Eugenics In The Feminist Movement

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The Appearance of Eugenics in the Feminist Movement Suffragists fought very hard for nearly a century to get the Nineteenth Amendment passed. Most people are aware of the great efforts by such suffragists as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, originating in the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848. However, what many people do not realize is the eugenic and racist ideas that the suffragists espoused. Why did the suffragists have these ideals, and where did they get them from? The sources discuss the suffragists’ motives in having these ideals, describe how these ideals advanced suffrage, and explain what larger implications this had in America both historically and politically. The sources agree that suffragists’ beliefs in eugenics …show more content…

Victoria Woodhull, the first female to run for President in 1872, was a leading suffragist who “regularly pushed the idea that the government should prevent the marriage and thus the breeding of those it deemed unfit to reproduce.” Did Woodhull espouse her belief in eugenics solely to get men to vote for her since they shared similar beliefs? According to Prentice Reid, Woodhull was able to influence other women into adopting eugenic beliefs because women saw that she was fighting for suffrage, so it caused them to begin believing in eugenics also. It is unlikely that Woodhull held this belief just to get men to vote for her. It wouldn’t make sense for her to spread her beliefs to women in 1872 (since women were not able to vote until 1920) if she didn’t truly believe in them herself. Moss, Stam, and Kattevilder state that “feminists perceived eugenic practices as being in the best interests of the feeble-minded individuals.” This suggests that feminists really did believe in eugenics in order to protect “innocent children from being brought into the world by feeble-minded parents.” Since they had a legitimate reason to support eugenics, some women upheld these beliefs and even tried to spread them as Woodhull did. There is also evidence that, due to the culture of the time, both women and men shared the same beliefs. In The Reconstruction Years, Walter Coffey quotes Stanton, saying that …show more content…

Unfortunately, a scholarly source about the proportion of women who (1) believed in eugenics only in the hopes that it would cause men to grant them suffrage, (2) fully believed in eugenics, and (3) refused to accept the eugenic ideology, would likely not exist because beliefs are difficult to trace and there would be almost no way of knowing if a woman was merely pretending to support eugenics. In regards to the third argument, Bacchi overstates the view that some women rejected eugenics. The other sources agree that the vast majority of women did believe in eugenics. No primary sources are able to support the first argument since suffragists did not write about the particular reason they supported eugenics; the suffragists’ primary sources do not corroborate or explicitly indicate the ulterior motive that the secondary sources highlight. For this reason, the second argument that women really believed in eugenics without using it to help push for the Nineteenth Amendment is likely the most accurate given the evidence that is present. If a primary source written before 1920 were to arise that showed that women used eugenics only to advance suffrage, it would lead us to the following research question: Did women of a certain social, economic, or

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