Felicity said:Here's some misogyny....
WOMAN AND THE NEW RACE
by Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood)
original copyright: 1920
From: CHAPTER I
WOMAN'S ERROR AND HER DEBT
Woman's acceptance of her inferior status was the more real because it was unconscious. She had chained herself to her place in society and the family through the maternal functions of her nature, and only chains thus strong could have bound her to her lot as a brood animal for the masculine civilizations of the world. In accepting her role as the "weaker and gentler half," she accepted that function. In turn, the acceptance of that function fixed the more firmly her rank as an inferior.
Caught in this "vicious circle," woman has, through her reproductive ability, founded and perpetuated the tyrannies of the Earth. Whether it was the tyranny of a monarchy, an oligarchy or a republic, the one indispensable factor of its existence was, as it is now, hordes of human beings; human beings so plentiful as to be cheap, and so cheap that ignorance was their natural lot. Upon the rock of an unenlightened, submissive maternity have these been founded; upon the product of such a maternity have they flourished.
Again, she says several times that this is "unintentional," and that women were not "deliberate" in these offenses that she says have incurred this debt. Also, is she wrong about unlimited reproduction causing social ills?
... The creators of over-population are the women, who, while wringing their hands over each fresh horror, submit anew to their task of producing the multitudes who will bring about the next tragedy of civilization.
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.
... By her failure to withhold the multitudes of children who have made inevitable the most flagrant of our social evils, she incurred a debt to society. Regardless of her own wrongs, regardless of her lack of opportunity and regardless of all other considerations, she must pay that debt.
http://www.bartleby.com/1013/1.html
CoffeeSaint said:I think you are misreading this.
First: women's acceptance of their "inferior" position was unconscious; this is not ascribing a crime to women. It is ascribing, as it says in the heading, an error. Second, if women had to accept their inferior status, it was not natural; it was imposed upon them, presumably by men. Notice that Sanger says, "She had chained herself to her place in society and the family through the maternal functions of her nature, and only chains thus strong could have bound her to her lot as a brood animal for the masculine civilizations of the world." This says that the strength of women is such that they need equally strong bonds to make them into the "brood mare" she calls them; a woman is naturally far more, but she has been forced to accept this lesser role, as the "weaker and gentler half." That is not what women are, it is what they have been told they are, and they have accepted it. Note also how she says that women have been "caught" in this vicious circle; she also says that the error women have committed, this continuation of tyranny and oligarchy, has been founded upon an "unenlightened, submissive maternity." In other words, if women were enlightened and self-determining in their maternity, they would put an end to tyranny and oligarchy; that is power, not weakness.
Again, she says several times that this is "unintentional," and that women were not "deliberate" in these offenses that she says have incurred this debt. Also, is she wrong about unlimited reproduction causing social ills?
This seems to me that Sanger was trying very hard to empower women, that she was trying to make them see themselves as something more than "brood mares," as more than beings that exist to bear and raise children. It seems that she saw great potential for other things in women, potential that was being wasted. Perhaps her rhetoric is inflammatory, but then, she was fighting thousands of years of accepted social norms.
What is your position on the proper role of women and motherhood? Do you feel that women who are "forced" by societal expectations to become mothers are in a position of being brood mares? Alternately, do you feel that the ability to choose not to have a child is actually a position of power?
My point is that Sanger's views--which are at the genesis of Planned Parenthood and the modern feminist movement--CLAIM to be pro-woman while actually diminish and disparage a unique gift of womanhood while at the same time promoting a clearly elitist, self-aggrandizing agenda.mixedmedia said:I think it is wrong to apply Margaret Sanger's writing to the women of today. She was writing in reaction to the "place" and status quo position of most women in her time. MOst especially poor women. And if it weren't for activists like Margaret Sanger, women might still be hamstrung by society's "rules" today. I'm not saying that Sanger was not a radical, but sometimes the voice of a radical is efficacious in striking a balance where there is grave injustice.
What is unclear about this:Felicity said:Is it the "woman's fault" or the lack of respect for the woman and her contributions to society?
