of biologists, sociologists, eugenicists and psychologists at her side," and did so without raising any suspicions among the people. (p. 24) So effective was Sanger as a propagandist, claims the author, that her debased "values" have become "those of modern Western civilization and are rapidly becoming the morals which dominate the rest of the world." (p. 9)

But later establishes that she subscribed to some eugenic thinking, not only for, but this implies that at least impart for women's libiration

What is, of course, overlooked is that Sanger used the popular eugenics movement to help promote birth control as a science-based remedy for overpopulation, poverty, disease and famine. Incorporating the rhetoric of the eugenics movement into her writings allowed Sanger to make a stronger biological argument that fertility control was necessary for the improvement and health of the entire human race, not only as a means to liberate women.

[2]No edit message [3] Reason:Removing excessive quotes and details not relevant to eugenic feminism, and Famous Five aren't known for being "eugenic feminists" despite supporting eugenics

Reason why quotes were included: "But directly we observe, under the microscope, the facts of development, we discover that each parent contributes an exactly equal share to the making of the new individual, and all the ancient and modern ideas of the superior value of well-selected fatherhood fall to the ground. Woman is indeed half the race.[...] And thus it matters for the future at least as much how the mothers are chosen as how the fathers are.[...] " Included because: Establishes that eugenic thought were considering women as having an important part in genetic health

"Woman is half the race; and the leaders of the woman's movement must recognize the importance of their sex in this fundamental question of eugenics. No one will question that the position and happiness and self-realization of women in the modern world would be vastly enhanced by the reforms for which I plead, though some men will not think that game worth the candle." Included because: Shows that formally sexist eugenic thought began to align with feminist thought, even if this was not the common at the time.

[4] The statement "Proponents of mainstream eugenics and some early advocates of women’s rights found common ground. Not all early feminists supported eugenic practices" is important to establish context, earlier complaints about the article demonstrated that it seemed to slanted, this helps to establish that eugenics was to some degree common but not unanimous in the early 20th century.

Please try and make smaller incremental edits, rather than removing huge chunks of body text, which establish attribution and context. Some of the content of those edits looked good, so just split them into smaller chunks so conflicts don't have to be dealt with by rollback. Ethanpet113 (talk) 22:40, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Your rollback restored plagiarized text and is in violation of good academic practice. XOR'easter (talk) 22:48, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

I reasoned my edits in the edit summaries. The edits that I made which did not have summaries were for removing images and minor formatting/grammar fixes.

Your NYU citation does not back up what you are saying, it only says that another book said something like what you are saying, in what NYU calls an "extreme assault" on Sanger. This is certainly cherrypicking if not just unencyclopaedic, and even the text that NYU quotes doesn't say Margaret Sanger was a "eugenic feminist". She supported some eugenics, which is very adequately detailed on the article about Margaret Sanger.

You're using quotes as a substitute for written prose, and you're very selectively quoting them. Not only choosing what to quote, but cutting quotes off at certain points, and using a lot of them.

It looks like you're in the middle of two possible articles. One about the interaction between eugenics and early feminism, and one about Caleb Saleeby's and others' use of a term "eugenic feminism". It's extremely difficult to have an article about both, and we have to accept this article, to have any logic, is more about Caleb Saleeby than Margaret Sanger. Onetwothreeip (talk) 23:05, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

In this edit summary, Ethanpet113 says, "It may help if you try to imrpove the article with some editing instead of just cutting chunks out of it." I presume this is referring to me, although since that edit reverted my changes to another revision by me, it's a bit confusing. Anyway, I have not just been "cutting chunks out of it". This edit removed material that I had added, with citation, to improve the "In the United States" section, while restoring text that misrepresented its source material, in addition to containing a syntactical trainwreck that apparently arose from superficially editing some text copied out of Ziegler. The version that Ethanpet113 re-instated bases a strong claim upon a sub-par source (a passing mention in a book review), while removing the biographical information I added from Ziegler's much more in-depth treatment. I regard this version of that section as absolutely unacceptable. XOR'easter (talk) 23:55, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

You are actively pushing for deletion of this article when the majority opinion is it should be kept, and previously opened the deletion while it was in draft space so I could be forgiven for thinking you may attempting to undermine its validity. Regrettably I cannot always find amazing sources because the body of work is quite small, so I'm sticking with what I can find, and supplementing with the information that is available in larger texts. If you believe a source is subpar I invite you to use the template

It is quite difficult to generate prose for a contentious topic. Information such as Salebeey's words in the public more than adequately make the point, and adding any additional prose would add redundant repetition of his statements, and risk reinterpreting them. If you believe you can add to the statements, or convert them to prose while maintaining the WP:V I invite you to do so. The article is written as such, as previous attempts to write the article in other manners while in draft space resulted in accusations of that the article did not adequately summarize the points of the citations.Ethanpet113 (talk) 00:06, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

The quotes are selected because the body of work is large, all the participants have lots of quotable work. The quotes selected are only the information pertinent to the topic, if you would like to read the context of the original works, much of the information is available freely online. Previously the article also tried to quote even harder, but that was found to be too much copyvio-esque, so some of the body may have changed.

