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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, a host of the new House

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works Now podcast. Every week, I'll be bringing you

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Speaker 1: three stories from our team about the weird and wondrous

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Speaker 1: developments we've seen in science, technology, and culture. Fresh episodes

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Speaker 1: will be out every Monday on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play Music,

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Speaker 1: and everywhere else that find podcasts are found. Welcome to

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Speaker 1: Stuff Mob Never Told You from House touff Works dot com. Hello,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline

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Speaker 1: and Caroline. We have talked about reproductive rights on the

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Speaker 1: podcast so many times. We devoted a two part podcast

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Speaker 1: to the history of abortion in the United States. But

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Speaker 1: there is an overlooked chapter in our reproductive rights history

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Speaker 1: and also the reproductive rights fights, um that continue today.

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Speaker 1: And that's the issue of forced sterilization. Yeah, I mean

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Speaker 1: overlooked to the point of this was still happening just

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Speaker 1: a few years ago. Oh yeah, um so fact bomb listeners,

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Speaker 1: at least sixty thousand people from coast to coast in

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Speaker 1: the US were legally legally in all caps sterilized in

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Speaker 1: the twentieth century, and ultimately thirty two states past compulsory

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Speaker 1: eugenics laws, mostly affecting people of color, people disabilities, poor people, criminals,

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Speaker 1: and the mentally ill. Yeah. In the nineties hundreds of

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Speaker 1: young men and women in California alone were sterilized on

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Speaker 1: the basis of schizophrenia, epilepsy, manic depression, and quote feeble mindedness.

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Speaker 1: Even masturbation or pregnancy outside of marriage were considered immoral nymphomaniacal,

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Speaker 1: thus possibly requiring sterilization. Yeah, and we're going to see

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Speaker 1: that issue of pregnancy outside of marriage as a basis

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Speaker 1: for sterilization really ramp up after World War Two, which

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Speaker 1: is horribly ironic considering that we refer to that as

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Speaker 1: the baby boom. Uh. Yeah, I mean, but that gets

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Speaker 1: it and it will, trust me, we'll get into this.

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Speaker 1: But that gets at the root of who is producing

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Speaker 1: babies in the quote appropriate way or producing quote appropriate babies.

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Speaker 1: And we are going to focus in this episode, by

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Speaker 1: the way, on the for sterilization or compulsory sterilization as

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Speaker 1: it's also termed, of women of color. Um, We're not

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Speaker 1: going to focus as much on the sterilization of people

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Speaker 1: with disabilities of both physical disabilities and mental disabilities, because

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Speaker 1: that was something that we talked about more in our

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Speaker 1: episode on Disability and sexuality, um so getting act to

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Speaker 1: how the sterilization happened. It went down via vasectomy, hysterectomy,

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Speaker 1: sal pingectomys, which is the removal of fallopian tubes, and

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Speaker 1: also castration. And it certainly wasn't limited to the US,

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Speaker 1: although we're mostly focusing on the US and Puerto Rico today. Uh,

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Speaker 1: this also happened in Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Japan, Iceland, India, Finland,

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Speaker 1: all over the country. As Bell Bogs writes in For

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Speaker 1: the Public Good, the Shameful history of for sterilization in

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Speaker 1: the US, it was hardly limited to this country. And

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Speaker 1: I want to say I haven't read a ton about it,

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Speaker 1: but that it has been a recent issue too in Uzbekistan.

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Speaker 1: And compulsory serialization is absolutely a reproductive justice issue, and

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Speaker 1: absolutely one that white second wave feminist both knowingly and

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Speaker 1: unknowing overlooked. In their campaign for legalized abortion, they put

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Speaker 1: all of their effort into that aspect of reproductive rights,

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Speaker 1: whereas as this was happening, women of color in the

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Speaker 1: United States had to fight for the right to bear

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Speaker 1: children and raise families as they saw fit, rather than

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Speaker 1: abortion access not to say that abortion access is something

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Speaker 1: that only white women would want, but it speaks to

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Speaker 1: a very narrow definition of reproductive rights that we have had. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And as to Mark Craft Stoleer, the director of the

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Speaker 1: Women in Prison Project at the Correctional Association of New York,

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Speaker 1: told the Center for Investigative Reporting, these issues are just

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Speaker 1: as important as the brutal Republican attack on reproductive rights

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Speaker 1: and their tolerance and perpetuation of rape culture. And and

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Speaker 1: that's something that echoes what Laura Heimanez, the executive director

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Speaker 1: of California, Latina's for Reproductive Justice, told Salon. She says

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Speaker 1: that mainstream feminism has really been defined by issues of

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Speaker 1: abortion and contraceptive access and the right not to have children.

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Speaker 1: Whereas she says, women of color quote have had to

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Speaker 1: fight for our right to have children consistently, sterilization abuse

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Speaker 1: being just one example of this struggle. And I think,

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Speaker 1: I mean it was it was eye opening enough reading

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Speaker 1: all of these sources, these articles, these studies into this issue,

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Speaker 1: and it was horrifying enough to see how it has

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Speaker 1: continued into the twenty one century. But he was also

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Speaker 1: so eye opening to read these accounts from women of

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Speaker 1: color saying like, yes, let's fight for reproductive rights and justice,

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Speaker 1: but that doesn't stop at abortion. And my response to

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Speaker 1: that was, holy crap, of course it doesn't. Of course

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Speaker 1: it doesn't. And so I think telling this story is

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Speaker 1: so critical for all of those reasons. And it's also

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Speaker 1: foundational were intersectional feminism today because A if we're not

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Speaker 1: aware of serialization abuse and this legacy, then we're not

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Speaker 1: going to know to even keep an eye out for

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Speaker 1: it's still happening today, and be that definition of reproductive

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Speaker 1: rights will remain so narrow. And that's also why, for instance,

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Speaker 1: the term reproductive justice was even coined, because reproductive rights

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Speaker 1: had become so almost co opted by a I mean,

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Speaker 1: I don't mean this in a conspiratorial way, but by

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Speaker 1: a white middle class agenda, you know that only experience this,

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Speaker 1: this one lack of access, rather than this other form

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Speaker 1: of abuse perpetrated on women of color. Um. So let's

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Speaker 1: get into the history of this, because here's the thing.

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Speaker 1: Sterilization abuse is something that was going on in the

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Speaker 1: sense of the way we think about illegal abortion of

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Speaker 1: like back alley abortions, very hush hush um. This wasn't

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Speaker 1: hush hush at all. The US government was one hundred

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Speaker 1: percent complicit in this. And the story starts in nineteen

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Speaker 1: o seven. Yeah, that's when Indiana passed the nation's first

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Speaker 1: eugenics law, legalizing compulsory sterilization for quote unwilling and unwitting people,

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Speaker 1: and pretty soon after, Washington State and California followed suit

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Speaker 1: within the next two years, and the official classifications UH

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Speaker 1: listed for people who were part of this program included

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Speaker 1: feeble minded, dependent, diseased. Also, welfare recipients with children were

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Speaker 1: highly vulnerable. Because there's this idea, UH that really stems

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Speaker 1: from the progressive era of poverty being a character flaw

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Speaker 1: rather than a result of I don't know, something like

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Speaker 1: systemic race is um or you know, failing social program,

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Speaker 1: the vestiges of slavery. Yeah, I don't know, just little

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Speaker 1: things like that. And so the idea, which still persists

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Speaker 1: today of women who are quote in the system having

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Speaker 1: children at all or having more children was something that

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Speaker 1: the government just did not want to tolerate. And Dorothy Roberts,

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Speaker 1: who wrote the book Killing the Black Body, said about

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Speaker 1: this forced sterilization has always targeted people considered the least

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Speaker 1: valuable in our society. In the early twentieth century, that

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Speaker 1: meant white immigrants. By the mid twentieth century that meant

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Speaker 1: poor women, Black and Puerto Rican women, and other women

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Speaker 1: of color whose bodies were not seen as fit to

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Speaker 1: be protected by the state. And spoiler alert for later

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Speaker 1: in the episode, in contemporary context, that also includes the

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Speaker 1: population the massive population of incarcerated women as well. So again,

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Speaker 1: I mean, just keep keep in mind this hierarchy that

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Speaker 1: we have erected, even within quote unquote mainstream feminism, of

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Speaker 1: the needs and experiences of white women as it relates

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Speaker 1: to reproductive rights at the top, Yeah, exactly, And interestingly,

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Speaker 1: until the nineteen thirties, men were actually the majority of

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Speaker 1: the sterilized victims or survivors, and then it wasn't until

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Speaker 1: then the attention shifted dramatically and almost exclusively to women.

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Speaker 1: So this shift to women was largely due to mounting

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Speaker 1: concerns over quote unquote unfit mothers, welfare dependency, and population control.

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Speaker 1: And this is when Margaret Sanger and the beginnings of

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Speaker 1: planned parenthood and uh, the eugenics movement all start to

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Speaker 1: merge together. Because Sanger, as we discussed in part two

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Speaker 1: of our episodes on abortion, Margaret singer absolutely capitalized on

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Speaker 1: eugenics mania happening at the time to get attention and

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Speaker 1: funding to plan parenthood, saying like, oh, well, you know,

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Speaker 1: we have all these these unfit mothers are going to

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Speaker 1: be a real drain on the system, so you know,

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Speaker 1: maybe we should give them some kind of She wasn't

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Speaker 1: pro abortion, um, but she was like, maybe we should

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Speaker 1: give them some kind of contraceptive. I don't know, yeah,

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Speaker 1: And and we did touch in that episode on the

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Speaker 1: idea that was absolutely held at the time in the

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Speaker 1: nineties sixties, particularly by Black power groups, that this was

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Speaker 1: race genocide and that the government, especially when it came

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Speaker 1: to contraception and family planning clinics, it couldn't be trusted.

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Speaker 1: And from a modern perspective of especially a modern perspective,

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Speaker 1: if you don't know about these histories, you look back

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Speaker 1: and you think, well, it's ridiculous. These clinics were just

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Speaker 1: there to provide contraception. They were there to help you

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Speaker 1: plan a family or not plan a family. Um. But

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Speaker 1: when you look at it in the context of no,

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Speaker 1: literally a huge and significant portion of women of color

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Speaker 1: were forcibly sterilized in this country, all of a sudden,

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Speaker 1: you realize, oh, okay, this was a legitimate concern, and

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Speaker 1: I think that that's left out of so many narratives

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Speaker 1: about reproductive rights well and also understandable suspicion, as we

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Speaker 1: touched on in that episode as well, of those clinics

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Speaker 1: popping up in poor neighborhoods, and usually poor neighborhoods predominated

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Speaker 1: by families of color. Exactly. But if we go back

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Speaker 1: to the progressive era where in you know, the nineteen

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Speaker 1: twenties and thirties, the way that these forceful sterilizations would

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Speaker 1: go down, we're often through lies so um. As Dorothy Roberts,

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Speaker 1: author of Killing the Black Body, pointed out, you know,

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Speaker 1: the first targets, so to speak, were often immigrant women.

