Gender and Compulsory Sterilization Programs in America: 1907–1950

Abstract

Current scholarship on compulsory sterilization and gender focuses almost exclusively on women as the targets of these programs. As Philip Reilly (1991:98) indicates, however, there occurred a "dramatic change" in the gender of those targeted for compulsory sterilizations in America. Prior to 1928 men were more likely to be sterilized, but, after 1928, women became far more likely to be sterilized. I use this shift as a focal point in examining the changing role of gender. First, I show the ways In which rationales for sterilizatton differed by gender. Then, turning to analyze the shift, I argue that the medical and legal professions criticized the rationales for male stertlization, yet these professions and others tended to 'be more supportive of female sterilization, imagining stertlization to have many advantages for society and women. Superintendents, simultaneously responding to external pressure and shaping sterilization to meet their own interests, transformed steriltzation into a program which focused largely upon women.

Sterilization in Alberta, 1928 to 1972: Gender Matters*

“…For women, the bar was set much lower in terms of behaviors warranting sterilization. Carey (1998) suggests, and our findings concur, that women's deviance comprised behaviors that would not even register on the mild end of the deviance scale for men. These activities were indicative of the potential for women's reproductive immorality and therefore served as criteria for presentation to the Eugenics Board.…”

“…The comparative lack of mental defective diagnoses (and the concomitant ability to consent to sterilization) among women suggests they were perhaps not ''abnormal'' in a psychiatric sense, but rather in a social sense: they violated the norms of proper feminine behavior and therefore would not be suitable mothers. As Carey (1998) found, American eugenics campaigns focused on male misbehavior considered dangerous to society while female misbehavior was not so much disruptive to public safety as it was to notions of appropriate gender roles and norms. In other words, in order to ''warrant'' sterilization male behavior had to fall on the extreme end of a continuum of deviant behavior.…”

Overview of German, Nazi, and Holocaust medicine

“…The principal targets included those with mental retardation, mental illness, epilepsy, blindness, deafness, physical deformity, and Native Americans and criminals in prisons [Kevles, 1985]. More than 65,000 individuals were sterilized in 33 states that had compulsory programs [Kevles, 1985; Carey, 1998; Baron, 2007].…”

Sterilizing the “Feeble‐minded”: Eugenics in Alberta, Canada, 1929–1972

“…In the United States, the first large‐scale eugenics campaign began in 1870 and was instrumental in having fertile, feeble‐minded, female paupers designated as “dysgenic” (Rafter 1992: 17). Subsequent eugenics‐influenced government policies were invariably shaped by gender‐ and race‐based stereotypes and notions of appropriate behaviour (Carey 1998; Hasian 1996; Paul 1995). In addition, medical organizational and bureaucratic needs often superseded concerns for patient welfare (Trent 1993; Radford 1994).…”