20th Century Women Essay

							                                   20th Century Women Essay

       Margaret Sanger fought for many decades for women to have simple and available birth

control. She broke laws, went to court, fled the country, and gained many supporters in her

battles. Finally, though, a birth control pill was created and legalized, meaning that women no

longer had to be defined by their reproductive capabilities. There’s no doubt that the pill and the

work of Sanger brought many political, social, and economic changes in American society, but

have all of these changes positively impacted the lives of women? Were the goals of Margaret

Sanger truly reached?

       The field of politics has been quite controversial for women, especially in the twentieth

century. Armed with the pill, women began to pursue equal rights, arguing that birth control had

made them able to pursue the exact same fields as men without having to worry about

pregnancies and maternity leave. In a testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on

Constitutional Amendments regarding the Equal Rights Amendment, Margaret Hecker states that

a woman has a few core differences from a man “but she does seek equal recognition of her

status as a citizen” (Hecker N/A). However, reproductive freedom didn’t just cause battles for

equality. Women also fought for privacy rights when it came to abortions in the highly

publicized Roe v. Wade trial and were successful. It was officially determined that, in the first

trimester, “the attending physician, in consultation with his patient, is free to determine [whether]

the patient’s pregnancy should be terminated” (Blackmun N/A). In a recent article titled “Nine

Reasons Why Abortions are Legal,” Planned Parenthood notes that their third reason is that “a

woman is more than a fetus” and that “to impose a law defining a fetus as a "person"…is

arrogant and absurd. It only serves to diminish women” (“Nine” N/A) These points help push

forth the fact that women really have succeeded in gaining their rights in the fight for abortions.
Overall, the ongoing battles for women’s rights have undoubtedly been affected by the freedom

offered by Sanger’s pill.

       Yet, it’s important that one must consider whether or not complete political freedom has

really been reached now that women could control pregnancy and abortion. One must take into

consideration that the Equal Rights Amendment has continuously been shot down. That fact

alone implies that women currently do not have “equality of rights under the law” (“United”

N/A). Also, it’s important to take into account some of the inferences one can make from the Roe

v. Wade trial. The final verdict was decided by the Supreme Court, which at the time consisted of

nine men and zero women. It was almost as if women really had no say when it came to this

issue and bodies; it was like they’d put their lives in the hands of men, just as they had since the

beginning of time. Even today, the field of politics does remain somewhat of “a man’s world,” as

we currently have just one female Supreme Court justice, along with only sixteen female

senators. Therefore, perhaps Sanger’s pill didn’t really make as much of a push in the field of

politics as she might’ve hoped.

       Since Margaret Sanger’s pill, women have made many economic advances. By 1965, six

million women were on the pill (“Pill” N/A), allowing them to go out and become doctors and

lawyers without having to worry about pregnancies and childcare. One example of a successful

woman is Myra Wolfgang, who made a testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on

Constitutional Amendments against the Equal Rights Amendment. A very successful woman

without equal rights, Wolfgang was “international vice president of the Hotel and Restaurant

Employees Union, AFL-CIO, and also the secretary-treasurer of its Detroit local” (Wolfgang

N/A). She had made it against the odds, but she also spoke for many other women. Pointing out

the importance of women in our economy, Wolfgang notes that “dire, economic necessity”
(Wolfgang N/A) had pushed women to get jobs. Overall, this all contributes to the fact that

there’s no telling where our economy would stand without Sanger’s pill out there to push women

to fight for their positions in the workplace.

       But it’s important to look back and ask whether women really have “made it” when it

comes to careers and salaries. According to the National Organization for Women (NOW),

women are paid only seventy-seven cents to each dollar a man makes (“Women” N/A). Also, in

a few industries examined that contained a majority of female workers, it was found that in seven

out of ten, the pay gap between men and women had increased from 1995 to 2000 (“Woman”

N/A). These statistics alone practically prove that even today, women still aren’t getting the kind

of equality in the work force that their reproductive freedom has earned them.

       Socially, Sanger’s birth control pill greatly impacted the lives of countless women.

