The overly sexualized representation of African American women within the United States of America as “promiscuous, savages beings” stems from the period of slavery and the era where the Black body was a commoditized item to White hegemonic rule. By identifying the African American female population as “animalistic” and amoral, White colonialists were able to view Black women as “insatiable” sexual fiends who were fundamentally inferior to that of the White man. The African body became an economic resource that would historically stereotype Black women as overemotional and overtly sexual individuals who could sustain poor, societal treatment as a result of their subhuman existence. “The sexual abuse of slaves was thus critical to the maintenance of slavery itself, while bonded women’s misrepresented sexuality was a specific female extension of modern slavery’s pervasive misrepresentation of human beings as property” (Campbell, Miers and Miller 225). The misrepresentation of African American women during the age of slavery allowed White slave owners to view Black women as “property” or chattel rather than human beings. By degrading their slaves to that of animals, White colonialists were able to implement physical and sexual abuse through acts such as breeding or forced reproduction.“ In every attack, abuse, and rape, the White slaves reify their false assertions that the Black African women are not human beings but slaves. They are imagined as savages with insatiable sexual appetites” (Rousseau 61). The sexualization of the African American female body at the hands of White colonialists was done as a means to “reify false assertions that Black African women were not human beings but slaves.” Treating the African American woman as a beast became a legitimate, social norm due to the economic greed and desire for power that was ingrained in the foundation of slavery. “Hooks asserts that planters are besieged by ‘virulent attacks on slave importation’ and turn to breeding slaves to encourage profit” (Rousseau 63). Breeding and other forced acts of sexual violence were imposed upon Black females as a result of society’s perception of African American women as subhuman fiends. Before the utilization of forced sterilization within the United States, African bodies were commodities to White slave owners who viewed the Black female vessel as an “encouraging profit.” “Black reproduction is treated as a form of degeneracy. Black mothers are seen to corrupt the reproduction process at every stage. Black mothers, it is believed, transmit inferior physical traits to the product of conception” (Roberts 9). The historical objectification of the Black female body allowed White society to not only look at the modern African American mother as unfit, but viewed the very notion of “Black reproduction” as a “form of degeneracy.” After the abolition of slavery, the ease involved in exterminating the African American race was due in part to the loss of economic value of the Black female body. African American people, as a whole, were seen as degenerate race and a strain on the American welfare system. The continued degradation of the Black female body and their “transmission of inferior traits” was further capitalized by White society through historic theories on genetics and a movement that would seek an end to the reproduction of the African American population: the eugenics movement.
Theories on genetics and hereditary traits and the eugenics movement of the late 1880’s were racialized, scientific concepts that attempted to link social properties such as poverty, illiteracy, and socioeconomic welfare to genetic reproduction. When eugenics was applied to African American communities, it was believed that the increase in number of immigrant groups was threatening the “purity” of the White race and should therefore be restrained by instruments of forced sterilization. Reproductive technologies such as coercive hysterectomies and tubal ligation would be performed on women from “minority” backgrounds without their consent or conscious knowledge. In an attempt to justify such atrocities, scientists looked to Gregor Mendel who, through his study on pea stipulation, stated that physical and personal traits were predetermined by one’s ancestral, genetic make-up. “ Mendelian genetics posited that germ plasm, the substance of heredity, consisted of discrete and nonblendable factors that were passed unaltered from parent to offspring in sexual reproduction” (McCann 103). By claiming that “the substance of hereditary” remained unalterable between parent and child, Mendel presumed that inheritance was a direct, immediate process that initiated the need for “genetically-fit” reproduction. This notion of genes being passed on from parent to offspring also made the assumption that in order to create the “greatest stock of human beings,” individuals needed to find the fittest mates. The eugenics movement would further this claim by stipulating that the only way to secure a physically superior race of humans would be to hinder the very expansion of lower-income communities. “The eugenics movement was based on the theories promoted in the late 1880s by Francis Galton which alleged that social conditions like poverty and illiteracy are uncontrollably inherited” (Kramarae and Spender 639). The founder of the eugenics movement, Francis Dalton, reasoned that based on genetics, social properties such as “poverty and illiteracy” were directly related to inheritance rather than to one’s economic condition. By claiming that social properties were correlated to an individual’s level of literacy and economic standing, figures such as Dalton and later Margaret Sanger, would view lower socioeconomic communities as genetically degenerate and useless. “Though wholly inhumane in its blatant and overt message of forcible sterilization of the so called unfit-which typically means Blacks, eugenics is presented as an intelligent, logical, even harmonious way to better civilization” (Rousseau 106). Eugenics held a “blatant and overt message of forcible sterilization” of “unfit,” underprivileged communities that not only labeled African American individuals as overly sexual beings, but a direct threat to White society. The eugenics movement attempted to exterminate those that were deemed unprofitable to the nation and was seen as a “logical, even harmonious way to better civilization.” Rather than claim that eugenics was a theoretical, scientific concept that degraded minority groups and viewed them as second class citizens, the movement was portrayed as an intelligent plan that would hinder the continued reproduction of “unfit” human beings. “Teaching hospitals performed unnecessary hysterectomies on poor black women as practice for their medical residents. This sort of abuse was so widespread in the South that these operations came to be known as ‘Mississippi appendectomies’ ” (Roberts 90). Reproductive techniques such as hysterectomies were used as a form of coercive birth control to deter the growth of both African American and other minority communities within the United States. With support from the eugenics movement, physicians employed such reproductive procedures as a means to destroy the wombs of patients that were deemed secondary to Whites. States such as Mississippi, Alabama, and New York, which held large communities of individuals from low socioeconomic backgrounds, were areas that were coercively de-populated by forced sterilization. “Basically there are two forms of female sterilization: 1) tubal ligation in which the tubes which carry the egg from the ovary into the womb are tied. 2) hysterectomy in which the whole of the womb is removed” (Slater 151). Techniques such as tubal ligation and hysterectomies were mechanisms implemented by medical physicians who viewed African American women as a detrimental threat to the White race. Without the consent of their patients, medical experts utilized coercive birth control that would both respectively cut the “tubes which carry the egg from the ovary into the womb” and remove “the whole womb.” Reproductive technologies implemented by racist doctors and followers of the eugenics movement were not only issued as means to exterminate African Americans, but were popularized by revered individuals such as Margaret Sanger, the founder of the top abortion clinic in the nation: Planned Parenthood.
