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A review by dreamofbookspines
Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America by Ellen Chesler
1.0
Biographies can be great. This, however, is the sort that makes people think all biographies are boring. Chesler is fawning and verbose in her praise of Sanger. In the afterword, she admits that she is enamored of her subject. This is a problem: like academics, biographers should be able to be critical of their subjects.
The whole book could have been a third of its finished length. It was a drag to read. Also, it bears noting that Sanger herself is kind of a terrible person. I didn't realize this, to be honest. She was _mean_ and nasty if you pissed her off (and sometimes if you didn't). Sanger came off as one of the pettiest, most self-serving sort of person. I went into it knowing that Sanger had backed some eugenic ties, so I expected to not like her for that, but holy shit! She abandoned her kids with no apology, was emotionally abusive to her various husbands, and flip-flopped on issues when it suited her.
I think it's appropriate to say that Sanger damaged feminism and family planning in irreparable ways, though not more than she helped. But to be unapologetic about any of it? Uh uh, SO not interested in raising her up as a fantastic feminist icon.
tl;dr version: biographers should not be so enamored of their subjects, nor should biographies involve the life stories of everyone who ever touched the subject's life in any way. -_-
The whole book could have been a third of its finished length. It was a drag to read. Also, it bears noting that Sanger herself is kind of a terrible person. I didn't realize this, to be honest. She was _mean_ and nasty if you pissed her off (and sometimes if you didn't). Sanger came off as one of the pettiest, most self-serving sort of person. I went into it knowing that Sanger had backed some eugenic ties, so I expected to not like her for that, but holy shit! She abandoned her kids with no apology, was emotionally abusive to her various husbands, and flip-flopped on issues when it suited her.
I think it's appropriate to say that Sanger damaged feminism and family planning in irreparable ways, though not more than she helped. But to be unapologetic about any of it? Uh uh, SO not interested in raising her up as a fantastic feminist icon.
tl;dr version: biographers should not be so enamored of their subjects, nor should biographies involve the life stories of everyone who ever touched the subject's life in any way. -_-