The Argument For Voluntary Motherhood - 1813 Words

This question got people thinking. Around the 1870’s a campaign began called â€Å"voluntary motherhood† which was a program suggesting that married couples should resist sexual activity for long periods of time to keep from having unwanted children. Some feminists during this time were pushing the campaign of â€Å"Voluntary Motherhood†. â€Å"Contesting† against the conservative party and their extreme beliefs became one of the most â€Å"powerful feminist movements†. The main problem was really that women did not always want to be mothers. Despite contrary belief, some women had no desire to bear children. Thus, the feminists argued â€Å"Voluntary Motherhood† and claimed it as their main slogan. This simply means that women who actually desire to be mothers†¦show more content†¦Really, this issue throughout most of its stages is nothing more than a conflict between social radicals and social conservatives. People seemed to be so frightened by the fact that women no longer wanted to be completely submissive to men and therefore continuing to birth numerous children, that they automatically assumed that women just wanted to run around and be promiscuous(Tone 148). One of the earliest waves of this movement began in 1870 ,which Tone describes as the â€Å"Victorian sexual system†(Tone 148). During this time, people of strong morale stated that the purpose of sexual â€Å"activity† for women is solely for reproduction. Many people could not believe that women would ever have any type of sexual desire that was unrelated to the desire to be a mother(Tone 148). And for those who did believe that women might have some sort of â€Å"sex drive†, they believed that it was directly related to the duty to satisfy their husbands(Tone148). Of course, men were one hundred percent entitled to having strong sexual desires and were in no way patronized for that. In fact, many married men would find sexua l pleasure outside of their marriages, with prostitutes and otherwise promiscuous ladies. Within the churches, preaches spoke of how women with sexual desires were â€Å"unwomanly† and that their only true desire should be that of domesticity and maternity. â€Å"Many forces to be mentioned later, were clearly at work in curbing fertility, but the powerShow MoreRelated Margit Stange’s Literary Criticism of Chopin’s The Awakening1350 Words   |  6 PagesStange evaluates The Awakening in the context of the feminist ideology of the late nineteenth century. Specifically, she argues that Edna is seeking what Chopin’s contemporaries denoted self-ownership, a notion that pivoted on sexual choice and â€Å"voluntary motherhood† (276). Stange makes a series of meaningful connections between Kate Chopin’s dramatization of Edna Pontellier’s â€Å"awakening† and the historical context of feminist thought that Stange believes influenced the novel. For example, she equatesRead More Margit Stange’s Literary Criticism of Chopin’s The Awakening808 Words   |  4 Pagesand Chopin’s thinking are Stange’s well-chosen references to the contemporary ideology that shapes Edna’s thinking and her choices. Stange argues that Edna is seeking the late-nineteenth-century conception of self-ownership, which pivots on â€Å"voluntary motherhood.† Edna’s awakening, her acquisition of self-determination, comes from identifying and re-distributing what she owns, which Stange argues is her body. For example, Edna’s skin indicates early in the novel her more complex relationship with herRead MoreThe World Is A Free Motherhood1176 Words   |  5 Pagesâ€Å"The most important force in the remaking of the world is a free motherhood.† This quote from Margaret Sanger highlights many first wave feminists views about the restrictions of motherhood, marriage, and household respon sibilities. Many women saw being a mother as a chore or as something out of their control. Sanger fought these restrictions through bringing birth control to the general public who suffered from poverty due to large families. Others, like Charlotte Perkins Gilman, wrote social critiquesRead MoreReproductive Rights as a Historical and Feminist Issue914 Words   |  4 Pagesinformation and availability go hand-in-hand to allow women the knowledge to make an informed decision about their body. In 1891, Harriot Stanton Blatch (daughter of famous Elizabeth Cady Stanton) spoke out about a new term â€Å"Voluntary Motherhood.† She claimed that the upheld idea of motherhood as the highest moral position woman should strive to achieve was a lie, and that women who mothered unwelcome children were scorned.[2] This creates another example of a double standard placed against women in societyRead MoreBeing A Woman Is More Than Biology1658 Words   |  7 Pagesthose needed by man. Hil l and Kelley stated â€Å"If there were no other way of promoting more perfect equality for women, an argument could perhaps be sustained taking these risks.† By this they mean that if there were no other way than for women to be subject to the exact same laws as men such as same wage earning, working in unsafe conditions, no resting days, etc†¦ that an argument could perhaps be sustained while taking these risks into consideration but they believe that there is another way of promotingRead MoreAn Honorable Woman By Deborah Sampson966 Words   |  4 Pagesrelationship with society was dependent on their relationship with their husbands. Nonetheless, the Revolution did heighten the status of many women. The idea of â€Å"republican motherhood† gave women the responsibility to educate and prepare future citizens. While this got rid of women’s direct involvement in politics, republican motherhood did promote the expansion of educational opportunities for wome n. It also encouraged the idea of â€Å"companionate marriage,† in which marriages were brought together by affectionRead MoreBirth Control : The Rise Of The Modern Woman1764 Words   |  8 Pageshave the freedom to express themselves or reach their goals as women(Friedman 7). Most women in this time period were not even able to dream because their time was completely occupied by child rearing and family duties(Friedman 7). One of Sanger’s arguments was that the poor women in America were not able to access the kind of birth control that more wealthy women were able to get from Europe. Sanger, thankfully, did not see that as fair(Friedman 8). In the year 1912, Margaret Sanger began educatingRead MoreEssay about A Gender Debate606 Words   |  3 Pagespeople at that time believed women should stay home. Mill argued that it was in a womens nature to choose the role of wife and mother (William Stafford, 1998). However, recent feminists have argued against such notions and challenge the idea that motherhood is the only meaningful occupation for women. They have developed a critique of the family, which claims family is: ...ideological confinement to the domestic sphere and that it institutionalizes heterosexuality and defines other forms of sexualityRead MoreThe Contagious Diseases Act Of Nineteenth Century Britain Sparked1476 Words   |  6 Pagesof course, been other feminist campaigns previously, but these Acts were particularly significant in providing further stimulus, and influencing later movements. But what was it about these Acts that caused such a reaction? There were two broad arguments that feminists reacted to: the blatant misogyny and double-standard that shaped British society, and the way these Acts seriously breached women’s civil rights. 1864 saw the first establishment of the Contagious Diseases Acts, prompted by militaryRead MoreAnalysis of Bells Opinion on Prostitution1609 Words   |  6 PagesStudent Network Resources Inc.  ©2003-2008 ________________________________________________________________________ Paper Topic: Since people have a right to determine what they can do with their bodies (e.g. surrogate motherhood), they should also have the right to sell their sexual services if they freely choose to do so. Although sex work has always received a lot of criticism from the society that we live in but according to Bell (2009) rather than looking as sex work as degrading