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Speaker 1: So a lot of times these women would be told

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Speaker 1: that listen, if you don't allow us to essentially like

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Speaker 1: give you a hysterectomy or remove your fallopian tubes, then

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Speaker 1: we are going to yank your immigration rights. You're gonna

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Speaker 1: lose your housing, your government benefits, um, and we might

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Speaker 1: also take away the kids you already have. And not

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Speaker 1: to mention that a lot of women were led to

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Speaker 1: believe they were intentionally mislad, I should say that these Uh,

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Speaker 1: these surgeries were reversible. Um. That's actually so the euphemism

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Speaker 1: getting your tubes tied um was very misleading because it

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Speaker 1: was like, oh, well, if you it's like tying a shoelace.

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Speaker 1: If you can tie them, then you can certainly untie them.

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Speaker 1: I picture to balloon, but yeah, shoelace will work. Um.

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Speaker 1: And there were also issues, I mean, as you can

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Speaker 1: imagine with language barriers if people were recent arrivals to

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Speaker 1: this country and they didn't speak or read the language.

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Speaker 1: The government was able to capitalize on this and get

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Speaker 1: people to sign off on things that they for sure

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Speaker 1: did not fully understand. And issues too of outright illiteracy,

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Speaker 1: which will come up again later in the episode, particularly

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Speaker 1: among um, poorer, more remote communities that would not have had,

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Speaker 1: you know, access to education. And typically these sterilizations were

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Speaker 1: performed after c sections, which gave these doctors another quote

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Speaker 1: unquote justification saying, you know what, they already have a

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Speaker 1: number of children. If they undergo any more c sections,

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Speaker 1: it's going to cause a lot of physical harm because

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Speaker 1: there's so much tissue. So we have to sterilize these

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Speaker 1: women and we're just gonna, you know, while we're in there,

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Speaker 1: let's just we'll just take care of it. Then, no

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Speaker 1: need to really talk about it, just do it. And

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Speaker 1: I mean, again, this was a formalized system. This was

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Speaker 1: not a back alley situation. Some states like North Carolina

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Speaker 1: established formal eugenic sports to keep a lookout for candidates

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Speaker 1: victims for the quote a sexualization process. People who were

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Speaker 1: targeted had low i q s, exhibited quote abnormal behavior,

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Speaker 1: or they had a presumed risk of promiscuity, criminality, or

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Speaker 1: social dependency. Again, those last items, like, you're not looking

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Speaker 1: at this as part of a systemic problem. You're just

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Speaker 1: looking at this as like it's the fault of the

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Speaker 1: individual all the time. Well, I mean this was a

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Speaker 1: progressive air. I mean you have like Teddy Roosevelt and

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Speaker 1: all of these like leading men being like, well, we're

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Speaker 1: you know, we have American exceptionalism, and we're just going

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Speaker 1: to build the best, white, the best and whitest country

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Speaker 1: that we can. So we're going to breed out all

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Speaker 1: of these ab normalities. And uh. In Bell Boggs's piece

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Speaker 1: for the New New South that we found via long Reads,

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Speaker 1: which is such a fantastic resource and also a fantastic podcast,

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Speaker 1: shout out um in her peace focusing on sterilization that

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Speaker 1: went down in North Carolina. One of the people that

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Speaker 1: she talked to, one of the men she talked to

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Speaker 1: who exhibited that quote unquote abnormal behavior. I mean, there

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Speaker 1: was some truancy involved, but it really sounds like today

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Speaker 1: these kids would just be diagnosed with a d D.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's what we're that's the level that we're

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Speaker 1: talking about about normal behavior. Low bar. I mean, it's

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Speaker 1: not like the bar for promiscuity was like at about

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Speaker 1: fifty partners will cut you off and sterilize you. It

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Speaker 1: was like, I mean again, layers of assumptions about women

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Speaker 1: and their sexuality, especially women of color being hyper sexualized

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Speaker 1: in the popular mentality, like the way that people viewed

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Speaker 1: women of color well, and even the class issue too,

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Speaker 1: because a lot of you know, you do have white

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Speaker 1: women also being sterilized, but it's not rich white women.

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Speaker 1: You wouldn't have like a wealthy young man with a

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Speaker 1: d D like behaviors who would be sterilized. Certainly not.

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Speaker 1: This was something that was also inextricably linked with poverty.

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Speaker 1: So if we do, for instance, look at North Carolina

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Speaker 1: from nine to the nineteen seventies, the state serialized at

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Speaker 1: least seventy undred people, sixty percent of whom were black women,

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Speaker 1: even though black women composed just twenty of the state population.

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Speaker 1: But Californians listening, I know, we have a lot of

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Speaker 1: fans in San Francisco shout out to l A. Hello,

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Speaker 1: you are living in America's sterilization capital. Yeah. From nineteen

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Speaker 1: o nine to nineteen sixty four, twenty thousand women and

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Speaker 1: men were non consensually sterilized in that state. And according

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Speaker 1: to a lot of historians, Nazi leaders consulted California's eugenics

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Speaker 1: leaders in the nineteen thirties leading up to their own

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Speaker 1: program of eliminating populations that they considered undesirable. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean that's that's another layer of horror to all

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Speaker 1: of this, is that, to repeat what you just said,

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Speaker 1: the Nazis studied the US to then apply to the

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Speaker 1: system that would then lead to concentration camps. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: mean it was considered the supporters of eugenics and force

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Speaker 1: sterilization considered it to be a social benefit because if

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Speaker 1: you eliminate and breed out, so to speak, these undesirables,

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Speaker 1: you'll end up saving the states some money. Do you

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Speaker 1: want have to pay out as much welfare or fund

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Speaker 1: as many relief programs California, for instance, to find for

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Speaker 1: sterilization as a prophylactic measure to protect public health taxpayer

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Speaker 1: money and reduce the quote unfit population. And these eugenics

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Speaker 1: boards and organizations had plenty of cash to spend on

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Speaker 1: propaganda such as UH. In the nineteen thirties, there was

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Speaker 1: this group, the Human Betterment Foundation, which sounds also sketchy,

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Speaker 1: So it put out this poster listing the quote unquote

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Speaker 1: effects of sterilization, being like, hey, guys, sterilization is great.

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Speaker 1: I mean, like, we don't need to worry about this

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Speaker 1: at all. And at the top of the list it

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Speaker 1: said one effect only, it prevents parenthood. And then lower

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Speaker 1: down the list it says it's a protection, not a punishment.

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Speaker 1: Therefore it carries no stigma or humiliation. Yeah, way to

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Speaker 1: tell us how to feel, posters. Thanks a lot. Well,

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Speaker 1: so how did this happen? Where did this even come from?

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Speaker 1: How did this get started? Well, first of all, this

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Speaker 1: whole selective breeding thing was not a new idea. When

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Speaker 1: we look at history, babies who were born with physical

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Speaker 1: deformities in ancient Greece were killed at birth, and Plato

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Speaker 1: thought that quote the best of either sex should be

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Speaker 1: united with the best as often as possible. So like

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Speaker 1: the way that you would bread some prize, show dogs

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Speaker 1: or something. Can you imagine going on a date with Plato?

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Speaker 1: God play do yes Plato? No? By Felicia not so much.

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Speaker 1: But I mean again, like this gets to the environment

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Speaker 1: and the culture and climate of the progressive era and

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Speaker 1: their you know, public health activism. All of a sudden,

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Speaker 1: you've got this conviction that science can solve everything, including

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Speaker 1: our social problems. But if we look at who came

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Speaker 1: up with this whole eugenics idea to the point of

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Speaker 1: coining the term eugenics, it was a dude named Francis Galton,

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Speaker 1: and Francis was the cousin of one All's Darwin. He

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Speaker 1: was a British gent and he was a total child prodigy.

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Speaker 1: Side note. I was reading about Galton in Bell Boggs's

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Speaker 1: piece and the kid was like writing incredible letters at

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Speaker 1: four um, which was astounding um. But he was really

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Speaker 1: excited when all cousin Chucks The Descent of Man was published,

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Speaker 1: because it really supported the development of his theory that

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Speaker 1: you could positively and negatively breed in or breed out traits,

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Speaker 1: including poverty. So to positively breede that would be kind

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Speaker 1: of the Plato school of thought of like Muss and

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Speaker 1: only the bus should have sex with the bus. That's

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Speaker 1: how you get hemophilia. Yes, yes, I guess they really

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Speaker 1: didn't think much about in breeding and family shrubs as

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Speaker 1: opposed to tree uh. Negative breeding would involve sterilization. Essentially,

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Speaker 1: when you endpoint those quote unquote abnormal or unfit people

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Speaker 1: in your population, make sure they cannot have babies. And

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Speaker 1: so often, Caroline reading about these eugenics sentiments just reminds

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Speaker 1: me of so many just off handed statements that you

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Speaker 1: see on social media in response to you know, news

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Speaker 1: stories about people acting foolish, you're doing something terrible, and

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Speaker 1: you have you know that one person or twelve people

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Speaker 1: on Facebook being like and that's you know, people like

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Speaker 1: that shouldn't be allowed to have babies. It's like, oh,

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Speaker 1: you don't know what you're talking about, because we actually

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Speaker 1: did that. And so in three that's when Galton coin

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Speaker 1: the term eugenics in his book Inquiries into Human Faculty

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Speaker 1: and It's Development, And I think it's so fascinating that

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Speaker 1: this set of cousins like basically shaped the cultural climate

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Speaker 1: of an era, because I mean, yes, you had Darwin's

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Speaker 1: ideas about biological evolution, but you also had all of

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Speaker 1: these progressive era people like so gung ho about social

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Speaker 1: Darwinism and like who can climb up the ladder and

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Speaker 1: like oh, you're you're worthy because you have all this money,

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Speaker 1: or you're worthy because you can afford such and such,

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Speaker 1: and you contribute to society, Caroline. They were like the

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Speaker 1: Kardashians of their day. Oh string of course words um

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Speaker 1: in in the eighteen nineties you had Kansas Dr F.

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Speaker 1: White Pilcher, who was already surgically sterilizing the feeble minded

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Speaker 1: children he saw children children, Yeah, just going ahead and

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Speaker 1: doing that. And Dr Harry Clay Sharp just castrating patients

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Speaker 1: you masturbated, And the American Medical Association also supported compulsory

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Speaker 1: sterilization for criminals. You know who was the president of

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Speaker 1: the American Medical Association for a time. Another Kardashian of

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Speaker 1: his day, Jay Mary and Sims, the father of gynecology,

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Speaker 1: whom we talked about in last podcast. Yeah, the racist

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Speaker 1: self promoting surgeon. Oh yeah, old school A m A

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Speaker 1: was kind of no good. And seriously, listeners, after you

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Speaker 1: listen to this episode, go back and listen to our

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Speaker 1: two parter on abortion, because um, they are, uh, they're

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Speaker 1: not helpful in that situation. Talk about bro culture. And

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Speaker 1: for another example of how this mindset was spreading among

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Speaker 1: the medical community, in one W Duncan mkim recommended just

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Speaker 1: killing people that quote, we deem unworthy of the high

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Speaker 1: privilege of reproduction via carbonic acid gas. So like the

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Speaker 1: gas chambers at concentration camps, just kill them, just kill them.

