Margaret Sanger: Feminism and Family Planning

Margaret Sanger was a feminist and women's rights activist. What term did she bring to the English language?

abortion

birth control

Sanger was a proponent of birth control, the idea of giving women control over their capacity for reproduction. She was one of the first American women to publicly address the topic of reproductive rights.

eugenics

SCROLL TO NEXT QUESTION

In her young life, Sanger took up which profession?

nursing

Sanger became a nurse and spent much of her early career working in New York City. There, she became more politically involved, working especially in the area of progressive women's rights.

teaching

law

SCROLL TO NEXT QUESTION

How many pregnancies did Sanger's mother have?

18

Sanger's mother became pregnant 18 times in her lifetime and gave birth to 11 live children. Sanger herself had three children. It's no wonder that Sanger was obsessed with the issue.

22

26

SCROLL TO NEXT QUESTION

What was Sanger's father like?

had children by at least three women

drank a lot

Her father was a hard-drinking man who rarely made the kind of living necessary to support a huge litter of children. Sanger's experiences with too many siblings and not enough money heavily influenced her life's course.

was a prominent politician

SCROLL TO NEXT QUESTION

Sanger lived in Greenwich Village and wrote a newspaper column. What was her column called?

"Intimacy and You"

"Reproductive Liberties"

"What Every Girl Should Know"

She wrote a blunt, candid column called "What Every Girl Should Know." It was meant to educate women about their bodies and how to control pregnancy.

SCROLL TO NEXT QUESTION

How did Sanger personally feel about sex?

thought it was a powerful force

Sanger thought sex was a powerful force that could be enjoyable for both men and women. But she felt that the reproductive aspects shouldn't be left to chance.

only tolerated it

found it disgusting

SCROLL TO NEXT QUESTION

What did the Comstock Act force Sanger to do in 1914?

had to flee the country

Sanger published a book about family planning -- a deed that violated the Comstock Act, which restricted public discussions of topics such as contraception. She fled the country for England.

had to endure public flogging

had to post bail

SCROLL TO NEXT QUESTION

Sanger knew nothing about diaphragms until she visited which country in 1915?

France

Netherlands

She visited Amsterdam (in the Netherlands) in 1915 and saw a family-planning center where diaphragms were available. She began shipping the contraceptive devices to the U.S. even though it was against the law.

Austria

SCROLL TO NEXT QUESTION

Sanger opened the nation's first birth control center. Where did she open the center?

Manhattan

Brooklyn

In 1916, she opened the birth control center, a first for America, in the middle of Brooklyn. She was derided by the public and arrested about a week later.

East Harlem

SCROLL TO NEXT QUESTION

Sanger encouraged people to make reproductive decisions based on what factor?

environmental hazards

societal pressure

economic well-being

Sanger was discouraged when people had too many children and not enough money to support them. She wanted women to have children only if they could afford to properly care for them.

SCROLL TO NEXT QUESTION

How did Sanger feel about masturbation?

thought it might prevent overpopulation

found it offputting

Sanger had negative views on masturbation, especially as a compulsive behavior. She wrote that some of the most troubled people she met were hooked on masturbation.

thought it was a good alternative to sex

SCROLL TO NEXT QUESTION

What is "eugenics"?

genocide

controlled breeding

In the 1920s and 30s, the concept of eugenics (controlled breeding) caught on in many places around the world, particularly in Germany. The idea was to have the most "fit" people in society reproduce while limiting the ability of "unfit" people to have children.

DNA manipulation

SCROLL TO NEXT QUESTION

Sanger directed most of her work towards which concept?

voluntary birth control

Her biggest concern was one of simple control. The idea was that no woman should be forced to endure an unwanted pregnancy.

abortion

selective breeding

SCROLL TO NEXT QUESTION

Sanger was a supporter of "positive eugenics."

true

false

She was more aligned with what was called negative eugenics, the idea of reducing the likelihood that "unfit" people would reproduce, a fact that was meant to improve heredity and health for society's benefit.

SCROLL TO NEXT QUESTION

Sanger abhorred homosexuality.

true

false

In a time when many people were very uncomfortable with homosexuality, Sanger was OK with the concept. She realized that homosexuals were simply different than heterosexuals.