What is unclear about this:
"In her submission lies her error and her guilt. By her failure to withhold the multitudes of children who have made inevitable the most flagrant of our social evils, she incurred a debt to society. Regardless of her own wrongs, regardless of her lack of opportunity and regardless of all other considerations, she must pay that debt."
Unknowingly. Not by intention. Therefore, not guilty, not evil, not bad; but nonetheless, responsible. I don't think this argument differs appreciably from your own: Sanger is saying that women have a responsibility to confront the realities of their reproduction, the same as you have said; you just have VERY different views of what that reproductiuon means, and what it symbolizes. While her stance may be construed as insulting to motherhood, it certainly is not misogynistic. She has said much about women's power in these quotes. What part of women's contributions to society are you saying she's disrespecting?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 is where the comparison between Sanger's subject and today's women probably falls apart; today, keeping a home is simply not as labor intensive as it once was, and so women with "large" families by Sanger's definition do have the ability to do many other things. But the important point is that women with children simply have less time and energy to devote to other pursuits than women with no children; women with more children have less time than women with few children. When a woman makes a choice to dedicate her time to her children, all well and good; but if she does not make that choice, she should not be forced into a situation where she is limited to being a mother, whether she is a good mother or a poor mother.Felicity said:Sanger was also an elitist (to the max!)--the only "good" mother was one with money regardless of the spiritual good of the children she produced--and if by chance the kid goes wrong--it's the woman's fault. In the 1st paragraph--she says such woman are "found in the ranks of labor" as well and then in the 2nd paragraph contradicts herself.
I have 5 children. I am not "rich." I do not have a housemaid or governess. I am not "a rarity"--I know several women like myself. We are not "ignorant" nor are we "enslaved"--we are noble and honored by embracing the POWER that comes with motherhood. Shitty mothers exist--and it's not the number of children a woman has that makes her shitty or makes her a good mother.
Okay; read it again. She is speaking of women who have 0-3 children, which she apparently sees as the ideal; she says they are found "not only in the ranks of the rich and well-to-do, but in the ranks of labor as well." She is saying that these women, the ones she thinks are doing the right thing, can be found anywhere. How is that elitist?WOMAN AND THE NEW RACE
original copyright: 1920
In sharp contrast with these women who ignorantly bring forth large families and who thereby enslave themselves, we find a few women who have one, two or three children or no children at all. These women, with the exception of the childless ones, live full-rounded lives. They are found not only in the ranks of the rich and the well-to-do, but in the ranks of labor as well. They have but one point of basic difference from their enslaved sisters; they are not burdened with the rearing of large families.
This is a fact, not elitism. The fact is that unwanted children in these situations come from lower class homes. The unwanted children of the rich are not in jail, nor in insane asylums (not the kind that Sanger is talking about), nor reformatories; they are in boarding schools. There are far more abortions, adoptions, and unwanted/neglected/abused children among the working class, than among the rich. Do you disagree with that? Or do you disagree with her pointing it out?
The probability of a child handicapped by a weak constitution, an overcrowded home, inadequate food and care, and possibly a deficient mental equipment, winding up in prison or an almshouse, is too evident for comment. Every jail, hospital for the insane, reformatory and institution for the feebleminded cries out against the evils of too prolific breeding among wage-workers.
As for this, I totally fail to see it. What I see is this:Felicity said:What a self-aggrandizing, elitist, hag.:shock:
I see the power of women. I see the power of choice, and the alternative to choice, which is slavery. I see an argument I wish I had come up with myself, and I thank you for bringing this to my attention.Women who have a knowledge of contraceptives are not compelled to make the choice between a maternal experience and a marred love life; they are not forced to balance motherhood against social and spiritual activities. Motherhood is for them to choose, as it should be for every woman to choose. Choosing to become mothers, they do not thereby shut themselves away from thorough companionship with their husbands, from friends, from culture, from all those manifold experiences which are necessary to the completeness and the joy of life.
Fit mothers of the race are these, the courted comrades of the men they choose, rather than the "slaves of slaves." For theirs is the magic power; the power of limiting their families to such numbers as will permit them to live full-rounded lives. Such lives are the expression of the feminine spirit which is woman and all of her; not merely art, nor professional skill, nor intellect; but all that woman is, or may achieve.
