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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Monstrous Mothers: The Politics Of Forced Mothering, Gillian Henry
Monstrous Mothers: The Politics Of Forced Mothering, Gillian Henry
Honors Theses
Can a woman be a woman without being a mother? By studying the control of women's bodies around reproduction, my work elucidates the insistence on women becoming "good mothers" for society. Is the childless woman a monster? Analysis of the Medea trope identifies that the most monstrous woman of all is thought to be the woman who kills her children. And while white women fight for reproductive choice, women of color fight for reproductive freedom, as coercive policies such as forced sterilization deprive women of color as even being considered as potential mothers. Society's insistence on women fulfilling their destiny …
A Right To Motherhood? Race, Class, And Reproductive Services In The Jim Crow South, Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
A Right To Motherhood? Race, Class, And Reproductive Services In The Jim Crow South, Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare
This research examines birth control and sterilization practices aimed at low-income black women in the United States from 1939-1950, within the framework of specific race- and class-based constructions of motherhood in the Jim Crow South. How these social services aimed at reproductive health were grounded within differential ideals about family, childbirth, and motherhood for White versus African American women is explored. Evidence is presented from archival collections containing records for Planned Parenthood’s Negro Project, The Association for Voluntary Sterilization’s programs, and The American Social Health Association’s public health programs. Birth control services in the South were delivered within a framework …