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Speaker 1: And in nineteen ten, you have the opening of the

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Speaker 1: Eugenics Record Office in New York's Cold Springs Harbor and

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Speaker 1: it's the epicenter of America's eugenics movement that the Nazis

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Speaker 1: would draw inspiration from. And uh, there was a New

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Speaker 1: York Times article about this Cold Springs Harbor lab that

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Speaker 1: the building still exists, and there was an exhibit not

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Speaker 1: too long ago, basically like opening up you know what

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Speaker 1: it was used for, and all of the they called

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Speaker 1: them like the haunted files, because these were the files

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Speaker 1: of people that they were essentially monitoring for you know, sterilization.

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Speaker 1: And there's this fantastic picture like that looks fantastic. It's like, oh,

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Speaker 1: vintage women in lab coats looking at records, how neat?

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Speaker 1: What what kind of old school rad stem ladies are these?

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Speaker 1: Oh god, there's sorting through eugenics records. Yeah, so equal opportunity,

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Speaker 1: horrible nous. Yeah, I mean, and it was it was

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Speaker 1: there that one of the superintendents, a guy named Harry Lawlin,

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Speaker 1: patched the sterilization plan that would spread across the states

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Speaker 1: and perto Rico. Essentially, the Eugenics Record Office established a

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Speaker 1: blueprint that the US government and state governments would replicate too.

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Speaker 1: I guess, uh negatively breed out um traits that they

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Speaker 1: deemed unworthy of reproduction. Yeah. And I mean when we

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Speaker 1: move into the nineteen twenties, we see pro eugenics propaganda

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Speaker 1: spreading through things like better Babies contests and fittest family's literature.

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Speaker 1: And I feel like we talked about this on our

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Speaker 1: long ago episode on Pageant Kiddos. Before Miss America, there

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Speaker 1: were better Babies contests. Yeah, so like, oh look at

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Speaker 1: this white baby, good for you baby for being white

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Speaker 1: and perfect um. For example, there was a poster that said,

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Speaker 1: every forty eight seconds someone is born in America. Who

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Speaker 1: will never grow up beyond age eight and uh, how

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Speaker 1: hopefully the quote uh few normal persons go to jail

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Speaker 1: because there's that word normal, normal and abnormal. A lot

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Speaker 1: of obsession with normalcy at that time. Um. And we

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Speaker 1: also have to revisit a landmark case in that we

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Speaker 1: discussed in our episode on disability and sexuality. UM, because

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Speaker 1: this episode apparently is like ten stuff. I never told

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Speaker 1: you episodes all in one, Um. But this is a

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court decision Buck v. Bell in which the Supreme

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Speaker 1: Court upheld legal sterilization. And we referenced Chief Justice Oliver

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Speaker 1: Wendell Holmes's opinion in that episode. But let's read it again,

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Speaker 1: shall we, because I mean, it really sums up the

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Speaker 1: mentality at the time. And this is coming from the

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court bench. It's better for the world if, instead

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Speaker 1: of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or let

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Speaker 1: them star for their imbecility, society can prevent those who

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Speaker 1: are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that

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Speaker 1: sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the

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Speaker 1: fallopian tubes. Three generations of imbeciles are enough end quote

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Speaker 1: mind brain exploding it's all over the studio walls. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because he just said compulsory vaccination, in other words, ain't

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Speaker 1: in a thing. It's just sterilizing you. It's just like

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Speaker 1: getting a technis shot. Yeah. But we should also note

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Speaker 1: and repeat for people who haven't listened to those earlier episodes,

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Speaker 1: that the three generations of imbeciles that he was referring

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Speaker 1: to were women who were judged to be promiscuous. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean it was all based around the Buck in

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Speaker 1: this case was Carrie Buck, who was forcibly sterilized after

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Speaker 1: she was raped and impregnated and had her baby. And

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Speaker 1: her mother was I'm gonna say she was a literate

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Speaker 1: or something like that, so they were she just came

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Speaker 1: from because she now had the baby. That's the three

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Speaker 1: generations baby, Carrie and her mom. Yeah. And further driving

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Speaker 1: home how this was institutionalized. This was part of the

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Speaker 1: country's agenda in the nineteen thirties. The Rockefeller Foundation of

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Speaker 1: the Rockefeller family, of the Rockefeller Center where you I

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Speaker 1: skate in the holidays right exactly. They were carrying out

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Speaker 1: official population control research and theories coming out of this

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Speaker 1: foundation really expressed this general idea that economic problems in

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Speaker 1: underdeveloped countries around the world. We're really just problems of

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Speaker 1: too many people. If only we could control the population growth,

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Speaker 1: then the standard of living would rise, and we will

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Speaker 1: experiment with that. We these Americans in Puerto Rico, as

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Speaker 1: we'll talk about later in the podcast. UM. So, sterilization

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Speaker 1: abuse had actually dropped off a bit after you know,

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Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties, um you have the war happened, and

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Speaker 1: it picks up again around this fifties and sixties, and

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Speaker 1: especially in nineteen sixty four when lb J starts his

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Speaker 1: War on Poverty initiative, because that funnels federal money towards

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Speaker 1: sterilizations as part of its family planning effort with the

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Speaker 1: Family Planning Services and Population Research Act established by the

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Speaker 1: Office of Economic Opportunity, which incorporated sterilization into its family

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Speaker 1: planning portfolio. And speaking of portfolios, we should note that

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Speaker 1: access to the recently introduced and legalized pill was not

424
00:29:49,680 --> 00:29:53,280
Speaker 1: accessible to single women, for instance, at the time, and

425
00:29:53,280 --> 00:29:58,560
Speaker 1: we certainly did not have the array of contraceptive options

426
00:29:58,600 --> 00:30:02,040
Speaker 1: that are available for women to day, and sterilizations were

427
00:30:02,880 --> 00:30:07,239
Speaker 1: reimbursed by Medicaid and the Department of Health, Education and

428
00:30:07,280 --> 00:30:11,200
Speaker 1: Welfare HUE, which comes up a lot in this Uh

429
00:30:11,400 --> 00:30:17,080
Speaker 1: history was very loosey goosey about how these sterilizations were

430
00:30:17,080 --> 00:30:19,480
Speaker 1: offered and reimbursed. And this is a situation to where

431
00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:23,160
Speaker 1: it's like follow the money. That's right, Yeah, Because from

432
00:30:23,160 --> 00:30:27,320
Speaker 1: the late sixties up to nine you had one hundred

433
00:30:27,440 --> 00:30:33,480
Speaker 1: thousand voluntary ish sterilizations every year because while they had

434
00:30:33,480 --> 00:30:38,920
Speaker 1: obtained sign consent, it was not really so much informed

435
00:30:39,200 --> 00:30:44,560
Speaker 1: sign consent. You basically had doctors selling sterilizations to migrant,

436
00:30:44,600 --> 00:30:47,240
Speaker 1: working class women and welfare recipients, some of whom, like

437
00:30:47,280 --> 00:30:49,280
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier, might not be able to read or

438
00:30:49,320 --> 00:30:54,040
Speaker 1: fully understand or we're just simply coerced. And after you know,

439
00:30:54,040 --> 00:30:57,960
Speaker 1: the post World War two baby boom, you have this

440
00:30:58,120 --> 00:31:03,880
Speaker 1: population boom anic people are freaking out about overpopulation. In

441
00:31:03,920 --> 00:31:06,880
Speaker 1: between nineteen seventy and nineteen seventy four we see a

442
00:31:06,960 --> 00:31:12,640
Speaker 1: threefold increase in female sterilization. But the line between voluntary

443
00:31:12,640 --> 00:31:19,600
Speaker 1: and involuntary is getting all fly blurry, And as we

444
00:31:19,680 --> 00:31:24,160
Speaker 1: talked about in our Mother's of Gynecology episode, like yes,

445
00:31:24,240 --> 00:31:28,320
Speaker 1: it is important that we established that there were some

446
00:31:28,400 --> 00:31:31,920
Speaker 1: women who absolutely wanted to have a hysterectomy and did

447
00:31:31,960 --> 00:31:35,920
Speaker 1: not want to have any more kids. But there were

448
00:31:36,480 --> 00:31:41,920
Speaker 1: far more women who were misled and coerced into these,

449
00:31:42,040 --> 00:31:44,840
Speaker 1: especially if you were poor or if you're a woman

450
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:47,640
Speaker 1: of color. Yeah, I mean this really the date range

451
00:31:47,640 --> 00:31:50,360
Speaker 1: here in seventy four really drives at home in a

452
00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:54,320
Speaker 1: personal way because my brother was born in ninety and

453
00:31:54,400 --> 00:31:57,960
Speaker 1: so it's like, you know, not to make this about me,

454
00:31:58,160 --> 00:32:00,200
Speaker 1: but I mean it really does bring it home of

455
00:32:00,320 --> 00:32:05,440
Speaker 1: how recently this was happening and still I mean still

456
00:32:05,560 --> 00:32:09,320
Speaker 1: was happening. Um but as we move into the seventies

457
00:32:09,360 --> 00:32:12,960
Speaker 1: and you've got increasing access to birth control, it was

458
00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:17,479
Speaker 1: still largely just a benefit for middle class white women.

459
00:32:17,520 --> 00:32:20,160
Speaker 1: I mean, despite the fact that you've got ro versus Wade.