I do not see how her views are elittist; I suppose you could see them as self-aggrandiuzing, since Sanger was a woman and she wrote that women have great power, bu she is not putting herself above anyone. She is saying that all women have the potential to become what she sees as great; she is disparaging motherhood, but she is promoting the power of women. This sounds much like Planned Parenthood's agenda to me.Felicity said:My point is that Sanger's views--which are at the genesis of Planned Parenthood and the modern feminist movement--CLAIM to be pro-woman while actually diminish and disparage a unique gift of womanhood while at the same time promoting a clearly elitist, self-aggrandizing agenda.
How can a movement built on such a foundation, and an organization that still embraces the memory and the fundamental tenets of such a founder, be anything but flawed in their conclusions and their activities?
I do support them. I'd like to win the award, or at least applaud for whoever does win it.Felicity said:If you support Planned Parenthood--you should know that they support Ms. Sanger--they even have a "Margaret Sanger Award"
Here's a link to what PP says about their beloved heroine...and an example of the LYING and manipulation of FACTS that organization engages in....
Felicity said:http://www.plannedparenthood.org/pp...icalinfo/birthcontrol/bio-margaret-sanger.xml
Here is a section that deals with ONE (of many!) of Ms. Sanger's RACIST comments:
Quote:
"We do not want word to get out that we want to exterminate the Negro population."
Sanger was aware of African-American concerns, passionately argued by Marcus Garvey in the 1920s, that birth control was a threat to the survival of the black race. This statement, which acknowledges those fears, is taken from a letter to Clarence J. Gamble, M.D., a champion of the birth control movement. In that letter, Sanger describes her strategy to allay such apprehensions. A larger portion of the letter makes Sanger's meaning clear:
It seems to me from my experience . . . in North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas, that while the colored Negroes have great respect for white doctors, they can get closer to their own members and more or less lay their cards on the table. . . . They do not do this with the white people, and if we can train the Negro doctor at the clinic, he can go among them with enthusiasm and with knowledge, which, I believe, will have far-reaching results. . . . His work, in my opinion, should be entirely with the Negro profession and the nurses, hospital, social workers, as well as the County's white doctors. His success will depend upon his personality and his training by us.
The minister's work is also important, and also he should be trained, perhaps by the Federation, as to our ideals and the goal that we hope to reach. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs (1939).
Please note the very last sentence....It appears like that was the last word of her sentence...HOWEVER....
THIS is what she ACTUALLY said:
" the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger
http://tcrnews2.com/gentcr.html
http://blackgenocide.org/negro03.html
Interesting that PP conveniently left off that last bit, eh? They are honoring a clearly RACIST B!TCH (sorry--she makes me angry). I don't care what that says about Ms. Sanger--but what do you think of the dishonesty and obviously lacking integrity of the Planned Parenthood Organization? How can anyone support such a manipulating and dishonest organization and still claim to be "pro-woman" and not "racist?"
Felicity said:I’m sure you’ve heard the proverb 'the hand that rocks the cradle controls the world.' Sanger only sees the negative of this. She blames all of the ills of the world on prolific motherhood. There are many benefits to large families—not the least of which is SELFLESSNESS—A much needed quality in today’s world. I could wax poetic on all the beauty I find in my larger-sized family...but...I’ll stick to the dry “debate” material.
You know—you don’t need contraception to limit family size. All you need is a little discipline.
What I think is a balanced explanation of Sanger’s racism from a pro-contraception, seemingly pro-PP black woman.
http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/618
Two MUST READs to get the scope of the racist aspect of PP’s founder Margaret Sanger--Her "Negro Project" is very revealing.
http://www.cwfa.org/articledisplay.asp?id=1466&department=CWA&categoryid=life
http://blackgenocide.org/negro03.html
Truly—VERY little research and reading the lady’s own words will let you see the what Ms. Sanger’s all about. Check out “Pivot of Civilization”—She’s disgusting. http://swiss.csail.mit.edu/~rauch/abortion_eugenics/sanger/sanger_04.html
Felicity said:You know—you don’t need contraception to limit family size. All you need is a little discipline.
not exactly the point that was being made, vergiss.vergiss said:What the hell... so married sex is undisciplined, now?