Margaret Sanger, the founder of the nation’s top abortion clinic Planned Parenthood, advocated the utilization of the eugenics movement to “improve” the genetic composition of the American population. Sanger believed that sterilization of the “unwanted” masses was necessary in order to hinder the reproduction of individuals who were “feebleminded,” idiotic, and threat to societal progression. Planned Parenthood, which was founded by Sanger, would not only become the top abortion-procedure clinic in the nation, but the largest supporter of forced sterilization. “A woman’s rights activist and a nurse, Margaret Sanger, prescribes to Galton’s theories of eugenics and applies its ideologies to the ongoing battle for contraceptive rights in the U.S,” (Rousseau 107). Sanger, who was inspired by Galton’s eugenics model, believed that “contraceptive rights” within the United States should be focused on the maintenance of a pure, superior race of individuals. The “ideologies” Sanger followed, which were aimed at hindering the progression of those she deemed as “feebleminded,” were discriminatory towards African American and Latino communities. Sanger, who was a “woman’s rights activist and a nurse,” remained prejudice towards minority groups she believed would spoil human society with their ill-manufactured genes. “ ‘STERILIZATION of the feebleminded and the encouragement of this operation upon those afflicted with inherited diseases does not deprive the individual of his or her sex expression, but merely renders him incapable of producing children’ ”(Rousseau 107). Sanger believed that forced sterilization of the “feebleminded” was beneficial to society in that it would exterminate human beings with problematic, threatening genes. Although she was revered as a prominent, feminist activist, Sanger viewed the African American communities of the United States as a mentally venomous group of individuals. “Planned Parenthood is a provider of abortion against African Americans. Dr. George Grant observed. ‘Planned Parenthood shifted its focus to school-based clinics, it again targeted inner-city minority neighborhoods” (Parker 123). Planned Parenthood, under its founder Margaret Sanger, “targeted inner-city minority neighborhoods” while maintaining racist ideologies that viewed African Americans as a poisonous, unintelligent race of individuals. As presented by Dr. George Grant, Planned Parenthood sought out areas where it could commence its extermination of unwanted minority groups. “ ‘I never realized how racist those people were until I read the things they were giving Dedrea at the school clinic. They’re as bad as the Klan. Maybe worse, because they’re so slick and sophisticated” (Grant 116). Rather than portray their racism in an explicit manner, Planned Parenthood initiated its prejudice through concealed actions such as shifting its focus towards school-based clinics as a means commence the sterilization of the African American youth. By overlooking the need of consent from their patients, Planned Parenthood was able to sterilize hundreds of African American women without any interventions. Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood’s wish to rid the nation of the “racially unwanted” masses was due in part to their belief that such individuals brought only economic hardships to society. Rather than be viewed as a beneficial community to the United States, African Americans, whom during slavery were commoditized beings, was seen as a drain to America’s welfare system.
Works Cited;
Campbell, Gwyn, Suzanne Miers, and Joseph Calder Miller. Women and Slavery / The Modern Atlantic. Athens: Ohio UP, 2007. Print.
Grant, George. Grand Illusions: the Legacy of Planned Parenthood. Brentwood, TN: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, 1988. Print.
McCann, Carole. Birth Control Politics in the United States, 1916-1945. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994.
Parker, Star. Uncle Sam's Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America's Poor and What We Can Do about It. Nashville, TN: WND, 2003. Print.
Roberts, Dorothy. Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty.New York: Pantheon, 1997.
Rousseau, Nicole. Black Woman's Burden: Commodifying Black Reproduction. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
Slater, Jack. "Threat to the Poor." Ebony Magazine 23 Oct. 1970: 150.