SCROLL TO NEXT QUESTION

What factor ultimately drove Sanger to embrace the idea of contraceptives?

hated children

illegal abortions

As a nurse, Sanger frequently treated women who endured the repercussions of illegal back-alley abortions. Sanger felt it would be better to prevent pregnancies in the first place rather than resort to barbaric abortion techniques.

her mother's early death

SCROLL TO NEXT QUESTION

Why did Sanger publicly align herself with some of the concepts behind eugenics?

was a white supremacist

husband was a closet Nazi

was a political ploy

The eugenics movement of the 20s and 30s gained traction at the same time that Sanger was touting the benefits of family planning. She intentionally rode the eugenics wave in part because she thought it would help forward her own ideas about birth control.

SCROLL TO NEXT QUESTION

How many times was Sanger arrested for her views on women's rights?

zero times

two times

at least eight times

Sanger was arrested at least eight times during her life. She was not afraid to confront the status quo regarding women's rights (or the lack thereof).

SCROLL TO NEXT QUESTION

Most eugenicists of Sanger's era were racists who wanted to leverage the concept to eliminate minorities.

true

false

Many famous people of her era, from Teddy Roosevelt to H.G. Wells, believed that selective breeding might be a benefit to humanity. Only a few (cough, Germany) really cared about the idea of eliminating certain classes of people.

SCROLL TO NEXT QUESTION

Sanger was a prolific writer. How did she approach controversial topics?

used lots of esoteric terms

was very straightforward

Sanger was very direct -- and not at all shy -- in sharing her beliefs and value system. It's one reason why she was constantly targeted by those who opposed her ideas.

beat around the bushes

SCROLL TO NEXT QUESTION

Why did Sanger focus many of her birth control activities on minority communities?

because they were taking over cities

because they were poorest

Minority communities in the cities then (and now) were often poor and suffered from a lack of sex education. Sanger hoped to give those communities more control over their own lives by limiting unwanted pregnancies.

she was a racist

SCROLL TO NEXT QUESTION

Sanger famously agreed with the principles behind the Nazi eugenics program.

true

false

Sanger never sided with Nazi Germany's ideas about eugenics. She believed that individuals, not the state, should control reproductive rights.

SCROLL TO NEXT QUESTION

Sanger helped to found an organization that served as a forerunner to Planned Parenthood. What was the organization called?

U.S. Family Planning Agency

American Birth Control League

She helped to create the American Birth Control League. She was also president of the league for more than half a decade.

The Choice Club

SCROLL TO NEXT QUESTION

The black community has a conflicted view of Sanger's work. How did Martin Luther King Jr. perceive Sanger?

thought she was right

In the late 1960s, King aligned himself with Sanger's research. He credited her with doing good work for the black community and also for finding a way to fight the establishment.

condemned her

told people she was a racist

SCROLL TO NEXT QUESTION

Sanger once spoke to a women's branch of the Ku Klux Klan.

true

She actually did speak during a meeting of the Ku Klux Klan. She wasn't there to condemn black people, though. She simply saw it as an opportunity to chat about birth control.

false

SCROLL TO NEXT QUESTION

After speaking to the women involved in the KKK, Sanger wasn't entirely impressed with the females who were present. She later called them what?

children

Sanger wasn’t exactly blown away by the intelligence of the women involved with the KKK. She later called them children because they had such glib views of the world.

degenerates

morons

SCROLL TO NEXT QUESTION

Sanger won a Nobel Prize during her storied career.

true

false

She never won a Nobel Prize. However, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize thanks to her lifetime of work for women's rights.

SCROLL TO NEXT QUESTION

Sanger angered a lot of people during her life. How did she die?

heart failure

Sanger died of heart failure in 1966. She 86 years old.

murder

an "accident"

SCROLL TO NEXT QUESTION

Sanger was a proponent of forced sterilization.

true

false

Sanger was sometimes ineloquent in her descriptions of birth control. But she did not want the government to enforce any sort of compulsive sterilization program.

SCROLL TO NEXT QUESTION

Sanger died in 1966. When did the Supreme Court approve nationwide abortion rights?

six years later

Six years after her death, Roe v. Wade helped to legalize abortion. Sanger's crusade against back-alley abortions ended in a victory for her concepts regarding women's rights.

12 years later

two years later

FINISH QUIZ