Sanger is selected not as an assault but as a statement of fact, her work was influenced by eugenic thought and you can read about it in Eugenic Feminism, Reproductive Nationalism in the United States and India by Asha Nadkarni. The article makes a point that not all feminists were all eugenicists all the time, but sometimes they were. That history might make you uncomfortable, but we're not on wikipedia to do Historical negationism.

I would happily undo the disruptive edits, but the changes were so significant that they could not be automatically undone, so it was faster to rollback. Sorry about that, please continue to make any edits you feel appropriate, but maybe again split them up so zealous edits don't make it impossible to reach consensus without undoing everything.

Ethanpet113 (talk) 00:06, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

There isn't a consensus for your reversal of our edits, Ethanpet113. We're here at the talk page where XOR'easter and I agree with removing and rewording the parts that we have done so. We have split them up over many edits now but we're standing by all of them. Onetwothreeip (talk) 00:09, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

As for Nellie McClung, where does it say she was a eugenic feminist? Onetwothreeip (talk) 00:31, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

I think the Devereux book is a better source for that than the website, which was just a blog post on a site that doesn't specialize in history. It even calls itself a "listicle", which ought to be an automatic disqualification. :-) The eugenics part is only one item in that list; we're better off going to more serious sources. XOR'easter (talk) 00:46, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Does the book explicitly describe her as a eugenic feminist? Onetwothreeip (talk) 00:47, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

It's fair to say so (e.g., "a significant part of McClung's race-based and eugenic feminist reform work"). XOR'easter (talk) 00:53, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

I think it would be fair to say that quote supports McClung doing eugenic feminist work, but not being a "eugenic feminist". Onetwothreeip (talk) 01:08, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

In general, this topic seems prone to conflation between the term used at the time (e.g., by Saleeby) and how the term is applied in retrospect. That is to say, while the term eugenic feminism itself dates back to 1911, when it's used now, it isn't necessarily meant in the same sense. A historian might label some figure in the past as part of "eugenic feminism" without meaning that they were a Saleebian. While doing background research on this, I was struck by the paucity of early-20th-century uses, other than Saleeby himself (a phenomenon visualizable with Google ngrams). People didn't stand up then and say, "I am a eugenic feminist!" They said a lot of stuff, some of which has prompted later academics to discuss them under the heading of "eugenic feminism". XOR'easter (talk) 14:02, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm referring to how academics would call them, not their own description. Onetwothreeip (talk) 20:17, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

I've edited the McClung image caption. In a similar vein, the opening sentence of the article seems misleading to me. Saleeby was not merely trying to describe an area of conceptual overlap, like a historian would many years later, but instead, he was actively trying to change the situation. He was advancing a vision of eugenics and of feminism, portrayed so as to be compatible with one another. XOR'easter (talk) 03:32, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Rensing on feminist eugenics

@Onetwothreeip: Hi, do you have access to the Rensing book about feminist eugenics?

• Rensing, Susan Marie (2006). Feminist Eugenics in America: From Free Love to Birth Control, 1880-1930. University of Minnesota – via Google Books.

The proquest link Macie Anderson added points to a specific university proxy, but if you have access to proquest, this trimmed link should work for you: https://search.proquest.com/docview/305305975 . It looks to me like there is something substantial there about Stanton and eugenic feminism: in the google snippet view, her name apparently turns up on 45 pages. In the limited proquest front-matter preview I can see, Rensing says

As [chapter 1] illustrates, for Stanton, eugenics could be used as a valuable weapon for asserting women's biological importance and the need for women's social reform. Thus Stanton chose to go beyond her comfortable terrain of radical republicanism in order to arm herself with eugenics in a concerted attempt to outflank women's rights opponents by fighting science with science.

I think it would be nice if someone who has access to the book could take a look through chapter 1. (Rensing also says something about how most historiography portrays Sanger as abandoning feminism when she became a eugenicist, but that she (Rensing) will describe a more complex situation in chapter 6: that might be worth looking into as well.) Cheers, gnu57 00:11, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't, sorry. There isn't anything from what you've quoted that suggests Stanton was a eugenicist or was involved in eugenic feminism. It's also highly tenuous to link Sanger to eugenics, especially in a way that links eugenics to feminism. I hope this publication by Rensing is representative of consensus academic views. We've had similar problems here before. Onetwothreeip (talk) 01:15, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

I looked around a bit more for information about Stanton's views and found these two other books: [5] [6] which say that Stanton subscribed to social darwinism, a precursor to the eugenics movement. The first says

Finally, the hereditarian bent that is discernible in Cady Stanton's arguments as early as 1850 ... became increasingly pronounced as the years passed until it became a major theme in her work that was consistent with social darwinism and the early eugenics movement.

