S(anger) Goes Postal in “The Woman Rebel”

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birth control, margaret sanger, planned parenthood, Woman Rebel

Margaret Sanger, ca. 1916.

“To me it was outrageous that information regarding motherhood, which was so generally called sacred, should be classed with pornography,” Sanger recalled in her 1938 autobiography. The anger displayed in this quotation is the focus of an article by Emily Winderman, a doctoral candidate at the University of Georgia, recently published in the Rhetoric & Public Affairs Journal. The article analyzes Sanger’s use of anger as a public emotion in The Woman Rebel.

As Winderman notes, several Sanger scholars have dismissed The Woman Rebel, which turned 100 this year, because of its angry tone. Even scholars who seem more sympathetic to the emotional tone of The Woman Rebel have encouraged those interested in the publication to look past the anger to see its value.

Winderman begins her article by analyzing the use of anger as a “public” emotion. She notes that it has historically been included in the repertoire of public emotions and that it can act as a moralizing emotion, but she also notes that women who dared to demonstrate anger were often diagnosed as “hysterical” and as lacking in sound judgment. Anger has the ability to unite and motivate people who feel strongly about similar injustices, but for those who do not experience an injustice, anger about it seems alienating and inappropriate.

A snippet from the March 1914 issue.

Next, Winderman turns to the role of The Woman Rebel in challenging the accepted virtue of “Republican Motherhood” and the cult of domesticity: the idea that upper- and middle-class Anglo-Saxon women would rear sons who were both moral and politically-minded. This virtue was unavailable to lower-class and non-white women. Comstock’s morality laws – the same laws under which Sanger was prosecuted for attempting to mail The Woman Rebel – were designed, he said, “to protect the morals of the youth and inexperienced.” These morals were the same morals that would be instilled by proper republican mothers.

Winderman then turns to The Woman Rebel itself, studying it through the lens she has laid out previously. Sanger recast the relationship between mothers and the body politic as a parasitic relationship, in which political institutions supported themselves on the backs of unwilling poor mothers. Then, The Woman Rebel calls for women to

recreate the revolutionary spirit of your class, the ardor of which you yourselves have enchained in thousands of cases.

By inverting this traditional relationship, Winderman argues, Sanger creates a space where poor women can feel legitimate moral outrage at their treatment.

Rhetorical devices such as metaphors like the one just described and anaphora (“the repetition of the same word or phrase in several successive clauses”) helped to build anger and a sense of solidarity among the working women who were the target audience of The Woman Rebel. Another technique to instill anger and solidarity was the clear demarcation of enemies, including the state, the church, and wealthy suffragettes, who were privileged with knowledge of contraception. Collective identity was also forged through a set of rallying precepts such as:

REBEL WOMEN WANTED: WHO deny the right of the State to deprive women of such knowledge as would enable them to take upon themselves voluntary motherhood…

Finally, the letters from the public which were published in The Woman Rebel substantiated this common sense of anger and moral outrage.

Speaking on the eve of her trial, Sanger told her audience:

They tell me that The Woman Rebel was badly written; that it was crude; that it was emotional, and hysterical; that it mixed issues; that it was defiant, and too radical. Well, to all of these indictments I plead guilty.

In her conclusion, Winderman notes the role that anger played throughout Sanger’s career and in the history of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, which has used the phrase “Be Brave and Angry” throughout its history.

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For a complete set of the Woman Rebel, see “Margaret Sanger and the Woman Rebel,” a digital edition created in 1997; for searchable versions of Sanger’s Woman Rebel articles, see The Speeches and Articles of Margaret Sanger. For Sanger’s complete speech, see “Hotel Brevoot Speech,” Jan. 17, 1916.

Emily Winderman, “S(anger) Goes Postal in The Woman Rebel: Angry Rhetoric as a Collectivizing Moral Emotion,”Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Volume 17, Number 3, Fall 2014, pp. 381-420. (Link–must have Project Muse access)

Birth Control Exhibit Banned From NY State Fair, 1941

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birth control, Charles Poletti, New York, planned parenthood

It has been a while since I have been to a state fair. From the few memories that I can recollect, there were lots of games, inflatable and fried food (my favorite being funnel cakes). However, I don’t remember there ever being an advocacy group. This could have to do with my child interests being preoccupied by greasy foods and stuffed animal prizes, but my research today has led me occupied otherwise.

In 1941, a New York State fair was held in Syracuse. The fair lasted from August 24^th to September 1^st. At this fair, the New York State Federation for Planned Parenthood was to hold an exhibit titled, Every Baby Wanted & Loved.

Charles Poletti, governor of New York State 1942 (Photographer unknown).