460
00:32:20,160 --> 00:32:24,920
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy three, both voluntary and involuntary sterilization were

461
00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:28,920
Speaker 1: still the number one birth control method for women between

462
00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:31,360
Speaker 1: the ages of thirty and forty four. And we should

463
00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:34,040
Speaker 1: also say too, I don't have the legal timeline in

464
00:32:34,080 --> 00:32:37,840
Speaker 1: front of me. But even with that birth control access, yes,

465
00:32:38,000 --> 00:32:40,320
Speaker 1: it was mostly beneficial to middle class white women, but

466
00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:45,600
Speaker 1: especially to middle class married white women. Um So, if

467
00:32:45,640 --> 00:32:49,120
Speaker 1: we look though at African American women in the nineteen

468
00:32:49,280 --> 00:32:54,880
Speaker 1: fifties and sixties, sterilization, especially in the South, peaked By

469
00:32:54,960 --> 00:33:01,280
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy, twenty percent of all married African American women

470
00:33:01,600 --> 00:33:04,080
Speaker 1: had been sterilized. And you might ask, well, why are

471
00:33:04,080 --> 00:33:07,520
Speaker 1: they sterilizing all of these married women because they probably

472
00:33:07,560 --> 00:33:10,920
Speaker 1: already had children, right, which gets back to something I

473
00:33:10,960 --> 00:33:16,680
Speaker 1: said in our Mothers of Gynecology episode, where like, great,

474
00:33:16,920 --> 00:33:22,200
Speaker 1: when this was an enslaved population, keep popping out more laborers. However,

475
00:33:22,400 --> 00:33:26,440
Speaker 1: that abruptly that attitude abruptly shifted in the opposite direction

476
00:33:26,920 --> 00:33:31,840
Speaker 1: after the abolition of slavery, and suddenly black people having

477
00:33:32,040 --> 00:33:36,280
Speaker 1: children was seen as something unwanted in this country and

478
00:33:36,320 --> 00:33:41,360
Speaker 1: a product of their presumed hyper sexuality um and low

479
00:33:41,440 --> 00:33:47,160
Speaker 1: breeding you know um, and it was so common these uh,

480
00:33:47,720 --> 00:33:51,640
Speaker 1: forced hysterectomy is the sterilization abuse, particularly for black women

481
00:33:51,640 --> 00:33:55,320
Speaker 1: in the South that civil rights activist and organizer who

482
00:33:55,360 --> 00:34:01,160
Speaker 1: does not get enough spotlight, Fanny Lew Hamer, nicknamed it

483
00:34:01,320 --> 00:34:05,480
Speaker 1: the Mississippi appendectomy. And speaking of Fanny leu Hamer in

484
00:34:05,520 --> 00:34:11,279
Speaker 1: August nine four, the Freedom Summer is happening. Um, this

485
00:34:11,360 --> 00:34:15,080
Speaker 1: is part of the Mississippi Summer Freedom project. And Fanny

486
00:34:15,120 --> 00:34:19,880
Speaker 1: leu Hamer goes with the you know contention of civil

487
00:34:19,920 --> 00:34:25,160
Speaker 1: rights activists to the Democratic National Convention, and she is

488
00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:30,040
Speaker 1: planning to speak and LBJ is none too pleased about this.

489
00:34:30,120 --> 00:34:32,800
Speaker 1: He's like, Okay, listen, we're about to have this Fanny

490
00:34:32,840 --> 00:34:37,560
Speaker 1: lew Hammer woman on television. This is let's x nay

491
00:34:37,560 --> 00:34:43,360
Speaker 1: on the Hammer stay and he calls this impromptu press

492
00:34:43,440 --> 00:34:47,560
Speaker 1: conference to try to divert attention away from Hamer. And

493
00:34:47,600 --> 00:34:50,240
Speaker 1: I forget what the press conference was for what he

494
00:34:50,239 --> 00:34:51,840
Speaker 1: He claimed that it was going to be an urgent

495
00:34:51,960 --> 00:34:54,120
Speaker 1: matter that he had to announce, and it was literally

496
00:34:54,200 --> 00:34:57,399
Speaker 1: just saying, oh, hey, guys, I just wanted to make

497
00:34:57,440 --> 00:34:59,920
Speaker 1: everyone aware that this is the nine month anniversary of

498
00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:04,359
Speaker 1: JFK being shot, so arbitrary and and what is great, Like,

499
00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:07,880
Speaker 1: I guess the silver lining question mark question mark is

500
00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:11,520
Speaker 1: that the press was not stupid. They immediately were like, oh,

501
00:35:11,600 --> 00:35:14,680
Speaker 1: you're a jerk, Like what's Fanny Lew Hammer doing, Like,

502
00:35:14,760 --> 00:35:17,160
Speaker 1: let's get our cameras back over there, because you've clearly

503
00:35:17,200 --> 00:35:20,120
Speaker 1: misled us. And what Famny leu Hammer was doing was

504
00:35:20,160 --> 00:35:26,359
Speaker 1: speaking truth to power publicly in a televised moment at

505
00:35:26,360 --> 00:35:30,239
Speaker 1: a Democratic National Convention, talking about how she had been

506
00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:33,840
Speaker 1: forcibly sterilized after she went in for what she thought

507
00:35:34,320 --> 00:35:40,040
Speaker 1: was just uh like routine procedure and was sterilized against

508
00:35:40,080 --> 00:35:44,680
Speaker 1: her will. Um she was had that hysterectomy in nine

509
00:35:45,920 --> 00:35:50,160
Speaker 1: without her consent. And she for the very first time

510
00:35:50,600 --> 00:35:54,840
Speaker 1: linked the importance of voting rights with reproductive rights for

511
00:35:54,880 --> 00:35:58,640
Speaker 1: black women in Mississippi and the South more broadly, because

512
00:35:59,160 --> 00:36:03,359
Speaker 1: it was Paul Titians in these states who were allowing

513
00:36:03,760 --> 00:36:07,239
Speaker 1: this to happen, who were keeping these procedures legal. So

514
00:36:07,320 --> 00:36:10,399
Speaker 1: it's like, if we can never go vote, we are

515
00:36:10,440 --> 00:36:14,640
Speaker 1: always going to be subjected to this abuse, like our

516
00:36:14,719 --> 00:36:17,759
Speaker 1: bodies are being abused and we don't even have the

517
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:22,840
Speaker 1: basic right to cast our vote for who is making

518
00:36:22,920 --> 00:36:26,200
Speaker 1: these kinds of decisions for us? And she was really

519
00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:30,560
Speaker 1: carrying the torch of her suffrage and abolitionist forbears like

520
00:36:30,640 --> 00:36:34,600
Speaker 1: I to be wells. She was emphasizing that need to

521
00:36:34,760 --> 00:36:38,560
Speaker 1: get politicians who are allowing this abuse out of office.

522
00:36:38,560 --> 00:36:41,239
Speaker 1: And it was really the first time that those two platforms,

523
00:36:41,239 --> 00:36:44,919
Speaker 1: reproductive rights and voting rights were merged. Yeah, I mean

524
00:36:45,640 --> 00:36:49,920
Speaker 1: demonstrating through her words and her actions of trying to

525
00:36:49,960 --> 00:36:53,640
Speaker 1: go help people register to vote, that she did demonstrate

526
00:36:53,840 --> 00:36:58,560
Speaker 1: not only the importance of it, obviously, but the fact

527
00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:03,239
Speaker 1: that all of these activists were beaten up, were arrested

528
00:37:03,600 --> 00:37:07,080
Speaker 1: just shows the links that white people in power were going.

529
00:37:07,160 --> 00:37:09,960
Speaker 1: And I mean, this is like a massive understatement, but

530
00:37:10,040 --> 00:37:12,640
Speaker 1: the lengths of these people were going to silence black

531
00:37:12,719 --> 00:37:15,600
Speaker 1: voters and to keep them from voting, because if you

532
00:37:15,640 --> 00:37:17,520
Speaker 1: had the opportunity to vote, why would you not vote

533
00:37:17,520 --> 00:37:20,200
Speaker 1: out people who are abusing power? Well, and speaking of

534
00:37:20,200 --> 00:37:25,520
Speaker 1: abusive power, Hammer also helped expose how legalized sterilization bills

535
00:37:25,640 --> 00:37:28,680
Speaker 1: were being proposed in the Mississippi legislature and in other

536
00:37:29,000 --> 00:37:33,759
Speaker 1: Southern state legislatures at the time, targeting black welfare recipients,

537
00:37:33,880 --> 00:37:37,399
Speaker 1: essentially saying, listen, we are only going to give you

538
00:37:37,400 --> 00:37:43,920
Speaker 1: your welfare benefits if you allow us to sterilize you.

539
00:37:43,920 --> 00:37:45,560
Speaker 1: You know, so choose, choose what do you want to

540
00:37:45,560 --> 00:37:49,520
Speaker 1: feed your kids or do you want to have more kids? Yeah,

541
00:37:49,560 --> 00:37:52,520
Speaker 1: And in nineteen sixty seven, you know, we mentioned earlier

542
00:37:52,560 --> 00:37:56,160
Speaker 1: this suspicion that so many people in the black community,

543
00:37:56,200 --> 00:38:00,759
Speaker 1: particularly in Black power groups, had for any type of

544
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:04,240
Speaker 1: family planning service because of these sterilizations. In the nineteen

545
00:38:04,680 --> 00:38:07,360
Speaker 1: seven you have the Black Power Conference passing an anti

546
00:38:07,440 --> 00:38:11,520
Speaker 1: birth control resolution declaring at the equivalent to black genocide,

547
00:38:11,520 --> 00:38:14,640
Speaker 1: and not for nothing. You know, this community had been

548
00:38:14,719 --> 00:38:20,360
Speaker 1: subjected to absolutely horrific treatment. But at the same time, too,

549
00:38:21,440 --> 00:38:25,160
Speaker 1: those you know, those kinds of resolutions, which were largely

550
00:38:25,200 --> 00:38:30,600
Speaker 1: determined by male leadership, still wasn't providing women of color

551
00:38:30,760 --> 00:38:34,360
Speaker 1: with agency over their bodies. And that's something that black

552
00:38:34,440 --> 00:38:39,520
Speaker 1: liberation activists Tony Cade says with quote, I've been made

553
00:38:39,520 --> 00:38:42,800
Speaker 1: aware of the national call to sisters to abandon birth control,

554
00:38:43,080 --> 00:38:46,719
Speaker 1: to pick at family planning centers, to raise revolutionaries, But

555
00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:49,880
Speaker 1: what plans do you have for the care of me

556
00:38:50,080 --> 00:38:54,000
Speaker 1: and my child? Exactly? Yeah, So the pushback against these

557
00:38:54,040 --> 00:38:57,680
Speaker 1: horrifying procedures is not mutually exclusive from the need for

558
00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:01,480
Speaker 1: birth control and family planning, because has a lot of

559
00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:04,840
Speaker 1: women just continued to go get their birth control because yes, absolutely,

560
00:39:04,960 --> 00:39:08,759
Speaker 1: let's let's fight against these horrifying procedures. But I still

561
00:39:08,800 --> 00:39:12,200
Speaker 1: want to have control over my body and reproduction. And

562
00:39:12,320 --> 00:39:15,040
Speaker 1: it was really in nineteen seventy three that the tide

563
00:39:15,040 --> 00:39:21,640
Speaker 1: began to term somewhat when it was publicized that the

564
00:39:21,680 --> 00:39:28,040
Speaker 1: Office of Economic Opportunity had funded sterilizations of Mary Alice

565
00:39:28,120 --> 00:39:32,440
Speaker 1: Ralph and Mini Ralph, and these two sisters were fourteen

566
00:39:32,640 --> 00:39:35,040
Speaker 1: and twelve years old respectively at the time. They were

567
00:39:35,080 --> 00:39:39,040
Speaker 1: living in Alabama, and their mother was illiterate, and she

568
00:39:39,239 --> 00:39:41,560
Speaker 1: thought that she was simply taking them to the doctor

569
00:39:41,680 --> 00:39:44,400
Speaker 1: to get a depot privera shot to put them on

570
00:39:44,440 --> 00:39:48,319
Speaker 1: birth control, and so she, not being able to read,

571
00:39:48,480 --> 00:39:55,719
Speaker 1: she signs a consent form with an X and essentially consents,

572
00:39:55,760 --> 00:39:57,640
Speaker 1: but not really because she doesn't know that she's doing

573
00:39:57,640 --> 00:40:01,600
Speaker 1: it to them being uh sterilized. So the Southern Poverty

574
00:40:01,640 --> 00:40:06,160
Speaker 1: Law Center steps in. They sue and win, which finally

575
00:40:06,440 --> 00:40:11,880
Speaker 1: instigates regulatory changes within HU the Department of Health, Education,

576
00:40:11,960 --> 00:40:15,120
Speaker 1: and Welfare, which is really kind of the nexus of

577
00:40:15,160 --> 00:40:19,000
Speaker 1: all of this federally funded sterilization happening, and also raising

578
00:40:19,040 --> 00:40:22,520
Speaker 1: public attention to an issue that the district court in

579
00:40:22,560 --> 00:40:27,280
Speaker 1: this case determined affected around one hundred thousand poor women

580
00:40:27,760 --> 00:40:32,280
Speaker 1: each year. So we had said that earlier in the podcast.

