Eugenic Feminism

Eugenic feminism was a movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries meant to empower women to have children. The eugenics movement was aimed at preserving the future of the Anglo-Saxon race, whose populations were being decimated in the frequent imperial wars of the time and sought the continued emigration of people from Britain. Canada’s eugenic feminist movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries undermined the long term rights and interests of women by setting their ambitions too low, relegating them to traditional positions as mothers and wives. The eugenic feminists’ compromise that women needed to be empowered to enable them to produce and raise a fit future race created room for the exploitation of women within marriage and in their sexual relationships with men. Therefore, the eugenics movement traded women’s rights and ambitions for the traditional roles women had been taught to fill—marrying a man and giving birth to “fit” children. Mainstream feminism gained prominence in the 20th century because it advocated for the rights of women in education, work, marriage, and in politics. One branch of feminism whose impact on Canadian women was largely negative was the eugenic feminism movement, which supported the use of women’s bodies for reproduction in exchange for their social and political empowerment.

What is Eugenics?

This concept is applied in the social sciences to refer to the belief and study of the possibility of improving the genetic qualities of the human race through selective human breeding. Eugenics is a Greek Word meaning “of good birth.” It is derived from the Greek roots for "good" and "breeding." It involves encouraging reproduction, such as through early marriages, among individuals with desirable qualities (or those from a superior race) while discouraging reproduction among inferior races.

Eugenics in Canada

This practice was adopted in Canada in the late 19th century and through the first half of the 20th century (1880-1950). This philosophy originated in Britain in 1883 when Francis Galton, a proto-geneticist and a half-brother of Charles Darwin, advocated through his writings the need to “make “better” humans through controlled breeding”. Galton noted that eugenics's first objective was to "check the birth-rate of the Unfit" and in order to achieve this, the first step was to identify who was "unfit". In the US, the decision to identify unfit subjects occurred with the American Model Sterilization Law; Hitler's Nazi Germany adopted this Model Sterilization Law eventually. Galton’s ideas gained audience in Canada toward the end of the 19th century, when the British Empire began an expansionist campaign across Canada’s indigenous territories. The eugenic movement was aimed at preserving the future of the Anglo-Saxon race whose populations were being decimated in the imperial wars common at the time, and the continued emigration of people from Britain. In Canada, Anglo-imperial settlers (British nationals) were concerned that they were unable to make Canada a truly British colony by imposing their own culture due to the high numbers of the Indigenous First Nations, French Canadians, Métis people, and migrant settlers from other countries.

The Basis of Eugenic Feminism in Canada

Eugenics received a major boost in 1928 after the passing of the Alberta Sexual Sterilization Act and the creation of the Eugenics Board, which received a government mandate to sterilize certain individuals. Sterilization occurred when people were deemed to possess undesirable mental or physical conditions that were considered inheritable, and when the government judged people unsuitable to bear and raise children. The rise of the eugenic feminism movement in Canada during this time was driven by the idea that if women were to be used as vessels for carrying and producing future generations—thus increasing the number of people with desirable qualities—then their social conditions had to be improved. Feminists of the time argued that these improvements were imperative in order to create better mothers for the future generations. As Francis Galton put it, women were the agents of reproduction, the vessels by which the race would be improved, “furthering the productivity of the “Fit” by early marriages and healthful rearing of their children.” From this understanding of women’s role as agents for ensuring the future of the “Fit” race, female leaders and advocates of women’s rights argued that it was necessary to better their own lives first. It was the responsibility of society to empower women so as to enable them to fill this role effectively.

However, while the idea of empowering women in itself is a good idea, when it is coupled with eugenics it is problematic. In its original context, eugenics, as advocated by Francis Galton, demeaned women by considering them “breeders” whose ultimate goal in life was merely to increase the number of people with desirable qualities. This notion undermines the dignity of women by treating them like livestock whose only value to society is reproduction. A great deal of literature, however, has emphasized the role that the promotion of eugenics played in giving an opportunity that women could exploit to advance their rights. In Canada, particularly, the argument that women should be given access to greater opportunities to make them better mothers exploited the interests of British expansionists who needed the women—namely, their bodies—to increase the Anglo population. The eugenic feminists’ strategy of using the demand for “women breeders” to improve their social conditions actually harmed women’s rights in the long term. It promoted the eugenicists’ demand for young brides and polygamy. The assumption was that women would gladly become “human breeders” if their grievances, such as the right to vote and work, were addressed.

Eugenics in Practice

Colette Leung’s study on disability in Canada indicates that eugenics made tremendous headway in western Canada between 1928 and 1972, impacting many who were perceived as mentally or physically defective. In order to protect society from their conditions, eugenicists subjected these people to sterilization and passed legislation to institutionalize them. The victims all belonged to marginalized groups, but the greatest common denominator was the presence of developmental disabilities. Leung’s study includes interviews and videos with some of the people, now in their 60s and 70s, who were directly affected by eugenic ideologies and practices. This study shows the correlations between history and current practices, particularly in biomedicine.