Now as you may have noticed I wrote, was to hold. This is because the then acting governor (Governor Herbert Lehman was on vacation), Charles Poletti, barred the exhibit from the fair.

On what grounds?

Well, two of Poletti’s statements were repeatedly published in the New York Times.

First: The exhibit was “calculated to contravene or change the declared policy of the State,” which held that “State buildings and funds should not be used to propagandize against any existing State law.”[1]

Second: “The exhibit would be offensive to a large portion of those attending the Fair.”[2]

The view that disseminating of information on birth control is detrimental to the State has been expressed by a majority of the people of New York, speaking through their elected representatives in the Legislature.That law has stood on the statute books for many years. I submit that the use of the fair operated by the State for the enjoyment of all its people, for an exhibit that would be offensive to a large portion of those attending it would be unconscionable.

(Quote by Poletti published in the New York Times, “Poletti Upholds Fair Exhibit Ban,”  Aug. 29, 1941.)

Sanger, after hearing these statements, urged the public to demand a reconsideration of Poletti’s actions. In regards to Poletti’s statement that the exhibit would “contravene or change the declared policy of the State,” Sanger claimed “on the face of it the statement is absurd,” further demonstrating “how misinformed Mr. Poletti [was] in this field of public health that Poletti.”[3]

A further statement was published from Margaret Sanger concerning the “large portion of those attending the fair”:

We have been informed that Mr. Poletti’s stand was taken as a result of protests by representatives of the Roman Catholic Church.   If this be so, we protest as undemocratic and inimical to public welfare the fact that pressure of a minority religious group can effectively bar the majority of the citizens of New York State from information they desire on a subject considered of sufficient importance as a health measure to be included in the state public health programs of North and South Carolina and of Alabama, and in 209 health department programs in 39 states.

(Statement by Margaret Sanger released by BCFA in New York World, August 28, 1941.)

Newspaper clipping from “Our Town” describing birth control exhibits banned at the Mineola State Fair following Poletti’s ruling in Syracuse, 1941 (Our Town).

The New York State Federation of Planned Parenthood was taken aback. They sent several letters to Poletti, urging him to understand that the exhibit wasn’t opposing existing State legislation.

A letter addressed to Poletti from board members of the NYS Federation of Planned Parenthood responded to Poletti’s statements.

First: Before the Fair opened, the Federation had received all necessary approval from authorities concerned. Poletti’s banishment of the exhibit happened at the “eleventh hour.” The Federation goes on to explain that Poletti’s actions were responding to pressures from those that opposed “planned parenthood” through birth control.

This, the Federation claimed, was “unfair and [could] hardly constitute the basis for a settled policy.” [4]

Second: In regards to the materials that were to be distributed at the Fair, the Federation acknowledged that no New York State law was to be violated.

Now, it is necessary to understand which law they were referring to.

According to the statute of law 1142, no information regarding birth control could be disseminated for any reason. However, there was kind of a loop hole. This is what the Federation used to support their argument.

Statute 1145 stated that only physicians could give information concerning birth control in cases of curing or preventing disease.

Using this knowledge, the Federation claimed that the misunderstanding “rested on the conflict in concepts between the declared policy of the State and the policy of the Federation for Planned Parenthood.”[5]

So what was this “conflict in concepts”?

Planned Parenthood Federation Panel, “Every Baby Wanted and Loved,” displayed at the exhibit, 1941 (Library of Congress)

The Federation of Planned Parenthood claimed that it bases its policies on the concept of maternal and child health and family welfare. It does so through legally working through physicians. This, in reference to the 1145 statute, maintains that the work of the Federation, along with the exhibit, is in conjunction with New York State law.

Now for the response to Poletti’s second statement:

First, the Federation simply undermines Poletti’s statement concerning public schools/public places. To do this, the Federation cites the example of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. The WCTU was permitted to have a booth and distribute literature at the Syracuse State Fair. The letter states that “it can hardly be maintained that the WCTU does not desire to change State law.”[6]

The Federation continues by referring to Poletti’s statement that the exhibit would be offensive to a “large portion” of attendees.

Wait. How could you hold a state fair with organizations from a variety of interest groups without offending one person? I mean even the clouds of powdered sugar drifting above my paper plate of fried batter could prove offensive.

This is exactly what the Federation said. Well, not the bit about fried foods.

If there were to be a blanket ban on everything that could be offensive to a considerable number of the audience, then the exhibits would be reduced to “such a commonplace level of general agreement as to be of little public interest.”[7]

To further counter Poletti’s statements, the Federation includes references to several state fairs, such as those in Rhinebeck, Kingston, Mineola and Buffalo, that had Planned Parenthood exhibits.

Did this response change Poletti’s decision?

Unfortunately, no.