Before, women were to “have sex as expected” (“Pill” N/A) or whenever their husbands wished.

One woman stated that back then, “women were supposed to go from absolute celibacy…to a

full-blown wonderful sexuality with her husband…this was supposed to take place overnight,

magically” (“Pill” N/A). However, women were soon freed by Sanger’s dream-come-true, a

single pill that would prevent pregnancies. Suddenly, sex became much more mainstream and

women could finally enjoy it without having to worry about possible repercussions nine months

later. With this pill, women were finally free from many of the chains that had been bound by

their gender.

       Yet have women completely found social fulfillment now that they had embraced their

sexuality? In Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan discusses the problem that has no name, which

had attacked young women everywhere even after the birth control pill had come out. Friedan

mentions the new social values of women, using the following as an example: “A girl refused a
science fellowship at Johns Hopkins…All she wanted, she said, was…to get married, have four

children and live in a nice house in a nice suburb” (Friedan N/A). Friedan’s thesis is backed up

with statistics pointing out that three out of every ten women had their hair dyed blond and that

“by the mid-fifties, 60 percent of college women dropped out to marry” (Friedan N/A). Sadly,

these superficial desires lead to women wondering whether being a housewife was enough.

Friedan mentions that one woman “was so ashamed to admit her dissatisfaction that she never

knew how many other women shared it” (Friedan N/A). Overall, though women could finally be

free from reproductive repercussions, they still faced painful social repercussions,

       So where does that leave us? What has Margaret Sanger’s pill really done? Did it really

free women? Politically, the three branches of our government still remain highly skewed

towards men, and women are still judged as unequal under the law, as shown by the lack of

support for the Equal Rights Amendment. Economically, we have a much higher ratio of female

to male secretaries than female to male CEOs. And socially, we have unfulfilled women in

marriages feeling inferior about their size and appearance thanks to advertising. Therefore, we

can pretty much assume that though many Americans hoped that the pill would start a new era of

female equality, the pill really just started an era of what we’d already seen.

       But what of Margaret Sanger? What did she really hope for when pursuing the pill?

According to The Pivot of Civilization, Sanger mostly wanted to get rid of “the menace of the

moron to human society” (Sanger N/A). She wanted to create birth control so that poorer people

those with mental deficiencies, who’re “invariably associated with an abnormally high rate of

fertility” (Sanger N/A), would no longer have as many children. Sadly, Sanger’s pursuit was

quite unsuccessful, as those in poverty simply cannot afford a pill to be taken every day or an

abortion whenever she becomes pregnant with an unwanted child. She wanted “civilized
communities [to] encourage unrestrained fecundity in the ‘normal’ members of the population”

(Sanger N/A) but it’s those people who live in such communities that can afford to regulate

childbirth and plan their parenthood. Therefore, in the broad scope, Sanger’s birth control pill

didn’t fulfill her wishes and only partially fulfilled the wishes of the many women out there

searching for political, economic, and social equality.
                                         Works Cited

Blackmun, Harry A. “Opinion of the Court.” 22 January 1973

Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. W.W. Norton and Company Inc. 1963

Hecker, Margaret H. “America Needs an Equal Rights Amendment.” Testimony before the

   Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments. 5 May 1970

“Nine Reasons Why Abortions Are Legal.” 22 September 2006. Planned Parenthood. Accessed

   20 May 2007. < www.plannedparenthood.org/news-articles-press/politics-policy-

   issues/abortion-access/nine-reasons-6141.htm>

Pill, The. Dir Chana Gazit. Steward/Gazit Productions, Inc. for American Experience. 2003.

Sanger, Margaret. The Pivot of Civilization. Brentano's Press, NY, 1922

United States Statutes At Large. Volume 86. p. 1523-1524

Wolfgang, Myra. “An Equal Rights Amendment Would Be Harmful.” Testimony before the

   Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments. 6 May 1970

“Women Deserve Equal Pay.” 16 April 2007. National Organization for Women. Accessed 20

   May 2007. <www.now.org/issues/economic/factsheet.html#facts">