581
00:40:32,320 --> 00:40:34,360
Speaker 1: You know that the stat of sixty thou people in

582
00:40:34,400 --> 00:40:37,759
Speaker 1: the US were forcibly sterilized with it, you know, in

583
00:40:37,840 --> 00:40:41,560
Speaker 1: the twentieth century, But that doesn't take into account all

584
00:40:41,600 --> 00:40:47,200
Speaker 1: of these kind of supposedly consensual sterilizations that were happening

585
00:40:47,239 --> 00:40:50,520
Speaker 1: to hundreds of thousands of women at the time, and

586
00:40:50,560 --> 00:40:53,440
Speaker 1: not just black women, right exactly. Yeah, And in the

587
00:40:53,480 --> 00:40:57,080
Speaker 1: nineties seventies, at the same time that you have white

588
00:40:57,239 --> 00:41:00,279
Speaker 1: second way feminists fighting for rights to abortion, you also

589
00:41:00,320 --> 00:41:05,680
Speaker 1: have Chicana feminists railing against this practice of sterilization without consent.

590
00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:09,959
Speaker 1: The discovery that this was such a widespread practice among

591
00:41:10,080 --> 00:41:15,600
Speaker 1: Mexican American women in California totally galvanized their feminist activism,

592
00:41:15,600 --> 00:41:18,560
Speaker 1: and it pitted them against both oblivious white feminists and

593
00:41:18,600 --> 00:41:23,520
Speaker 1: also Mexican American nationalists who saw birth control as betrayal.

594
00:41:24,239 --> 00:41:28,160
Speaker 1: And so all of this stems from stereotypes that stretched

595
00:41:28,320 --> 00:41:32,440
Speaker 1: way back in American history of Mexicans as quote unquote

596
00:41:32,719 --> 00:41:37,400
Speaker 1: hyperbreeders and welfare moms in waiting and listen to this.

597
00:41:38,080 --> 00:41:42,279
Speaker 1: The local chapter in California of the National Organization for

598
00:41:42,320 --> 00:41:49,719
Speaker 1: Women refused to help with this anti sterilization abuse activism

599
00:41:49,760 --> 00:41:53,879
Speaker 1: because they wanted to focus all of their reproductive rights

600
00:41:53,960 --> 00:42:00,800
Speaker 1: efforts on abortion and pick it out, Caroline here about

601
00:42:00,800 --> 00:42:03,360
Speaker 1: to jump out of your seat. And of course you

602
00:42:03,480 --> 00:42:07,600
Speaker 1: also have male Chicano groups brushing them off completely because

603
00:42:07,640 --> 00:42:10,880
Speaker 1: that was not a part of their Mexican American rights agenda.

604
00:42:10,960 --> 00:42:13,120
Speaker 1: But I'm not done with the white ladies yet, Caroline.

605
00:42:13,120 --> 00:42:16,960
Speaker 1: I gotta circle back to those white ladies, because not

606
00:42:17,520 --> 00:42:19,560
Speaker 1: this was not only a case of them being like, oh,

607
00:42:19,640 --> 00:42:22,240
Speaker 1: I don't even know that this is happening, Ladi da.

608
00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:25,000
Speaker 1: They knew it was going on. They refused to help, yes,

609
00:42:25,000 --> 00:42:27,239
Speaker 1: because they wanted to focus all of their attention on

610
00:42:27,480 --> 00:42:33,200
Speaker 1: abortion access, but also because there were white women with

611
00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:39,879
Speaker 1: private doctors who would give them hysterectomys upon request. And

612
00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:43,040
Speaker 1: at this time, do you remember how common sterilization was

613
00:42:43,160 --> 00:42:46,400
Speaker 1: as like a go to birth control, And they were like, uh,

614
00:42:46,440 --> 00:42:51,319
Speaker 1: if you start restricting sterilization access, then I don't know

615
00:42:51,360 --> 00:42:54,200
Speaker 1: if my white uterus is really going to benefit from

616
00:42:54,200 --> 00:42:58,279
Speaker 1: that at the end of the day, right right exactly. Yeah,

617
00:42:58,400 --> 00:43:02,520
Speaker 1: Especially like when protective measures like waiting periods or things

618
00:43:02,560 --> 00:43:06,200
Speaker 1: like that came up as a way literally to protect

619
00:43:06,280 --> 00:43:11,799
Speaker 1: women from forced or coerced sterilization, a lot of these

620
00:43:11,840 --> 00:43:14,480
Speaker 1: white feminists were like, I don't want to wait thirty

621
00:43:14,560 --> 00:43:16,920
Speaker 1: days or two days or six hours, like no, I

622
00:43:16,960 --> 00:43:18,879
Speaker 1: want it now. It's my uterus and I want it out.

623
00:43:19,160 --> 00:43:22,960
Speaker 1: And because of all of this, women of color had

624
00:43:23,040 --> 00:43:26,000
Speaker 1: to do this for themselves. They didn't have a ton

625
00:43:26,040 --> 00:43:31,720
Speaker 1: of allies in their corner um. But in ninety five

626
00:43:31,800 --> 00:43:34,520
Speaker 1: we have the landmark case that comes up in pretty

627
00:43:34,560 --> 00:43:38,120
Speaker 1: much like any legal paper you read about serialization abuse,

628
00:43:38,719 --> 00:43:42,880
Speaker 1: Madrigal v. Quill Again, in which a group of Mexican

629
00:43:42,920 --> 00:43:46,520
Speaker 1: American women brought a lawsuit against the University of Southern

630
00:43:46,520 --> 00:43:51,640
Speaker 1: California slash Los Angeles County General Hospital for coerced tubal

631
00:43:51,760 --> 00:43:56,200
Speaker 1: ligations post cesareans um. So remember this is still happening

632
00:43:56,200 --> 00:43:58,520
Speaker 1: where it's like a woman has a Cisian section, the

633
00:43:58,520 --> 00:44:03,160
Speaker 1: doctors like WHOA, well, I'm in here, and rad lady

634
00:44:03,239 --> 00:44:09,239
Speaker 1: lawyer alert. Chicana lawyer Antonio Hernandez teams up with Dr

635
00:44:09,360 --> 00:44:14,279
Speaker 1: Bernard Rosenfeld, who worked at County General and was noticing

636
00:44:14,320 --> 00:44:16,960
Speaker 1: all of this happening. He was like, um, this is

637
00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:21,359
Speaker 1: not okay. So she had him kind of gather up

638
00:44:21,719 --> 00:44:25,960
Speaker 1: evidence on the slide to these coercive sterilizations happening and

639
00:44:26,160 --> 00:44:29,840
Speaker 1: built the case against the hospital and shout out to

640
00:44:29,960 --> 00:44:35,840
Speaker 1: the PBS documentary No Mass Babes, which covers all this history.

641
00:44:36,040 --> 00:44:39,279
Speaker 1: And in the end the judge did not rule in

642
00:44:39,320 --> 00:44:45,120
Speaker 1: the women's favor. Attributing it to a quote clash of cultures.

643
00:44:45,160 --> 00:44:48,040
Speaker 1: And also he just dismissed it as a breakdown in

644
00:44:48,080 --> 00:44:51,080
Speaker 1: communication between the patients and the doctor, communication as in

645
00:44:51,360 --> 00:44:56,200
Speaker 1: having them sign forms in English that Spanish speaking women

646
00:44:56,440 --> 00:45:00,640
Speaker 1: could not read. Yeah, but nonetheless the case did get

647
00:45:00,680 --> 00:45:06,040
Speaker 1: the ball rolling for bilingual sterilization consent forms, tighter guidelines

648
00:45:06,080 --> 00:45:10,719
Speaker 1: including waiting periods, an emphasis that welfare benefits would not

649
00:45:10,800 --> 00:45:14,400
Speaker 1: be taken away, and rules about no sterilizations for women

650
00:45:14,480 --> 00:45:18,439
Speaker 1: under twenty one, which is positive. But again, not all

651
00:45:18,480 --> 00:45:22,680
Speaker 1: of those second wave white feminists were down Now and

652
00:45:23,320 --> 00:45:27,319
Speaker 1: now we hop from the United States mainland over to

653
00:45:27,640 --> 00:45:30,839
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico, because we mentioned Puerto Rico earlier when we

654
00:45:30,840 --> 00:45:34,680
Speaker 1: were talking about the Eugenics Record Office and the superintendent

655
00:45:35,000 --> 00:45:39,320
Speaker 1: Harry Lawlan, who kind of put together the blueprint for

656
00:45:39,480 --> 00:45:42,880
Speaker 1: all of these laws and the federal funding that would

657
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:47,840
Speaker 1: happen later on, and Puerto Rico really became almost a

658
00:45:47,960 --> 00:45:53,880
Speaker 1: giant lab experiment for this population control that US government

659
00:45:53,960 --> 00:46:01,479
Speaker 1: officials were convinced needed to happen. So in Law one

660
00:46:01,600 --> 00:46:07,520
Speaker 1: sixteen is passed, which essentially institutionalizes sterilization of Puerto Rican

661
00:46:07,560 --> 00:46:12,760
Speaker 1: women amid American concerns at population control on the island.

662
00:46:13,000 --> 00:46:15,799
Speaker 1: And it was designed by that eugenics board in the

663
00:46:15,880 --> 00:46:20,719
Speaker 1: name of quote, catalyzing economic growth and reducing unemployment. And

664
00:46:20,880 --> 00:46:24,680
Speaker 1: we should note it was funded both publicly and privately.

665
00:46:24,920 --> 00:46:27,920
Speaker 1: And again follow the money, follow the money. I mean,

666
00:46:27,960 --> 00:46:31,080
Speaker 1: like during the progressive era that sterilization was so much

667
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:34,440
Speaker 1: motivated by the whole concept of breeding. But then after

668
00:46:34,480 --> 00:46:37,319
Speaker 1: World War two, well, and also welfare. But then we're

669
00:46:37,640 --> 00:46:42,279
Speaker 1: after World War two. Oh, it's all about money. Well yeah,

670
00:46:42,280 --> 00:46:43,960
Speaker 1: and I mean they still use the same types of

671
00:46:44,000 --> 00:46:46,799
Speaker 1: coercive tactics we've talked about. That they had people going

672
00:46:46,840 --> 00:46:52,160
Speaker 1: door to door talking to women. Um employers preferred sterilized workers.