The second one goes into detail on Stanton's scientific-racist and social darwinist views. This review, as well, says that

As positivism, social Darwinism, and Anglo-Saxonism emerge and develop in the United States, Cady Stanton's rhetoric animates problematic racist, proto-eugenics, and nativist themes.

As far as I can see, Rensing doesn't call Cady Stanton a eugenicist, but she says her writings are important for understanding "the formation of feminist eugenics within the context of the suffrage, social purity, and free love movements."

As for Sanger, isn't it generally accepted that she held some views in common with eugenicists, but highly disputed whether or not eugenics had any bearing on her birth-control advocacy? (Here for example are two essays of hers: [7][8]) Cheers, gnu57 21:33, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

I think it is clear that Stanton used eugenic arguments to advocate feminist policies to a wider public, and likely so has Sanger. I'm not sure how this information can be used in this article, but this article surely isn't a list of early feminists who in some way overlapped with eugenics, or vice versa. Onetwothreeip (talk) 22:28, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Doesn't Zeigler argue that early eugenic feminists constituted a distinct school of thought within the broader eugenics movement? As I looked into this more, I found some other scholars who seem to be arguing along similar lines. (Surprisingly to me, there is a lot of coverage of eugenic feminism in Japan in particular.) Have you found other RS arguing that that's not the case? I did find this one saying that post WWI the eugenic and feminist movements were less intertwined, and several of the ones cited above mention that other elements within the eugenic movement were very hostile to feminism. Cheers, gnu57 02:09, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

References

From the titles of those sources they just seem to be talking about issues that concern both eugenics and early feminism, not any such thing called eugenic feminism. Onetwothreeip (talk) 02:26, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, I'd forgotten that you wouldn't necessarily have access to the full texts. Here are some quotes, which I think back the notion that some early feminists were highly influenced by and/or formulated their own version of eugenics. gnu57 03:25, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Extended content

"This preoccupation with eugenics was characteristic of nearly all feminists of the late nineteenth century.... Feminists used eugenics arguments as though they instinctively felt that arguments based on women's rights had not enough power to conquer conservative and religious scruples about reproduction. So they combined eugenics and feminism to produce evocative, romantic images of perfect motherhood." " As the work of historians makes increasingly plain, many 'early' feminists were heavily invested in the discourses and governmental rationalities of eugenics.... Although mainstream eugenics was undoubtedly patriarchal, eugenicist ideas were immensely popular among feminists in this period. Eugenicist-feminists defined their own versions of eugenic theories and politics in which 'the sickness of the race' observed by eugenic science was said to be rooted in patriarchal domination. 'Early' feminist movements were not only centred on the individual rights of women 'but also on the purification and regeneration of society' which was identified by many feminists as women's most important mission. Campaigns for women’s rights to birth control, humane working conditions, maternity leave and welfare provision were at times supported by both feminist and non-feminist eugenicists and publicly justified through eugenicist arguments." "Indeed, eugenics, and eugenic thinking- that is, the integration of concepts derived from the field of eugenics into theoretical and practical discourse-played a formative role in feminist movements during the period from 1900 to 1940.... Particularly considering its formative impact on some of the most important feminist campaigns of the twentieth century—including those for maternal and child health, birth control, and family allowances—a study of feminist eugenic thought and practice is overdue.... Feminists were not passive recipients, but active creators, of eugenic theory and practice. Although they accepted some of the basic principles espoused by male scientists, they were by no means co-opted by these men; on the contrary, they energetically exposed the male bias of much eugenic theory." "Next, this chapter reviews how women rhetors in three different social movements—social purity, racial uplift, and free love—incorporated eugenic arguments to argue for their very different feminist agendas.... However, in doing so they participated in, and even helped shape, a new discourse of eugenics." "The feminism of late nineteenth-century British middle- and upper-class women was predicated on eugenic motherhood.... Eugenic messages about racial hygiene, social purity, and women's reproductive function influenced feminist, as well as nationalist, discourses of womanhood." "The development of their unique form of agrarian feminism, which constructed the health of the individual and family as central to the health of the nation, inspired their active advocacy for eugenic reforms that provided for stringent controls over marriage, child rearing, and household sciences." (title: "Our power to remodel civilization": the development of eugenic feminism in Alberta, 1909-1921.)

