Racism And Sexism In The Early 20th Century

Eugenics: the means to justify racism and sexism in the early 20th century During the early 20th century there were a lot of changes that were happening in America. It was a transition period for people adapting with the Emancipation Proclamation and new lifestyles. A side effect of these changes was Eugenics, which was a byproduct of people coping with racist and sexist mentalities. They viewed minorities especially African Americans as less than desirable traits and treated them as such. During this time females were entering the work force and one of the strong beliefs in this time was that the traditional family was becoming extinct. Eugenics was deeply ingrained in racist and sexist ideas until, with time, society progressed and adapted. …show more content…
The study was supposed to create more intelligent marriage options, ‘untainted children’, and prevent the spread of disease carriers. Underneath, it allowed racism to thrive in order to extinguish so called ‘undesirable traits’. The people who agreed with this stand point argued that it was their generation’s responsibility to make a better race and prevent these traits from evolving. This created an environment where women’s reproductive rights became the focal point of attack and people began telling others that they shouldn’t be allowed to have children. With this new viewpoint, a new tension developed; the culture of responsibility versus the culture of independence. Should you be able to have children even if it hurt the next generation or should you be responsible and not subject the next generation to this? In the book, The Bladerunner by Alan E. Nourse, he perfectly depicts a dystopian society that is structured around eugenics. In the book only people with desirable traits can get medical treatment and the others without these traits were subjected to surgery so they can’t have children. This created a tension for the families in the book because if they had children they wouldn’t be able to give their children medical treatment and they could spread disease if untreated or if they were a disease …show more content…
At the time when Eugenics was taking place there was The Great Depression in 1929. As a result of The Great Depression, women began to live as a single or independent from their husbands and the number of marriages were dropping exponentially. Also during this period, women were exploring the means to be independent as well as sexual pleasures, this only fueled the eugenicist’s fire. Eugenics began explaining that females were corrupting homes and the idea of family with this new lifestyle because they were not at home with the kids or cooking for their families. Not only were they worried about this, but they were also worried about the rise in premarital sex, divorce, and children before marriage. The eugenics explained that the traditional family was declining and the only way to prevent this was sterilization . As a result, they began advertising that it was a culture of responsibility to have a child so they explained that not all women should have children. This made females’ sexuality the center of attention because the public was worried about what was going to happen to the next generation. One of the most famous case of this instance was the court case between Ann Hewitt and her mother, Maryon Cooper Hewitt, in 1936. During a time when Ann Hewitt was going to have surgery, her mother convinced the doctor to sterilize Ann without Ann’s permission. Maryon defended herself by saying her