673
00:46:52,560 --> 00:46:55,440
Speaker 1: There was also a financial subsidy for getting the procedure.

674
00:46:55,520 --> 00:46:59,480
Speaker 1: And again you see women being misled and confused by

675
00:46:59,680 --> 00:47:03,279
Speaker 1: the tie your tubes, get your tubes tied expression. And

676
00:47:03,360 --> 00:47:07,600
Speaker 1: even as contraceptive technology was improving in the United States,

677
00:47:07,800 --> 00:47:10,960
Speaker 1: the United States say oh, hey, Puerto Rico, we've got

678
00:47:10,960 --> 00:47:15,120
Speaker 1: the pill. Now here are some condoms. Nope, they relied

679
00:47:15,200 --> 00:47:19,800
Speaker 1: solely on sterilization. And we have to shout out another

680
00:47:20,080 --> 00:47:24,719
Speaker 1: rad woman, Dr Helen Rodriguez Trias, who's a reproductive rights

681
00:47:24,760 --> 00:47:28,960
Speaker 1: advocate who spearheaded SASA, which was the Committee to End

682
00:47:28,960 --> 00:47:32,800
Speaker 1: Sterilization Abuses in the nineteen seventies, and she was really

683
00:47:33,120 --> 00:47:37,239
Speaker 1: responsible for bringing this issue of sterilization abuse happening in

684
00:47:37,280 --> 00:47:41,759
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico to you know, mainland United States, kind of

685
00:47:41,840 --> 00:47:45,600
Speaker 1: raising the flag about that. And she said, women make

686
00:47:45,680 --> 00:47:49,600
Speaker 1: choices based on alternatives, and there haven't been many alternatives

687
00:47:49,640 --> 00:47:54,600
Speaker 1: in Puerto Rico. And it became so normalized that yes,

688
00:47:54,600 --> 00:47:57,720
Speaker 1: I mean there were you know, like women in the US,

689
00:47:57,760 --> 00:48:00,520
Speaker 1: there were some women who were like absolutely, you know,

690
00:48:00,560 --> 00:48:02,680
Speaker 1: I wanted to be like Geisha, I'm done having kids

691
00:48:02,760 --> 00:48:05,680
Speaker 1: or I don't want any kids. But they were also

692
00:48:05,719 --> 00:48:08,000
Speaker 1: there was a story I was reading about um one

693
00:48:08,040 --> 00:48:10,759
Speaker 1: woman whose friend had been sterilized, and she was like,

694
00:48:11,719 --> 00:48:13,960
Speaker 1: she got it, well, I want that, I want it

695
00:48:14,000 --> 00:48:18,600
Speaker 1: to I mean, they like culturally made it into like

696
00:48:18,640 --> 00:48:23,920
Speaker 1: a desirable thing. It's propaganda. It was government propaganda in

697
00:48:24,000 --> 00:48:26,799
Speaker 1: the name of population control and essentially more money for

698
00:48:26,800 --> 00:48:30,040
Speaker 1: the US federal government. Yeah, I mean exactly. And by

699
00:48:30,120 --> 00:48:33,200
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five, what that turned into was that a

700
00:48:33,280 --> 00:48:35,440
Speaker 1: third of all Puerto Rican mothers under the age of

701
00:48:35,440 --> 00:48:39,560
Speaker 1: forty nine were sterilized Uh, that means that they were

702
00:48:39,640 --> 00:48:43,480
Speaker 1: at a ten times higher risk of being sterilized compared

703
00:48:43,560 --> 00:48:47,600
Speaker 1: with women on the American mainland. And we see rad

704
00:48:47,719 --> 00:48:52,520
Speaker 1: doctor Rodriguez Triez bringing attention to Puerto Ricos sterilization abuse

705
00:48:52,560 --> 00:48:55,279
Speaker 1: in New York. So yes, we've already mentioned that she

706
00:48:55,360 --> 00:48:58,120
Speaker 1: was a founding member of the Committee to End Sterilization Abuse,

707
00:48:58,160 --> 00:49:00,320
Speaker 1: but she was also on the Committee for a Orsian

708
00:49:00,400 --> 00:49:04,600
Speaker 1: Rights and Against Sterilization Abuse, and she testified before Hugh

709
00:49:05,120 --> 00:49:09,760
Speaker 1: for passage of federal sterilization guidelines in nineteen seventy nine,

710
00:49:10,000 --> 00:49:13,719
Speaker 1: which is the same year that California finally repealed its

711
00:49:13,760 --> 00:49:17,400
Speaker 1: sterilization laws. But as all of us is starting to

712
00:49:17,440 --> 00:49:21,560
Speaker 1: happen in the nineteen seventies, we now have to shift

713
00:49:21,600 --> 00:49:25,360
Speaker 1: focus to Native American women and its info is coming

714
00:49:25,480 --> 00:49:30,960
Speaker 1: from a pair of papers won by Dr Alexandra Menace

715
00:49:31,000 --> 00:49:34,080
Speaker 1: Stern in two thousand five, Sterilized in the name of

716
00:49:34,160 --> 00:49:38,719
Speaker 1: Public Health and also one looking specifically into forced abortions

717
00:49:38,719 --> 00:49:42,360
Speaker 1: and sterilizations among Native American women in the nineteen seventies.

718
00:49:43,000 --> 00:49:45,680
Speaker 1: So if we hop back a little bit to nineteen

719
00:49:45,719 --> 00:49:51,600
Speaker 1: sixty five, the Indian Health Service begins sterilizing Native American women.

720
00:49:52,000 --> 00:49:55,720
Speaker 1: I mean, seriously, it's like no woman of color is safe,

721
00:49:56,000 --> 00:49:59,720
Speaker 1: and it's it's I mean, it's all been horrifying, but

722
00:49:59,719 --> 00:50:04,120
Speaker 1: but I mean the percentages are mind boggling of Native

723
00:50:04,160 --> 00:50:07,480
Speaker 1: American women between fifteen and forty four were sterilized by

724
00:50:07,480 --> 00:50:10,760
Speaker 1: the seventies. And and it's horrifying enough for any woman

725
00:50:10,960 --> 00:50:13,200
Speaker 1: to be forcibly sterilized. But when you look at the

726
00:50:13,200 --> 00:50:17,760
Speaker 1: fact that they're sterilizing women for him, fertility and children

727
00:50:17,880 --> 00:50:20,560
Speaker 1: is a way to not only continue the tribe but

728
00:50:20,640 --> 00:50:23,920
Speaker 1: also to assure your social status within your tribe. In

729
00:50:23,960 --> 00:50:27,799
Speaker 1: a lot of cases, like it's with these women, as

730
00:50:27,880 --> 00:50:30,439
Speaker 1: with all of the women we've been talking about, you've

731
00:50:30,480 --> 00:50:34,320
Speaker 1: got like so many layers of trauma. You've got the

732
00:50:34,440 --> 00:50:37,880
Speaker 1: unexpected and forced sterilization, but you've also got the fact

733
00:50:37,960 --> 00:50:43,799
Speaker 1: that now like you're unable to have any agency over

734
00:50:43,840 --> 00:50:46,479
Speaker 1: your own body. Well and it and it still too

735
00:50:46,520 --> 00:50:51,000
Speaker 1: echoes you know, our legacy of slavery, where bodies were

736
00:50:51,680 --> 00:50:55,120
Speaker 1: property and monetized, you know, And and that family aspect

737
00:50:55,120 --> 00:50:59,720
Speaker 1: to Caroline was something that African American women also talked

738
00:50:59,719 --> 00:51:02,720
Speaker 1: about out um during you know, the Roe v. Wade

739
00:51:02,760 --> 00:51:07,360
Speaker 1: era of saying like, okay, yeah, abortion rights. But you know,

740
00:51:07,520 --> 00:51:12,640
Speaker 1: whereas white middle class women, upwardly mobile white women were

741
00:51:12,680 --> 00:51:15,239
Speaker 1: fighting for the right to not have a family, black

742
00:51:15,320 --> 00:51:18,080
Speaker 1: women talked about how yes, they were fighting for a

743
00:51:18,160 --> 00:51:23,040
Speaker 1: right to have family, and how important historically Black community

744
00:51:23,120 --> 00:51:27,319
Speaker 1: and specifically black family has been for them. It's the

745
00:51:27,440 --> 00:51:32,200
Speaker 1: nexus of their lives, it's their safe space right well,

746
00:51:32,200 --> 00:51:35,760
Speaker 1: exactly because in the system of slavery, families are ripped apart.

747
00:51:36,880 --> 00:51:42,480
Speaker 1: So Native American activists sund the alarm about this noticeable

748
00:51:42,640 --> 00:51:47,319
Speaker 1: rise in for sterilizations and abortions, and it catches the

749
00:51:47,360 --> 00:51:52,239
Speaker 1: attention of South Dakotas senator, who gets the Government Accounting

750
00:51:52,280 --> 00:51:56,520
Speaker 1: Office to investigate further. So in n the g O

751
00:51:57,680 --> 00:52:01,560
Speaker 1: steps in and they verify okay, yeah, So between nineteen

752
00:52:01,600 --> 00:52:05,520
Speaker 1: seventy three and nineteen seventy six, there were at least

753
00:52:06,000 --> 00:52:10,080
Speaker 1: three thousand, four hundred six sterilizations happening for these women

754
00:52:10,160 --> 00:52:15,480
Speaker 1: living on reservations. But in their report, the g O

755
00:52:16,000 --> 00:52:19,040
Speaker 1: did not declare them forced. They were like, yeah, there

756
00:52:19,080 --> 00:52:22,680
Speaker 1: wasn't a lot of evidence of coercion, you know, I mean,

757
00:52:23,320 --> 00:52:26,279
Speaker 1: it's not the first time we've we've had governments not

758
00:52:26,400 --> 00:52:29,480
Speaker 1: believe what women say about their own bodies. Um. But

759
00:52:30,719 --> 00:52:34,520
Speaker 1: to put this in perspective, the number of sterilizations that

760
00:52:34,560 --> 00:52:38,920
Speaker 1: were happening among Native American women per capita was equivalent

761
00:52:39,600 --> 00:52:44,719
Speaker 1: to four dfty two thousand non Native American women. So

762
00:52:44,960 --> 00:52:49,200
Speaker 1: between nineteen seventy nine seventy six, as many as twenty

763
00:52:49,280 --> 00:52:55,600
Speaker 1: five to fifty percent of Native American women were coercively sterilized.