Meehan indicates that the adoption of eugenics as a means of breeding a better human being hurt many women, who desired to be mothers but were deemed unfit. According to Meehan, this philosophy continues in the form of prenatal testing and eugenic abortion, which has been advocated and sometimes even funded by the world’s influential governments, including the United States. The combination of testing and abortion on the grounds of a fetus’ “unfit” status became an awful ordeal for many couples.

Dyck notes that coerced sterilization and other involuntary procedures motivated by eugenics robbed men and women of their reproductive rights. Nevertheless, Dyck’s study indicates that eugenic programs enjoyed favour among those that believed in eugenics’ ability to empower reproductive health. This created space for sexual sterilization surgeries as a means of contraception. As a result, eugenics programs, once common primarily among Prairie and Alberta women, in the 1940s were demanded by many middle class married women who mounted pressure on their physician to offer them sterilization surgeries to control their fertility, of their own will.

Wanhalla asserts that the nature of eugenics brought together diverse groups who forged alliances based on a shared view of eugenics. Moral and social reformers, scientists, politicians, medical authorities, and academics all supported eugenics. Wanhalla’a thesis examines the contributions of the National Council of Women, the Society for the Protection of Women and Children, the Women’s Division of the Farmers’ Union, Women’s Christian Temperance Union, and individual female professionals, such as teachers, nurses, writers, doctors, government officials, and feminist activists interested in producing a raced and gendered discourse of eugenics. The thesis hypothesizes that overseas influences and models potentiated colonial eugenics where distinctive colonies’ voices and anxieties exerted more dominion. Each colonial setting influenced the movement differently; hence an emphasis within the study on gender and themes of colonial identity, and the argument that eugenics can be perceived to be subject to historical racial specificity, just like feminism.

The Growth of Eugenic Feminism in Canada

Ziegler points out that, during the first quarter of the 21st century, the eugenics movement became stronger and redefined itself by forming a powerful coalition among social workers, judges, scientists, feminist reformers, and legislators. It advocated for eugenic laws reform to combat the inheritance of undesirable traits, hence removing them from the racial stock. This coalition resulted in the redefinition of science and created eugenic feminism, attributed to Francis Galton’s assertions that had pointed the world on a mission of striving towards a better future race. This encouraged marriage of people with desirable genes while discouraging marriage of people who were perceived to have the undesirable genes and recommending abortion of fetuses perceived to have mental/physical problems. Ziegler points out that although the formation of eugenic feminism was successful, it has been insufficiently treated in historical accounts to properly cover its contributions to the perspectives of feminist reformers and how their influence negatively shaped eugenic theory.

The eugenic movement began by exploring options for particular legislation-based solutions, seeking to find out which best worked for their interests. The first attempted solution was institutional confinement in 1890, but it failed because of criticism on the grounds that institutional segregation caused stigmatization that traumatized victims—that is, those who were perceived to be “unfit.” Because of the increasing condemnation for institutional confinement, laws that restricted marriage licenses soon came into action, because they were considered less alienating as compared with the segregational approach that aimed at impending defective procreation. Although the first approach was criticized because of its capacity to traumatize those it affected, these rules were also criticized because they were considered ineffective; “defective” people could simply have children outside wedlock. Finally, eugenicists adopted sterilization, a practice that they perceived as more practical and humane.

The adoption of eugenic practices expanded throughout Canada and the entire world as women came to be perceived as the bearers of the future race. Consequently, their human value was degraded to mere breeding stock. This means that women’s function in Canadian society was reduced to transmitters of “genius” traits from men to their offspring. As this role became more crucial, women’s status as breeders elevated them into “mothers of the race,” a rank deemed more noble. Besides the need to make women feel more appreciated, the change of social status from breeders to “mothers of the race” aimed at reshaping Galtonian theories of femininity that seemed to undermine the role of women in the society. In order to secure a proper place for women in society, many eugenicists like Karl Pearson and Havelock Ellis defended the value of women as agents of reproduction, not just vehicles or media of reproduction. It can be argued that the eugenicists believed that women had an equal role in bringing forth desirable generations, as men opposed to the Galtonian theories subordinated women’s role in reproduction and sought to make them only the means that men used to create future generations. Because these more progressive eugenicists emphasized women’s role in reproduction, it kindled “eugenic feminism,” which fought for the inherent value of women. Therefore, although it was still rooted in apparent anti-feminism, eugenics became a channel that embodied female social power within a broad conceptualization of motherhood. Gibbons asserts that feminist groups in Alberta, like the United Farm Women of Alberta, became instrumental in organizing and politicizing local women, ultimately pressuring the government for control over legislation that managed domestic affairs.

