Solinger, Rickie Wake Up Little Susie, Single Pregnancy and Race before Roe v. Wade, New York, Routledge, 2000.

1. What are the similarities and differences between the stories of Sally and Brenda in 1957? [pp. 1-3]

    What role did race, gender, and class play in shaping “ the social construction of unwed mothers?

2. pp. 34-38 Why were single mothers considered to be so threatening to the social order?

    Post-WWII search for stability

    Fear of rising “gender insubordination”

    Fear of rising civil rights movement and demands of black men and women for equality

    Fear of women being sexually independent

e.g. p. 35 Philip Wylie quote, “Young men¼bounce anxiously away from their first few brutal contacts with modern young women, frightened to find that their shining hair is vulcanized, their agate eyes are embedded in cement, and their ruby lips casehardened into pliers for the bending of males like wire.”

e.g. p. 5 In denying an abortion, a doctor says that requesting an abortion is “proof of her inability and failure to live through the destiny of being a woman”   “will become an unpleasant person to live with and possibly lose her glamour as a wide . She will gradually lose conviction in playing the female role.”

If a doctor agreed to perform a therapeutic abortion, he would almost always sterilize the woman at the same time.

3. Why would a girl consider suicide if she got pregnant?

4. p. 7 Why were black families so much more willing to take the child and mother into the community and family than white families were?

5. How did black families view the situation of unwed mothers?

6. What were the dominant white society’s notions of the stereotypical differences between white and black single mothers?

            White                                                             Black

a. mentally ill                                                           a. “ naturally unfit”

b. should give up the baby for adoption.      b.  should keep baby

c. should go to maternity home                       c. excluded from maternity home    

d. “Momism”                                                           d. “Matriarchal family”

e. Shame                                                                  e. Blame

f. Something (reintegration) for                        f.  Welfare for "nothing"

   for giving away baby

g. No concern about population control      g. Population Control

h. Not sterilized                                                       h. Sterilization considered by some

i. Community rejects M if she keeps                  i. Rejects her if she baby
  her baby                                                                            gives baby away

7. p. 9 What does it mean to conflate race and class?  regional differences?  age?

8. How did these patterns differ from those before 1940s? Before the patterns were more similar for black and whites. The mother was expected to keep the child, and in the case of white mothers to live with their shame, and her child was tainted with the notion that he was biologically tainted by genetic inferiority.  Black families tended to be less blaming and not to accept the genetic inferiority idea about the child, because it was too close to the racist ideas of Eugenics movements of the 1930s.

9.  What is “eugenics” and how does it relate to ideas about unwed mothers?

10. Why were the 1950s a mother-blaming decade? Freud?

11. Why did single mother face the hatred of the self-righteous?

12. Discuss the "contradictions" of single black mothers’ position:

    a. being w/o a man, and therefore, independent:: being dependent upon public assistance

    b. sexual outside of =, and therefore, not feminine:: being mothers --and therefore, meeting the central definition   of femininity

13. p. 57 Why did 20% of whites consider forced sterilization to be an acceptable social policy?  Why not sterilize men? Race-specific forms of biological determinism and racism, especially in some southern states.

     p. 58, Discuss the idea of making it a crime to have a 2nd child out of wedlock.

14. p. 61. How does the concept of culture become linked with ideas about black unwed motherhood, but not white unwed motherhood?

    Discuss how culture become conflated with biology and just a more covert form of racism.

    How does the link between racism and poverty become another link in the chain of racist ideas and practices about reproduction and illegitimate motherhood.

    p. 77 on the culture of poverty. And welfare.

15. p. 78 Discuss the attitudes of some black women to the idea of marriage without love and the high incidence of bridal pregnancies and divorce among whites.

16. p. 86-88 the implications of seeing single motherhood as evidence of psychological disturbance. p. 96 Contradiction between single mothers as dependent people and their mental illness descriptions as too individualistic and aggressive.    

    Absolved father; blame pregnant girl’s mother; defines her as helpless and needy;

    p. 133 on rape and pregnancy

    p. 137 on the sexual double standard.

17. p. 89 Why didn't anyone discuss contraception and abortion?

18.  Discuss the idea of In loco parentis as it applied to college-age women in relation to the issue of unwed pregnancy.

23. Compare the maternity home to a school, a reformatory, a mental hospital, a charm school, and a real home.

    p. 127 on teaching femininity

    p. 128  on curriculum

    home economics, poise and beauty school

24. p. 136 Discuss the quote by the "extremely disturbed girl"

25. p. 166 Discuss the values expressed in the quote about a mother wondering where her child is.

      p. 185 And the case of the woman whose “illegitimate child” was taken for adoption without her permission

     Why were such practices permitted?

26. p. 185 Discuss the implications of class, gender and babies.

27. What were the 3 views that characterized white views of black single mothers?

            a. benign neglect

            b. punishment

            c. benevolent reformers

    What were black women's views?

        p. 201: maternal responsibility

        p. 202: did not stigmatize the mother

        p. 204: Joyce Ladner quote

28. p. 192 Attitudes toward the children's welfare as contradictory.

      p. 193 Connecting welfare with black women and sexuality, even though only 16% of black unwed mothers were receiving AFDC.

     Whites saw AFDC as paying women to have children. Does this attitude still exist?

29. How were questions of population related to race and gender in 1965?

Why were many opposed to birth control and sex education for unmarried women on the one hand and worried about the population bomb on the other.  What was their logic? Is this logic still part of our thinking about family?

The debate among whites over the right of unmarried women to birth control and the duty to prevent the birth of unwanted children. How was “unwanted” defined? Who got to participate in the debate.?

30. What impact did the sexual revolution have on attitudes towards single mothers and illegitimacy and on state policies towards birth control and abortion?

    New idea that illegitimacy was socially determined.

31. What were the post-war innovations related to unwed pregnancies?

    a. Language of racialized value of “illegitimate” children

    b. Racialized theories about why there was illegitimacy.

    c. Racialized ways to distribute babies.

    d. Use of welfare system to publicly shame and financially punish unwed mothers of color and their children.

32. What was the impact of Roe v. Wade and the availability of birth control on unmarried women?

33. p. 239 Discuss the question of who can afford to be a mother.

    Why are foster parents paid more per child than the mother is?

    Does a person have the right to have children? Are there limits?

34. According to Solinger, there are four persistent questions:

    a. What qualifications do we want to establish for motherhood?

    b. What role should government play in shaping who can have children and who can be a family?

    c. Why do the same myths about the causes and costs of illegitimacy persist?

    d. How importance is female reproductive autonomy to women?

    Does she leave out any questions? Which ones?

35. How have men  shaped attitudes towards “illegitimacy” and practices to address it?

36. To what extent have our ideas and practices about unwed motherhood changed? About sexuality before marriage? About population control, eugenics and birth control? About young women’s choices in relationship to marriage and family? About young men’s? About unwed fatherhood? About welfare and the role of the government in supporting families?