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History

The eugenic feminism movement started around 1890 and lasted until roughly 1930. During these decades, multiple versions of eugenic feminism came about and although there were some differing opinions and understandings, the majority of the arguments that arose had a main theme in common. Generally, feminists argued that if women were provided with more rights and equality, the deteriorating characteristics of a race could be avoided. Feminists desired gender equality, and pushed for eugenic law and science to compromise and meet their views in order to breed a superior race.

1880s to 1900

Scholars such as Susan Marie Rensing have stated that roots of the eugenic feminism movement can be traced back to the Suffrage, free-love and the social purity movements of the 1880s, citing suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton as espousing beliefs that women should have the right to choose to breed because they have the capability and intellect to do so competently. Other suffragists such as Victoria Woodhull also spoke on the topic of eugenics via avenues such as her September 1871 address “Children: Their Rights and Privileges", where she claimed that “a perfect humanity must come of perfect children" and that having "the best seed" was important in order to produce children who could grow into functional adults. Her interest in eugenics is believed by historians such as Mary Zigler to have been driven by Woodhull birthing a special needs child through a marriage to an abusive, alcoholic, and philandering husband, which she felt may have contributed to her son's disability. During this time a eugenic marriage law was also passed in Connecticut during 1898, which targeted "morally defective" women and men, and prohibited them from marrying and having children.

Some literature produced by Stanton and other suffragists used hereditary and eugenic scientific arguments to support their causes and there was an increase of publications that addressed eugenics as it applied to or could be controlled by women. The free love periodical Lucifer, the Light Bearer was published in the American Journal of Eugenics, stating that its aim was to “help women break the chains that for ages have bound her to the rack of man-made law.” Rensing argued that these books and articles served as a catalyst for the development of the eugenic feminism movement in the United States, as they inspired a social reform in nineteenth century America.

1900 to 1915

Around the early 1900s some eugenicists began to criticize the role of women in the passing along of undesirable traits. American sociologist Richard Dugdale's 1877 work The Jukes: A Study in Crime, Pauperism, Disease and Heredity was treated as a eugenic tract by eugenicists like Charles Davenport and H. H. Goddard, the latter of whom used Dugdale's diagnosis of "morally defective" to write his own cacogenic studies. In his work Dugdale wrote that moral defects such as harlotry were mainly found in unchaste women rather than in both sexes, leading some to interpret this as evidence of women's genetic inferiority and role in passing along undesirable inheritable genes. With multiple sources of financial support, Davenport and other supporters of negative eugenics influenced the making of eugenic policies, leading to the sterilization of more than 80,000 people in the United States and appeared in high school and college studies across the United States, as well as the adoption of anti-miscegenation laws. Additionally, many of these eugenists made an effort to define eugenics by excluding women reforms, in order to divide feminist eugenic ideas from their platform.

These actions and opinions were criticized by eugenic feminists, who argued that women shouldn't have these social and legal pressures to get married because that would only increase the chances of having degenerate offspring. A 1911 article in the New York Times article by a Dr. Saleeby further posited the belief that women deserved the rights to control the way their race continues and that nations around the world would benefit from more freedom for women.

1915 to 1940

Between 1915 and 1935 eugenic feminism separated into distinct forms and tensions increased between eugenic feminists and mainstream eugenicists, as eugenic sterilization laws written by the mainstream differed greatly from feminist eugenic reform efforts. These eugenic reform laws targeted "inferior people", a group that included women, who were portrayed as "licentious" and "neurotic". Attempts were made by eugenic feminists to change the mind of the majority, but were unsuccessful during this time period.

During this time feminists such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Margaret Sanger became vocal opponents of 20th century eugenics. Neither Gilman or Sanger identified as eugenic feminists, however both published several feminist literary works that discussed or touched on the topic of eugenics that were read by those in the field. Gilman's work “represent[ed] eugenic ideology as the source”, while Sanger argued that legal and available birth control would empower both men and women by limiting reproduction and allowing parents to more efficiently and successfully concentrate their time and resources. In Woman and the New Race, she theorized that the "racial decline" people were discussing was due to women's ignorance of birth control and their lack of ability to obtain it. Sanger further posited that "women are natural eugenicists" as they all want healthy children, and they all want the ability to decide when to have them, which affects how well they can care for them. While this was made as an attempt to gain support of mainstream eugenicists, Sanger was unable to persuade a majority to agree with her.

Decline of Eugenic Feminism

According to Zigler, the decline of the eugenic feminism movement in the 1940s was because of several reasons. The first reason was that there were irreconcilable differences between the feminist movement and the eugenic movement, which led to them being unable to accommodate each other. Feminists abandoned their eugenic ideas and opinions when it became harder to gather support and more difficult to combine the two movements. Additionally, support for the eugenics movement as a whole began to wane as the public compared American sterilization practices to the burgeoning Nazi sterilization laws which were deemed "totalitarian." Finally, feminists gradually stopped pushing for more rights when they were ignored, and strict sterilization laws prevailed despite decades of female protest.