764
00:52:55,680 --> 00:52:59,120
Speaker 1: And again these tactics included the same all threats of

765
00:52:59,400 --> 00:53:01,120
Speaker 1: you know what, I don't do this, We're going to

766
00:53:01,239 --> 00:53:03,200
Speaker 1: take away your health care, We're going to take away

767
00:53:03,239 --> 00:53:08,040
Speaker 1: your kids. Yeah. But thanks to these women's activism and

768
00:53:08,200 --> 00:53:12,440
Speaker 1: the public reaction to the Government Accounting Offices findings, you

769
00:53:12,560 --> 00:53:16,440
Speaker 1: do see rules for federally subsidized sterilization start to tighten.

770
00:53:17,120 --> 00:53:20,720
Speaker 1: So due to all of this activism that really piques

771
00:53:20,760 --> 00:53:23,560
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies, which has led absolutely by women

772
00:53:23,600 --> 00:53:28,919
Speaker 1: of color, you see the closure of federal funds going

773
00:53:28,960 --> 00:53:33,080
Speaker 1: to subsidize sterilizations and the repeal of many of these

774
00:53:33,120 --> 00:53:39,760
Speaker 1: states sterilization laws. But it is still not a bygone relic.

775
00:53:40,840 --> 00:53:47,920
Speaker 1: And California listeners, brace yourself, because yes, California issued a

776
00:53:47,960 --> 00:53:53,040
Speaker 1: formal apology, offered no reparations, but issued a formal apology

777
00:53:53,400 --> 00:53:58,440
Speaker 1: a while back for its supreme violation of human rights,

778
00:53:58,480 --> 00:54:03,279
Speaker 1: but first as satistic. Correctional institutions in the US are

779
00:54:03,320 --> 00:54:08,480
Speaker 1: collectively the second largest provider of reproductive health services in

780
00:54:08,520 --> 00:54:12,360
Speaker 1: the United States. I did not know that, Caroline, but

781
00:54:12,440 --> 00:54:15,680
Speaker 1: it makes sense. It does makes sense. And from two

782
00:54:15,680 --> 00:54:21,840
Speaker 1: thousand and six, doctors into California prisons, the California Institution

783
00:54:21,880 --> 00:54:24,680
Speaker 1: for Women in Corona and Valley State Prison for Women

784
00:54:24,680 --> 00:54:29,560
Speaker 1: in Chauchia illegally sterilized about a hundred and fifty female

785
00:54:29,560 --> 00:54:34,600
Speaker 1: inmates via tubal ligation. And this again was uncovered by

786
00:54:34,800 --> 00:54:39,640
Speaker 1: the invaluable resource, the Center for Investigative Reporting, and what

787
00:54:39,719 --> 00:54:42,960
Speaker 1: they uncovered is that there were possibly one hundred more

788
00:54:43,560 --> 00:54:46,839
Speaker 1: for sterilizations dating back to the late nineties, and they

789
00:54:46,840 --> 00:54:52,960
Speaker 1: found that between the state of California paid doctors a

790
00:54:53,080 --> 00:54:57,000
Speaker 1: hundred and forty seven thousand dollars for the procedures and

791
00:54:58,400 --> 00:55:03,400
Speaker 1: echoing the progress of era BS, pregnant inmates pegged for

792
00:55:03,520 --> 00:55:09,080
Speaker 1: high recidivism were the targets of these procedures, and again

793
00:55:09,120 --> 00:55:12,600
Speaker 1: they were often performed during labor, which is hello uh

794
00:55:12,800 --> 00:55:16,319
Speaker 1: legally coercive because a woman in labor under so much

795
00:55:16,360 --> 00:55:19,799
Speaker 1: pain and dress cannot give informed consent, and there's this

796
00:55:20,640 --> 00:55:25,640
Speaker 1: horrifying gentleman. This gentleman, he's no gentleman, he's a he's

797
00:55:25,680 --> 00:55:31,560
Speaker 1: another deuce, just like so. Gynecologist James Heinrich, who was

798
00:55:31,600 --> 00:55:36,120
Speaker 1: in the prison system, felt, just like his progressive era

799
00:55:36,280 --> 00:55:40,560
Speaker 1: Forbears did, that he was providing a public service. And

800
00:55:40,600 --> 00:55:43,680
Speaker 1: this isn't like something from his diary that the Center

801
00:55:43,719 --> 00:55:47,160
Speaker 1: for Investigative Reporting found, he told them that quote over

802
00:55:47,200 --> 00:55:50,640
Speaker 1: a tenure period, that isn't a huge amount of money

803
00:55:50,719 --> 00:55:53,080
Speaker 1: compared to what you save in welfare paying for these

804
00:55:53,120 --> 00:55:59,000
Speaker 1: unwanted children. I mean, as they procreated more what I know,

805
00:55:59,239 --> 00:56:01,520
Speaker 1: the money it's all about it's all about them. I mean, yes,

806
00:56:01,560 --> 00:56:05,920
Speaker 1: it's about racism and population control in that sense, but

807
00:56:06,000 --> 00:56:07,960
Speaker 1: it is so much about that money. But is this

808
00:56:08,160 --> 00:56:12,680
Speaker 1: not just more evidence that so many people care more

809
00:56:13,320 --> 00:56:18,640
Speaker 1: about the fetus then the woman who's pregnant or the

810
00:56:18,800 --> 00:56:22,520
Speaker 1: child once it's born. Because they're putting all of this

811
00:56:22,640 --> 00:56:27,880
Speaker 1: money and time and resources into prevent taking away a

812
00:56:27,920 --> 00:56:32,000
Speaker 1: woman's agency and ability to reproduce or not reproduced as

813
00:56:32,040 --> 00:56:36,840
Speaker 1: she desires, and they're just going in and doing the

814
00:56:36,920 --> 00:56:42,759
Speaker 1: surgical operation without consent or informed consent, and at the

815
00:56:42,840 --> 00:56:46,399
Speaker 1: expense of this woman's the life she desires. It's just

816
00:56:46,440 --> 00:56:50,680
Speaker 1: like boggles my mind. And and yet they're like, oh,

817
00:56:50,719 --> 00:56:52,960
Speaker 1: it's for everyone's good. But then they turned around and

818
00:56:52,960 --> 00:56:55,279
Speaker 1: there it's not like they're giving any support to the

819
00:56:55,360 --> 00:56:58,200
Speaker 1: children she has, you know what I mean. Well, and again,

820
00:56:58,280 --> 00:57:01,160
Speaker 1: in all of these scenarios, I shouldn't say scenarios as

821
00:57:01,200 --> 00:57:06,919
Speaker 1: if they're you know, concocted somehow. In all of these events, yes,

822
00:57:06,960 --> 00:57:12,080
Speaker 1: there were some women who were consenting to this. We're

823
00:57:12,239 --> 00:57:15,800
Speaker 1: legitimately consenting to this, but it's like even even within

824
00:57:16,360 --> 00:57:20,080
Speaker 1: even the context of that consent is to use that

825
00:57:20,120 --> 00:57:25,240
Speaker 1: old buzzword, problematic because of the motivations for even presenting

826
00:57:25,320 --> 00:57:30,640
Speaker 1: the option of sterilization UM. And it's not government whistleblowers

827
00:57:30,800 --> 00:57:36,040
Speaker 1: who have had any hand in stopping these coercive tactics,

828
00:57:36,120 --> 00:57:39,880
Speaker 1: this abuse, this outright abuse UM. In the case of

829
00:57:40,000 --> 00:57:45,000
Speaker 1: the California prisoners, it was the prisoner rights group Justice Now,

830
00:57:45,120 --> 00:57:47,640
Speaker 1: which in two thousand and eight finally got the ball

831
00:57:47,720 --> 00:57:52,400
Speaker 1: rolling to investigate and stop the sterilizations UM. And on

832
00:57:52,440 --> 00:57:56,240
Speaker 1: a related note, in two thousand thirteen, the North Carolina

833
00:57:56,280 --> 00:58:00,400
Speaker 1: state legislature did approve ten million dollars in companies station

834
00:58:00,640 --> 00:58:06,040
Speaker 1: for the victims of eugenics between and nineteen seventy four,

835
00:58:06,880 --> 00:58:11,480
Speaker 1: and Virginia followed suit in March of but as far

836
00:58:11,560 --> 00:58:14,960
Speaker 1: as I know, the North Carolina GOP was none too

837
00:58:15,000 --> 00:58:20,240
Speaker 1: pleased with the idea of dolling out that money. Um So,

838
00:58:20,880 --> 00:58:22,600
Speaker 1: we all know that North Carolina is doing a great

839
00:58:22,680 --> 00:58:24,840
Speaker 1: job of everything right now in North Carolina. But North

840
00:58:24,840 --> 00:58:29,959
Speaker 1: Carolina is so beautiful. It's a lovely state. And I

841
00:58:30,080 --> 00:58:32,600
Speaker 1: really like North Carolina for a lot of reasons, but

842
00:58:32,640 --> 00:58:37,640
Speaker 1: I don't like their government. UM So, all of this

843
00:58:37,760 --> 00:58:42,240
Speaker 1: in the past hour and change to say that, yeah,

844
00:58:42,360 --> 00:58:47,360
Speaker 1: we've got to broaden our definition of reproductive rights to

845
00:58:48,560 --> 00:58:56,200
Speaker 1: an intersectional reproductive justice because abortion and birth control absolutely important.

846
00:58:56,280 --> 00:58:59,920
Speaker 1: I love my I U D. I am so grateful

847
00:59:00,240 --> 00:59:04,520
Speaker 1: for my I UG. But we have to keep in

848
00:59:04,600 --> 00:59:10,840
Speaker 1: mind how all of these issues affect not only college educated,

849
00:59:11,120 --> 00:59:14,840
Speaker 1: salaried white ladies like us, but also the most marginalized women,

850
00:59:14,840 --> 00:59:18,920
Speaker 1: the women on the margins. To put it another way, um,

851
00:59:18,920 --> 00:59:23,840
Speaker 1: who are incarcerated, who might be in immigration detention centers today,

852
00:59:24,000 --> 00:59:26,920
Speaker 1: who are often left out of those conversations and and

853
00:59:27,000 --> 00:59:30,200
Speaker 1: that activism well and just simply exercising empathy and realizing

854
00:59:30,200 --> 00:59:33,320
Speaker 1: that not everybody wants the same thing you want. Um.

855
00:59:33,440 --> 00:59:35,720
Speaker 1: I think, at the risk of sounding like a broken record,

856
00:59:35,840 --> 00:59:38,760
Speaker 1: this whole episode is also an advertisement for the need

857
00:59:38,920 --> 00:59:43,240
Speaker 1: for better and more comprehensive sex ed um as well

858
00:59:43,280 --> 00:59:47,720
Speaker 1: as just a better a better education system in this

859
00:59:47,800 --> 00:59:51,520
Speaker 1: country period. Um. I you know, just on an article

860
00:59:51,560 --> 00:59:55,680
Speaker 1: about how formal sex ed is on the down swing

861
00:59:55,720 --> 01:00:00,040
Speaker 1: in this country, and it breaks my freaking heart to

862
01:00:00,040 --> 01:00:02,439
Speaker 1: to say that instead of a string of expletives, which

863
01:00:02,480 --> 01:00:04,280
Speaker 1: is what I really want to say. Well, and this

864
01:00:04,480 --> 01:00:09,680
Speaker 1: might sound disingenuous coming from to white podcast fosse, who

865
01:00:09,680 --> 01:00:11,880
Speaker 1: have just talked about this issue for a really long time,

866
01:00:12,360 --> 01:00:17,160
Speaker 1: but it is another lesson for feminists like us today

867
01:00:17,480 --> 01:00:23,040
Speaker 1: to listen more and more closely to women of color. Oh,

868
01:00:23,040 --> 01:00:25,040
Speaker 1: without a doubt, and I hope we hear from you.