An article was even published in the August 28^th edition of York World reporting that Poletti and his wife had stayed at the Onondaga Hotel where the exhibit was displayed in the hotel lobby. The article claims that he “studiously avoided putting his eyes on the three-panel exhibit.”[8]

This was a case of the challenge to civil liberties. The Planned Parenthood Federation wasn’t challenging the law, rather voicing its opinion. As the letter concludes, “it seems to us [] that the public authorities better serve the purposes of democracy by encouraging on public property the expression of opinions on public issues.”[9]

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[1] MSM S19:0965.  Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College.

[2] Ibid.

[3] “Exhibit on Birth Control is Banned,” Syracuse Post-Standard, Aug. 29, 1941.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] York World, August 28, 1941.

[9] MSM S19:0965.  Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College.

Pink Ribbons Don’t Hold Together When It Comes to Women’s Health

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Komen Foundation, planned parenthood, women's health

Over the past few days, we have witnessed another passionate struggle in the battle that has been fought since at least 1916: the politicization of women health. In October 1916, Margaret Sanger was arrested in for opening her Brownsville birth control clinic in Brooklyn, New York. Nearly a century later, Sanger’s organization Planned Parenthood is at the epicenter of the continued struggle for women’s control over their own bodies. The controversy around the relationship between Planned Parenthood and the Susan G.Komen Foundation For the Cure unfolds on websites rather than street corners, but the stakes are the same. While we have come a long way from Brownsville, women’s rights to their bodies are still under threat.

On January 31, the Komen Foundation, the world’s leading breast-cancer advocacy group,  announced a decision to cut its funding to Planned Parenthood, an organization founded by Sanger that offers family planning services to over five million women and men worldwide. The funding from the  Komen Foundation (about $600,000 annually) permitted Planned Parenthood to offer free breast cancer screenings to its patients. The decision to stop funding Planned Parenthood ostensibly came in the wake of a new policy change that prohibited the Foundation from donating money to any organization under investigation by the Federal Government. It does not take much research, however, to see that these new policies were an excuse to de-legitimize and cut ties with Planned Parenthood. The federal investigation into Planned Parenthood was opened by anti-choice congressmen into the Federation’s abortion policies only and has not led to any charges. The new president of the Komen Foundation, Karen Handel, who oversaw the policy changes, has a legacy of anti-choice and anti-Planned Parenthood crusading.  More evidence that the policy changes were intended to specifically target Planned Parenthood? The prohibition has not stopped the Komen Foundation from funding $7.5 million worth of cancer research at Penn State, an institution which is currently the subject of a federal investigation regarding the former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, who is indicted on multiple accounts of child sex abuse.

Women’s health has always been at the center of Margaret Sanger’s vision. In a public radio address in 1937, Sanger reiterated birth control’s importance to mothers’ health :

“Out of every three women who die from causes related to childbearing, two could have been saved. Too frequent and too many pregnancies are responsible for a large number of these preventable deaths. And abortion, that tragic substitute for reliable birth control, is the cause of 25 per cent of maternal deaths.”

As Sanger’s organization expanded, so did their services to women’s health. From the 1920s, when the first birth control clinics opened their doors, doctors at Planned Parenthood were often the first to detect ovarian and cervical cancer in female patients. Today cancer screenings, including breast exams, have become an essential part of Planned Parenthood : in 2010 the organization was able to offer 750,000 breast exams, many of which were made possible by the Komen Foundation. By refusing to continue to fund these exams, the Foundation bowed to the interests of anti-abortion advocates who criticized its relationship with Planned Parenthood. In doing so, Komen has compromised on its commitment to women’s health services. This affront especially affects low-income and uninsured women for whom Planned Parenthood is one of the only options for affordable women’s health services. The war against Planned Parenthood is, at its heart, a war against poor women’s bodies. Elite women like the Foundation’s president Karen Handel and founder Nancy Brinker will always have access private doctors for their women’s health needs. Much of Planned Parenthood’s clientele, however, does not have that same level of privilege.

The Komen Foundation’s announcement has provoked unprecedented public outrage.  Politicians, bloggers, and media outlets have denounced the politicization of women’s health. Donations to Planned Parenthood flooded in: the organization has received more than one million dollars in the past few days from supporters eager to see women’s health services continue. The Komen Foundation has also reported a 100% increase in donations in the past few days. But just a few hours ago, responding to public pressure, the Komen Foundation declared that it reversed the controversial decision to de-fund Planned Parenthood. Hopefully the temporary break in ties between these two organizations was just a lapse in judgement on the part of Komen’s leaders. Sanger’s commitment to accessible women’s health care prevails, for now. But the controversy has reminded us anew the importance of being vigilant in protecting the rights that Sanger and her successors dedicated their lives to securing.