Felicity said:not exactly the point that was being made, vergiss.
The point was that you don'r NEED contraception. You don't NEED to medicate or have surgery done on a healthy body. All you need to do is have some self-control a week a month. In context, Sanger was all about birth control and how women where oppressed under their prolific fertility. There is nothing WRONG with fertility. If you know it well, you can avoid pregnancy by listening to your body and being disciplined about choosing not to have sex when the signs say you are likely to get pregnant WITHOUT resorting to the artificial hormones and surgery.vergiss said:So it is undisciplined?
Felicity said:The point was that you don'r NEED contraception. You don't NEED to medicate or have surgery done on a healthy body. All you need to do is have some self-control a week a month. In context, Sanger was all about birth control and how women where oppressed under their prolific fertility. There is nothing WRONG with fertility. If you know it well, you can avoid pregnancy by listening to your body and being disciplined about choosing not to have sex when the signs say you are likely to get pregnant WITHOUT resorting to the artificial hormones and surgery.
IUDs intentionally kill embryos that might implant. Sure...wear a condom--or any other barrier method...but anyway....vergiss said:Or you could wear condoms or get an IUD and have sex whenever you wanted.
Felicity said:Do you have any comments about the racist, elitist, mysogynist twit that founded Planned Parenthood and whom Planned Parenthood still immortalizes and looks up to?
Okay....deflection duly noted.vergiss said:Yeah - she still beats the hell out of the morons controlling the pro-life movement.
Sure, I have a comment. It often takes a radical, sometimes an unattractive radical, to effect real change; the best way to handle it is to let the radical do their thing, and then remove the radical, and try to make a better siituation afterward. For example: it took Attila the Hun (and Alaric the Goth and several others) to pull down the corrupt Roman Empire; it took Mao Tse-Tung to remove the Emperor of China; it took Lenin to eliminate the Tsars. These people were all individually horrible, certainly far worse than a woman who didn't like people with mental retardation, and yet their actions led, eventually, to some very positive results. I could think of many more of course, but these make the point well enough. Do I approve of them? No. Would I want to hang out with them? No. Put their pictures on my wall, no. But, does it mean their every legacy is nothing but pure evil? No, it does not. The sins of the father do not pass to the son, remember?Felicity said:IUDs intentionally kill embryos that might implant. Sure...wear a condom--or any other barrier method...but anyway....
Do you have any comments about the racist, elitist, mysogynist twit that founded Planned Parenthood and whom Planned Parenthood still immortalizes and looks up to?
Felicity said:The point was that you don'r NEED contraception. You don't NEED to medicate or have surgery done on a healthy body. All you need to do is have some self-control a week a month. In context, Sanger was all about birth control and how women where oppressed under their prolific fertility. There is nothing WRONG with fertility. If you know it well, you can avoid pregnancy by listening to your body and being disciplined about choosing not to have sex when the signs say you are likely to get pregnant WITHOUT resorting to the artificial hormones and surgery.
Did you miss that PP still HONORS Ms. Sanger??? Their "most prestegious" award is the Margaret Sanger Award...and they have another award for the media promotion of abortion related information (what I would call "propaganda) the Maggie Award. .CoffeeSaint said:Sure, I have a comment. It often takes a radical, sometimes an unattractive radical, to effect real change; the best way to handle it is to let the radical do their thing, and then remove the radical, and try to make a better siituation afterward. . .......If you are just positing this in reference to Planned Parenthood, and intend nothing else about the abortion discussion, so be it; Planned Parenthood was founded by someone who had some pretty scummy ideas. I still fail to see how that taints the organization today.
If you are suggesting that PP carries on Sanger's attempt to breed out undesirables, let's see some evidence.
Nor is "it's not practical to expect people to have adequate self-control" a good argument for allowing the killing of human individuals that are powerless against the attack. With the current state of abortion "propaganda"--who wants to listen to the message that "if you have some self-discipline, you can avoid pregnancy" When the opposition tells you "naw...go ahead...pop this pill and you'll be okay...and if it fails we can take care of it with a simple little procedure...no biggie..."CoffeeSaint said:This does not reflect reality. People are not generally that self-aware, and people do not generally have that much self-control. You can want them to, and you can try to influence them to pursue this option; I think it might do a lot of good, if done right. But this is not a reasonable argument against abortion.
