Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Jennifer Byrd
WGST 2310-001
Often times the terms feminism and feminist can be used in a negative connotation
where stereotypes frequently come to mind. The image portrayed is a movement led by angry,
man-hating, bra-burning, lesbian women. In many cases the impression that repeatedly arises
when thinking about feminism, as with almost any movement, is the radical. However, it is
important to understand that not all followers of a movement fall on the extremes. It is crucial to
note the kind of advancements women in history have made through involvement in the feminist
movement. Such progress is seen in the areas of politics, education, the workforce, economics,
and society as a whole. Women have been fighting for centuries for basic human rights in order
to have control over their own bodies, minds, and overall quality of life. Generations of women
have been a part of the feminist movement to actively exhibit that females are just as capable as
males and just as deserving of fundamental human rights. Notable figures include first wave
feminist such as Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton; second wave
feminists such as Betty Friedan and Simone de Beauvoir; and third wave feminists such as Judy
Chicago and Naomi Wolf. Two famous first wave feminists, famous for their achievements in
the early twentieth century include Margaret Sanger, known for her strides in womens
reproductive rights and birth control, along with Alice Paul, known for her activism in the
Alice Paul and Margaret Sanger were both twentieth century, female activists who fought
for the advancement of women. Alice Paul fought for womens suffrage while Margaret Sanger
fought for womens reproductive rights, but they both established the first major movements in
these areas in America. They both used writing as a tool for their corresponding movements.
Margaret Sanger started a magazine called The Birth Control Review: a herald of new freedom
for women, dedicated to the principle of intelligent and voluntary motherhood (Baker 134).
Similarly, Alice Paul started a weekly bulletin called the the Suffragist which focused solely
on the federal amendment for suffrage and how it would best the best way for women to attain
the right to vote. Through her writing, Paul urged that collaboration and integration with other
women along with a feeling of dignity in ones self would better help women reach their targeted
goal (Adams and Keene 42-44). Sanger and Paul endured imprisonment, hunger strikes, and
other forms of punishment as a part of their efforts. Their work has changed the lives of many
women today by achieving womens suffrage and establishing birth control and reproductive
rights.
Alice Paul was an American suffragette who headed the Congressional Committee of the
National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). She stated: I believe myself that
women by nature are the great force for all these things that are constructive and upbuilding to a
nation (Fry). She urged for women to attain greater rights as to have them be able to contribute
considerably more to the overall well being of society. Accordingly, she expressed her views
that Women are certainly made as the peace-loving half of the world and the homemaking half
of the world, the temperate half of the world. The more power they have, the better world we are
going to have...if they want to make the best possible home and best responsible community and
so on, you have a force thats not thinking all the time about going out and fighting somebody in
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the economic struggle or in any other struggle (Fry). When Paul was younger, she sided with
the choice of leading a single, independent life . At one point she thought about teaching and
being a positive, inspiring role model for younger generations, but she did not see how this
would provide direct effects in society. In turn she decided to advance her social sciences
instead. In order to gain more knowledge on achieving social reform, specifically on the efforts
for suffrage, Alice Paul joined the Womens Social and Political Union (WSPU). Later through
involvement the WSPU she met Lucy Burns, who later would join alongside Paul in her
campaign movement (Adams and Keene 5-7). Alice Paul believed in taking action in order to
successfully transform womens suffrage, so she started a campaign in 1913 with the idea of
nonviolence (Adam and Keene 76). Her method of nonviolence came from her experience in the
Quaker practice of peaceful protests and her acquired knowledge through school. She was
inspired by Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, and David Thoreau and his book Civil Disobedience
(Adams and Keene 21-25). She led the American Suffrage Movement in order for women to gain
control over their lives, as to detest the negative view placed upon women and the perceived
notion that women were the inferior gender. Paul believed that nonviolent rhetoric could first
change her adherents self-image and then their status in society-thus changing everything about
the world in which they lived (Adams and Keene 41). She took the main event of her campaign
to Washington D.C where women all across the country joined to march for womens suffrage
(Adams and Keene 77, 79). However it took many years to see the end result of Pauls
endeavors. It was not until March of 1920 that thirty-five of the states had ratified the
amendment for suffrage. Later that year by mid-September, Tennessee, followed by Connecticut
ratified and secured the final vote, making possible the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in
1920 (Adams and Keene 245). Not long after, Alice Paul proposed the Equal Rights Amendment
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(ERA) and despite how much effort was put into it, the amendment did not succeed (Kyvig).
But despite failure with the ERA, Pauls was able to make a significant impact by helping
women attain the right to vote, something that has had a large impact on women till this day.
Margaret Sanger was an activist and social reformer whose main focus was to educate
women on sex and birth control. Sanger was an active writer on sex education. Some of her most
famous pieces include Family Limitation, The Woman Rebel and her magazine, The Birth
Control Review. Margaret Sanger stated in her first issue of The Birth Control Review that birth
control was the most vital issue before the country; it was far more important than the war
(Baker 133). Sangers strong views date back to her mothers death which Sanger blamed on her
eleven births and several miscarriages. Sanger also worked as a nurse in her early career and
encountered too many women who had improper abortions performed on them. This guided
Sangers motivation to provide sex education to all women, despite the laws placed to prevent
women knowing about their bodies. Sangers pamphlet, Family Limitation, became one of her
most influential pieces and Baker explains that Sanger provided explicit practical coverage of
anatomy (85). Sangers methods werent without issues. Sanger was a eugenicist and, arguably,
a racist. Sanger started The Negro Project, a series of campaigns to teach the black community
about birth control. Some view this advancement as racism, but Charles Valenza argues that even
black leaders expressed concern for the birth control movement not reaching the black
community (46). Whether or not Sangers intentions were due to underlying racism, she did
make a huge impact on the birth control movement. Sanger may not be a perfect feminist, but her
While Alice Paul focused on the mental aspects of feminism and Margaret Sanger
focused on the physical limitations women face, both made an outlasting impact on the future
generations of women. Feminism takes many faces, not just the flat angry, man-hating, bra-
burning, lesbian stereotype. Both of these phenomenal women created opportunity out of the
little they had, and both of these women added a different dimension to the feminist stereotype.
Margaret Sanger and Alice Paul created some of the first stepping stones used by second and
third wave feminists and distinguished themselves as role models for the future to follow. They
are not perfect feminists because they are people, but they are influential feminists that have
Works Cited
Adams, Katherine H., and Michael L. Keene. Alice Paul and the American Suffrage Campaign.
Baker, Jean H. Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion. Hill and Wang, Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
2012.
Fry, Amelia R. Suffragist Alice Paul's Memoirs: Pros and Cons of Oral History. Frontiers: A
Journal of Women Studies, vol. 2, no. 2, 1977, pp. 8286. JSTOR, JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/3346017.
Kyvig, David E. Historical Misunderstandings and the Defeat of the Equal Rights
Amendment. The Public Historian, vol. 18, no. 1, 1996, pp. 4563. JSTOR, JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/3377881.
Valenza, Charles. Was Margaret Sanger a Racist? Family Planning Perspectives, vol. 17, no.