The major argument behind eugenic feminism was that if women were expected to bear responsibility for producing the future race, then society had the responsibility of empowering them to do so. At the time, women could not be involved in any other economic or civil activities, because their only society role was as breeders. According to eugenicists, women needed more than just procreative responsibilities. Along with their motherly duties, they also needed to be part of controlling and managing the future generations. Although misogyny was pervasive, eugenic feminists used this argument as bait to persuade and push through their right to vote. By embracing Galtonian theories, eugenicists realized that women needed to take part in the voting process if they were to be considered full Canadian citizens and not just incubators. They needed to salvage their social and economic status, and in order to achieve this, they first needed to be recognized as citizens by exercising their democratic right to vote. Voting was a prerequisite to gaining economic freedom, because it allowed women to ensure the best possible conditions for themselves as mothers and for their children. All of these actions were undertaken with the aim of ensuring that the best babies were born.

Eugenic Feminism and Women's Rights

Nevertheless, patriarchal ideology did not allow women’s maternal instincts to influence the society that they were believed to be creating. Instead, eugenic discourse was imposed upon them in a quest to ensure that mothers would not understand what needed to be done to maintain best conditions for future races. This attitude could be attributed to women’s supposedly indoctrinated and patriarchal presumption that their role was only to have babies; hence corrupting social conditions that influenced the inferiority of the female gender. On the other hand, eugenic feminists felt that women deserved better than just being breeding vessels. Consequently, they sought to improve the corrupt social conditions and offer women a morally superior social space within the male dominated society through access to suffrage rights.

In addition, eugenics thwarted women’s personal advancement because they were predisposed to valuing society’s best interests over their own aspirations. Women were expected to avoid self-preservation in favour of racial preservation. In order to do this, undesirable and unfit women were subject to birth control and sexual sterilization. Some feminists seemed to consent to this practice because they felt that eugenics offered a good balance--self-preservation and sexual sterilization--partly due to the strong relationship between eugenic ideas of social, racial, and moral hygiene and the traditionally feminine practice of “cleaning up.” Women were expected to fulfill their normal societal obligations without consideration for their feelings. They were expected to produce clean generations, regardless of the methods used, including birth control and sterilization. Society was more important than personal ambitions or desires.

Eugenics bound women to domestic chores and emphasized their role as mothers of the future race. In spite of the women’s efforts to shine in other spheres, their role as child bearers remained their major purpose in society. Consider Emily Murphy, a eugenic feminist who was the first to become a female magistrate in the new created Women’s Court in Edmonton. Although she was invested with the same power as her male counterparts in the male courts, her rulings were often challenged. Although she had formal legal training, she met opposition to her rulings on the grounds that women were not legally persons and therefore did not have any right to hold office. This was not only debasing but also demoralizing, because it intensified gender inequalities and made women more animals than humans. Even though society needed women in order to have produce their genetically superior offspring, they were still expected to limit their scope to just being mothers. Society limited women’s aspirations in life and set a gender-based barrier before them, leaving political decision making as the exclusive province of men.

International Eugenics

Eugenics was not just a Canadian phenomenon but was globally practiced. Rafter points out that in 1907, Indiana passed a law allowing sterilization through the influence of eugenic family studies that touted the allegedly defective lineages including the Kallikaks and Jukes . Likewise, in their desire to use science to solve social problems, the citizens of California passed a third sterilization bill. This legislation gave medical superintendents and prisons a legal mandate to “asexualize” patients or an inmates, respectively, if it was determined that such action would likely improve their mental, moral, or physical condition.

During the Progressive Era in the United States, groups were crudely categorized as “deserving” and “undeserving,” a distinction that played a major role in reshaping immigration and labor reforms. Reform-driven economists advocated for and defended exclusionary immigration and labor legislation, arguing that the labor force needed to be freed from unfit workers, dubbed “parasites, low-wage races, industrial residuum” and “unemployable”. It was a common belief among economists during the Progressive Era that if the “unfit” workers were eliminated, all that would remain would be superior, deserving workers who would push for more and better results. Winfield too analyzes the concept of collective memory in analyzing the eugenics movement, its role in progressive politics, and its influence on the policy, practices, and aims of education. Winfield evaluates the ideology of eugenics as a peculiar category and group of distinction, and the function of collective memory in offering mechanisms through which eugenic ideology may shape action and interpretation in educational practice. The study notes that, during the establishment of education as a unique academic discipline, the Progressive Era and the eugenic movement coalesced to form an alliance that reshaped the public perception of the role of education and how students were categorized based on intelligence, beliefs, the attitudes that surrounded multiculturalism, and other unexpected ramifications.