Again--I don't se this as justification for killing. 2 wrongs don't make a right.Idealistically, abortion is not a good thing, and I doubt anybody believes it is. But it is pragmatic, and that is something this country desperately needs. I do not believe we are ready to handle the effects of a ban on abortion: 1.3 million unwanted children a year? When there are now children who never get adopted out of foster care?
The "rhythm Method" is not the "Sympto-Thermal" method. This is innacurate and hyperbole.When women relied on listening to their bodies and controlling their urges one week a month, they had 12 children in 12 years, and died at 35; they lived in exactly the reproductive slavery that Sanger fought against -- and the pro-life movement seems to want to reinstate today.
I think it might be a good place for pro-choicers to start the study of the history of the abortion indistry. You don't need an "open mind", you just need eyes to see the roots of their modern movement.I think that many people in the pro-life movement really need to study more history; Margaret Sanger might be a good place to start, if one could read about her with an open mind.
We still celebrate Columbus Day. He enslaved, raped, slaughtered thousands of Native Americans. Isn't that a bit worse than publishing articles by racists? Is all of America evil because Columbus was evil? Is all of Central America evil because of Cortez and Pisarro?Felicity said:Did you miss that PP still HONORS Ms. Sanger??? Their "most prestegious" award is the Margaret Sanger Award...and they have another award for the media promotion of abortion related information (what I would call "propaganda) the Maggie Award. .
She did not say that. I have addressed this: there has been no direct evidence that Margaret Sanger was specifically racist in the articles you have posted on here. Her letter to the minister referred to her desire to keep his congregants from getting the WRONG idea, not keeping them from discovering her evil plot to eliminate the black race. Her association with eugenicists does not make her a racist, any more than it is logical to accuse every German of anti-Semitism because of the Nazis. She published their articles; she did not write them, nor inspire them. Racially insensitive, yes, as your articles have pointed out; racist, and evidence of intent to eliminate the race? No.Felicity said:The article associated with the above list is especially ironic considering what Ms. Sanger said about recruiting black ministers to help keep the message of their rasist agenda under wraps.
Every abortion provider does the same. This is evidence that our educational systems, and particularly our socioeconomics, are racially biased, but that is hardly news, and not at all an indictment of Planned Parenthood.Felicity said:33.9% of all abortions are performed on black women according to the CDC chart linked to below, but only make up 11.5% of the populationhttp://www.abortionfacts.com/statistics/race.asp
http://www.censusscope.org/us/chart_race.html
http://www.agi-usa.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html
Black women are more than 3 times as likely as white women to have an abortion, and Hispanic women are 2 1/2 times as likely.[6]
www.plannedparenthoodrx.com/annualreport/report-04.pdf Go to page 9.
244,628 abortions were provided by PP in 2003--this does not include referrals to other abortion providers.
http://www.statehealthfacts.org/cgi...0&viewas=&showregions=0&sortby=region#sorttop
Abortions in the US in 2001 = 853,485
If you take those two numbers as average......you see that PP provides about a quarter of all those abortions that are heavily racially unequal.
Planned Parenthood puts its clinics where they are needed. the fact that there are many in predominantly black and Hispanic areas, again, is evidence that our country remains segregated, even ghettoized, and that the opportunities for different races are unequal. It is a travesty. It is not caused, encouraged, or promoted by Planned Parenthood. The percentage of blacks in America has been, I believe, steadily rising; the percentage of Hispanics is skyrocketing. If Planned Parenthood were eugenicists, I would have to say they suck at their job.Felicity said:The combination of promotion of the procedure (that the "Maggie Awards" honor) and the availability of the locations of the PP sites help to continue Ms. Sanger's racist and eugenic goals.
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewSpecialReports.asp?Page=\SpecialReports\archive\200501\SPE20050118a.html
Interesting article about the $$$ side of PPs operation.
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