869
01:00:26,400 --> 01:00:29,640
Speaker 1: So with that, send us your letters. Mom Stuff at

870
01:00:29,640 --> 01:00:32,480
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com is our email address. You

871
01:00:32,520 --> 01:00:35,520
Speaker 1: can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or messages

872
01:00:35,600 --> 01:00:37,840
Speaker 1: on Facebook. And we've got a couple of messages to

873
01:00:37,880 --> 01:00:44,120
Speaker 1: share with you right now. Well, I have a letter

874
01:00:44,160 --> 01:00:48,160
Speaker 1: here from Zara in response to our Salary Secrets episode,

875
01:00:48,800 --> 01:00:51,440
Speaker 1: she says, I know people are very uncomfortable talking salary,

876
01:00:51,520 --> 01:00:53,800
Speaker 1: even those who are aware of the gender pay gap.

877
01:00:54,200 --> 01:00:57,680
Speaker 1: I don't have those reservations. How can women, people of color,

878
01:00:57,720 --> 01:01:00,160
Speaker 1: and other minorities make sure that they are paid fairly?

879
01:01:00,520 --> 01:01:03,040
Speaker 1: Prior to the Lily lad Better Fair Pay Act of

880
01:01:03,080 --> 01:01:06,200
Speaker 1: two thousand nine, the statute of limitations with six months.

881
01:01:06,480 --> 01:01:08,520
Speaker 1: You had six months from the start of your job

882
01:01:08,600 --> 01:01:11,520
Speaker 1: to know and seek redress for any gender pay gap.

883
01:01:11,840 --> 01:01:14,600
Speaker 1: That's not a long time, especially with the general reticence

884
01:01:14,640 --> 01:01:17,840
Speaker 1: about discussing salaries. The Lily lad Better Fair Pay Act

885
01:01:17,920 --> 01:01:20,320
Speaker 1: at least allows you to go back further. I think

886
01:01:20,320 --> 01:01:22,320
Speaker 1: there's no limit as long as the pay gap is

887
01:01:22,320 --> 01:01:25,560
Speaker 1: still in effect, and get two years back pay recovery.

888
01:01:25,840 --> 01:01:28,080
Speaker 1: I think two years is not much, but it's better

889
01:01:28,120 --> 01:01:31,640
Speaker 1: than nothing. Back to the topic, what I usually do

890
01:01:31,760 --> 01:01:34,680
Speaker 1: is either disclose my own salary and ask if that

891
01:01:34,720 --> 01:01:38,000
Speaker 1: seems fair for such a position, or ask people for

892
01:01:38,080 --> 01:01:40,400
Speaker 1: their own salaries, but make it clear that I want

893
01:01:40,400 --> 01:01:43,240
Speaker 1: a ballpark figure, not the exact amount. People are usually

894
01:01:43,280 --> 01:01:47,160
Speaker 1: more comfortable saying your salary sounds right, or you should

895
01:01:47,200 --> 01:01:50,160
Speaker 1: ask for more and sometimes I'll even say a good

896
01:01:50,240 --> 01:01:54,320
Speaker 1: five grand more, I'm earning a low sixty K salary,

897
01:01:54,440 --> 01:01:57,840
Speaker 1: or I'm earning between sixty and sixty five K. I've

898
01:01:57,880 --> 01:02:01,000
Speaker 1: even asked, when between jobs, how much someone with my

899
01:02:01,080 --> 01:02:04,240
Speaker 1: experience earn. I usually get useful answers that I can

900
01:02:04,320 --> 01:02:08,280
Speaker 1: use in my negotiations. I go the my research tells

901
01:02:08,320 --> 01:02:10,600
Speaker 1: me that the market rate for this position is X.

902
01:02:10,640 --> 01:02:13,760
Speaker 1: Does that fit your own range? Route? It's harder for

903
01:02:13,800 --> 01:02:16,080
Speaker 1: them to lowball me when I show that I've done

904
01:02:16,240 --> 01:02:20,400
Speaker 1: my homework. And then Zara has sent us like, oh,

905
01:02:20,520 --> 01:02:23,960
Speaker 1: let me count approximately seventy thousand links from the website

906
01:02:24,000 --> 01:02:26,280
Speaker 1: ask a Manager. And I want to make sure to

907
01:02:26,320 --> 01:02:29,520
Speaker 1: mention that because several other listeners out there who've written

908
01:02:29,560 --> 01:02:32,440
Speaker 1: us about this episode have also recommended that we and

909
01:02:32,480 --> 01:02:35,640
Speaker 1: fellow listeners check out ask a Manager. And so she

910
01:02:35,680 --> 01:02:38,080
Speaker 1: says that the website ask a Manager has a ton

911
01:02:38,240 --> 01:02:41,439
Speaker 1: of great information about salary negotiations since it's a bunch

912
01:02:41,440 --> 01:02:43,640
Speaker 1: of posts, and if you fair listeners want to check

913
01:02:43,680 --> 01:02:47,160
Speaker 1: it out, go to ask a manager dot org. So,

914
01:02:47,280 --> 01:02:51,920
Speaker 1: thank you, Zara for all of your helpful resources. And also, Zara, uh,

915
01:02:52,040 --> 01:02:54,560
Speaker 1: your name is so familiar because you are a gold

916
01:02:54,600 --> 01:02:57,680
Speaker 1: Star listener. You've been with us and interacting with us

917
01:02:57,760 --> 01:03:01,760
Speaker 1: for years, so I thank you for all of your

918
01:03:01,800 --> 01:03:04,240
Speaker 1: insights you've provided to us. And I've got a let

919
01:03:04,280 --> 01:03:07,440
Speaker 1: her here from Maria from the same episode, and she writes,

920
01:03:07,880 --> 01:03:10,560
Speaker 1: I just listened to your conversation with Gina and Ashley

921
01:03:10,560 --> 01:03:12,600
Speaker 1: of recruit Her, and I wish I could have been

922
01:03:12,600 --> 01:03:14,640
Speaker 1: in the room with you. I would have loved to

923
01:03:14,680 --> 01:03:19,160
Speaker 1: ask about salary negotiations outside of tech, specifically education. This

924
01:03:19,200 --> 01:03:21,880
Speaker 1: is a fantastic question, by the way, Maria. She says,

925
01:03:22,160 --> 01:03:24,280
Speaker 1: I'm a relatively new teacher, and I found that many

926
01:03:24,480 --> 01:03:27,520
Speaker 1: educators on the KGE twelve spectrum come up against the

927
01:03:27,840 --> 01:03:29,800
Speaker 1: do it for the children, It's not really about the

928
01:03:29,840 --> 01:03:33,120
Speaker 1: money attitude when trying to negotiate for higher pay. I

929
01:03:33,240 --> 01:03:35,920
Speaker 1: found this pattern is for people also working in professions

930
01:03:35,920 --> 01:03:41,160
Speaker 1: that are often framed as callings like artists, musicians, teachers, etcetera.

931
01:03:41,480 --> 01:03:45,080
Speaker 1: It's as though the nobility of these careers somehow excuses

932
01:03:45,120 --> 01:03:48,640
Speaker 1: being underpaid. As a young teacher just beginning her career,

933
01:03:49,000 --> 01:03:51,640
Speaker 1: I'm trying to find an assertive and proactive way to

934
01:03:51,720 --> 01:03:55,080
Speaker 1: fight for my worth in a slightly sticky situation. If

935
01:03:55,080 --> 01:03:57,840
Speaker 1: any sminty listeners out there have some tips or tricks,

936
01:03:57,880 --> 01:04:01,440
Speaker 1: it would really help a girl out. Also, UH, to

937
01:04:01,600 --> 01:04:06,320
Speaker 1: Maria's point, we've heard from UH listeners working in nonprofit

938
01:04:06,600 --> 01:04:09,240
Speaker 1: who have the same question, like, Hey, it's like a

939
01:04:09,320 --> 01:04:11,800
Speaker 1: similar like I have the calling. This is a very

940
01:04:11,880 --> 01:04:16,000
Speaker 1: like noble thing and budgets are often very tight. So

941
01:04:16,200 --> 01:04:18,360
Speaker 1: what are you supposed to do in those kinds of

942
01:04:18,360 --> 01:04:21,000
Speaker 1: cases to make sure you're getting paid what you're worth?

943
01:04:21,080 --> 01:04:24,040
Speaker 1: So let's keep this conversation going. Let's kind of build

944
01:04:24,080 --> 01:04:26,920
Speaker 1: some kind of resource for this, because clearly we need

945
01:04:26,960 --> 01:04:29,520
Speaker 1: some tips. Well, we've also heard from listeners in the

946
01:04:29,520 --> 01:04:32,240
Speaker 1: service industry, particular people at restaurants, whether they're front of

947
01:04:32,240 --> 01:04:35,080
Speaker 1: house or back a house, and they're saying the same

948
01:04:35,120 --> 01:04:37,520
Speaker 1: things to us in terms of like literally, if I

949
01:04:37,560 --> 01:04:39,680
Speaker 1: asked for like a dollar fifty more an hour, I

950
01:04:39,680 --> 01:04:41,400
Speaker 1: could get fired. And I bet this is the same

951
01:04:41,400 --> 01:04:43,640
Speaker 1: for retail. One of my best seeds was in retail

952
01:04:43,680 --> 01:04:47,240
Speaker 1: for a long time and she faced those issues. Um,

953
01:04:47,440 --> 01:04:50,640
Speaker 1: so let's do something about it. Mom. Stuff at how

954
01:04:50,720 --> 01:04:52,520
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com is where you can send all

955
01:04:52,520 --> 01:04:55,160
Speaker 1: of your tips and tricks and for links all of

956
01:04:55,160 --> 01:04:57,960
Speaker 1: our social media as well as all of our blogs, videos,

957
01:04:58,000 --> 01:05:01,640
Speaker 1: and podcasts with our sources. So you can read more

958
01:05:01,720 --> 01:05:04,640
Speaker 1: about the horrifying history of sterilization abuse in the United

959
01:05:04,640 --> 01:05:07,760
Speaker 1: States and Puerto Rico. Head on over to stuff Mom

960
01:05:07,840 --> 01:05:13,960
Speaker 1: Never Told You dot com. We're more on this and

961
01:05:14,000 --> 01:05:16,560
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff Works dot

962
01:05:16,600 --> 01:05:24,520
Speaker 1: com