Margaret Sanger: the woman who launched the sexual liberation in the United States

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Margaret Sanger is born on September 14th 1879 in the State of New York. She is the daughter of Michael Henessey Higgins and Anne Purcell Higgins. She was the sixth of a family with eleven children. She followed a nursing program at White Plains Hospital in 1900. Two years later she married William Sanger and gave birth to three children. The family quickly settled in theNew York Suburb. Not satisfied by the suburban life, Margaret Sanger decided that the family should move to the city. She became a nurse there and started her activism, dedicating a long time in circles and committees such as the Liberal Club and the Ferrer Center and Modern School (of anarchical tendencies).

Her personal marital sexual deviations are not without link to her personal fight. She was really young convinced that multiple pregnancies was a curse for women when she saw her mother dying after eleven childbirths and seven miscarriages. But the triggering factor of her decision to dedicate her life to birth control followed one case she had as a nurse. Sadie Sach a poor new yorker died after having a second illegal abortion made in sordid conditions. The first time Sadie asked the doctor how she could prevent another another pregnancy the doctor curtly told her «There's only one way, tell Jake to sleep on the Roof ». This time, Margaret Sanger decided to put down her uniform and to devote her life spreading birth control advices. Her time was over «with doctors and nurses and social workers who were brought face to face with this overwhelming truth of women's needs and yet turned to pass on the other side» she wrote. The doctor's remark enlighten us about the conception of women sexuality in the US at the beginning of the XXth century. Indeed, to avoid having children, women didn't have other choices than abstinence. Sexuality was totally curbed, and deprived from the notion of pleasure.

No matter the consequences for herself, this incredible woman fought during her whole life, to improve women's rights, particularly concerning their sexual liberties. At a time when women had less rights, were less educated and less liberated, I found it interesting to study the difficulties she went through, how her fight improved women's life, and the sexual liberation she triggered.

Extraits

[...] This time, Margaret Sanger decided to put down her uniform and to devote her life spreading birth control advices. Her time was over «with doctors and nurses and social workers who were brought face to face with this overwhelming truth of women's needs and yet turned to pass on the other side»[2] she wrote. The doctor's remark enlighten us about the conception of women sexuality in the US at the beginning of the XXth century. Indeed, to avoid having children, women didn't have other choices than abstinence. [...]

[...] No matter the consequences for herself, this incredible woman fought during her whole life, to improve women's rights, particularly concerning their sexual liberties. At a time when women had less rights, were less educated and less liberated, I found it interesting to study the difficulties she went through, how her fight improved women's life, and the sexual liberation she triggered. Birth control as a «personal necessity»[3], and the difficulties she had to spread her ideas Margaret Sanger had a new revolutionary idea about sexuality : women could have sex for pleasure and not only for reproduction. [...]

[...] Indeed, as we saw, she used to frequently receive writ of summons. And it's from that branch of power that Margaret Sanger won many successes. Indeed if she was arrested and convicted many times, she succeeded to appeal the decisions almost all the time and gradually won improvement concerning birth control. First, the Court abandoned the charges against her in 1915. We also noticed before that the Court made an exception in the law authorizing doctors to give information about contraception for medical reasons. [...]

[...] Margaret Sanger was criticized for her eugenics ideas. Eugenics deterred the reproduction of what they called people for preventing «unfit reproduction»[9]. Discriminatory and racial, these ideas obliged Margaret Sanger to move away from the presidency of the American Birth Control League. Backer, in Margaret Sanger, a life of passion book stands up for her, advocating that she had to side with eugenics in the context of that time to be listened. But the declaration she made in 1920 leaves some doubts : «Birth control itself, often denounced as a violation of natural law, is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or of those who will become defectives»[10]. [...]

[...] If she didn't succeed to legalize contraception during her life, she contributed to realize crucial improvement in that way. One of the most important thing is that she took part in the sexual education of women. Without any doubt, we can assure that she contributed to change the conception of sexuality in the United States. By controlling their body, women were not only considered as mother anymore. From then on, they started to gain liberties and to win more equality with men. Thus, not only Margaret Sanger was a birth control activist but she was also a feminist. [...]