Margaret Sanger's 'The Woman Rebel'

In one of her most repeated speeches throughout the 1920’s, Margaret Sanger said, “More than ever in history, women need to realize that nothing can ever come to us from another. Everything we attain we must owe to ourselves. Our own spirit must vitalize it. Our own heart must feel it. For we are not passive machines. We are not to be lectured, guided, and molded this way or that. We are alive and intelligent, we women, no less than men, and we must awaken to the essential realization that we are living beings, endowed with will, choice, comprehension, and that every step in life must be our own initiative”. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, Feminism is “ the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes”.

Her goals for this publication were to share the freely used safe methods used to prevent pregnancies in France.This radical publication covered topics from child labor to social hygiene and stressed the importance of women empowerment. Thousands of letters from labor wives proved to be filled with gratitude of the publications and Sanger could she that she was changing lives. It was through The Woman Rebel that Sanger found a name for her movement: birth control. Sanger defied the postal authorities that tried to silence her freedom of press by writing yet another radical series in a form of a sixteen page pamphlet she titled, Family Limitation. This pamphlet contained detailed descriptions and advice on how to prevent pregnancy in a safe way for American women. Unfortunately, Sanger had to flee the U.S. to avoid imprisonment for violating postal obscenity laws. Before leaving, Sanger wrote a letter entitled “Letters to the readers of the Woman rebel” in which she said, “ My work in the nursing field. . . that the workers desire the knowledge of the prevention of conception. . . [they] are suffering because of the law which forbids the imparting of information. To wait for this law to be repealed would be years and years hence.Thousands of unwanted children may be brought into the world in the meantime, thousands of women made miserable and unhappy. Why should we

She was the trailblazer in fighting for women's rights to have a choice for their families. Sanger gave women a voice in their own household and endured many obstacles along the way to do so. In 1921 she established the American Birth Control League which has evolved to today’s Planned Parenthood. Without her, I fear that it would have taken much longer for something like this to spark. Sanger though outside the box and was willing to be ridiculed because she had passion for what she was fighting for. Her consistency, perseverance, and genuine work ethic made her a very successful leader in her time. What makes her so inspiring is that not only did she want to change the lives of suffering women in the U.S., she wanted to change the lives of women globally. She used her drive to reach out to several countries through means of international conferences in Asia and Europe. It is because of her that India began its birth control movement for themselves. Margaret Sanger touched lives and truly impacted the world in a positive way. What is truly amazing about her