None of that mentions "eugenic feminism" or "feminist eugenics". It's just describing elements of eugenics that early feminists were in common with or were appealing to. Onetwothreeip (talk) 03:47, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Isn't the scope of the article "areas of the women's suffrage movement which overlapped with eugenics"? What I think all these quotes show is that the early feminist movement both substantially influenced and was influenced by the eugenic ideas of the time: so "eugenic feminist" means more than just "person who happens to subscribe to one view, and, unrelatedly and by happenstance, also to the other". What sort of sourcing are you looking for instead? Cheers, gnu57 04:10, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

The scope of the article is not defined. If you think that is what the article's scope should be then the title should be changed. If you want the article, or any article, to say that early feminism was heavily influenced by eugenics, we would need to see that from sources that describe early feminism generally. In none of these instances have these proponents of early feminism been primarily influenced by eugenics, or espousing a particular form of feminism based on eugenics. Onetwothreeip (talk) 04:16, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

The first sentence of the lead of this article is Eugenic feminism is a term that describes areas of the women's suffrage movement which overlapped with eugenics. I think that the sources listed above characterise the eugenic elements of early feminism as prominent and widespread:

• 1 says "nearly all feminists of the late nineteenth century", and describes eugenic strains of thought in the feminist movement in the United States.
• 2 says "many 'early' feminists", and describes the movement in the US, UK, and across Europe.
• 3 says "feminist movements during the period from 1900 to 1940", and describes Germany and Britain.
• 4 mentions "the prominence of eugenic rhetoric in nineteenth-century feminism" and describes a number of American examples.
• 5 says "late nineteenth-century British middle- and upper-class women".
• 6 is about a specifically Albertan flavour of eugenic feminism.
• 7 and 9 are mainly about specific Japanese advocates, 8 is about Japanese feminist eugenics more generally.

To be clear, I don't mean that all these women subscribed to an extreme negative or involuntary eugenics ideology; positive eugenics became common among progressives in general around that time. A few years ago, when I was doing research on early 20th-century treatment of lead poisoning, I was surprised to find that the organisations campaigning for worker safety self-identified as "Eugenic": they saw controlling lead pollution as benefitting "the fitness of the race" by preventing reproductive harm. I'm not trying to say that the association of early feminism with eugenics is a blot on feminism as a whole. Cheers, gnu57 05:13, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

I have no doubt that these sources are detailing early feminists, so I'm not sure what you're saying those quotes support. To evaluate the extent of eugenics in feminism, we would have to consult sources that are generally about feminism, since sources that are primarily about "eugenic feminism" or some other formulation are not adequate for making that conclusion. Onetwothreeip (talk) 05:51, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Timeline

Hi! I'm aware that some of the students I'm overseeing have edited this page and also created a timeline article. I've worked to summarize their article into a more streamlined section (as opposed to an entire page), which can be found at User:Shekcelestine/sandbox. I wanted to see what the thoughts were on this timeline as far as whether or not it can be included, as well as what should be worked on. I've tried to clarify the roles of specific people whose work influenced this area while also making sure that they were not identified as part of this specific movement. It looks like there are many people whose works were seen as being part of or pertaining to eugenics and eugenic feminism, even as those individuals did not identify as such, so I've tried to attribute as much as possible.

I'm going to tag the students (Shekcelestine, Macie Anderson) as well as other editors who I would like feedback from (Onetwothreeip, doomsdayer520). Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:14, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

I would like to see the timeline article merged into this article, and for that to become a redirect. If that doesn't happen I will probably propose that article to be deleted, if it doesn't get proposed sooner than that. Since "eugenic feminism" wasn't ever really a movement, this article really should be called Eugenics and early feminism or something like this, since that's what the article is. Most of all I would suggest that they really shouldn't bother with edits that are designed to advocate a point of view, such as clearly denigrating subjects of the article. I would recommend editors read WP:NPOV, and ask themselves if potential content is likely to be reverted. Onetwothreeip (talk) 00:08, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Question about the topic

The article seems to imply a link between women suffrage and female eugenics, I have a hard time seeing the correlation, can this point be expounded upon? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sheneilriley4 (talk • contribs) 00:24, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Suggestions for improvement

It seems like although the article serves as an excellent introduction to the subject of eugenic feminism, it would benefit from the expansion of specific topics. One example of this could be expanding upon how the eugenic feminist movement died down. I know it was mentioned that it was a result of "irreconcilable differences between feminism and eugenics," but it would be beneficial to cover what these differences were. Beefpatty06 (talk) 04:20, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

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This article is currently the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 20 August 2024 and 10 December 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Ella.Kushins (article contribs).

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