Susan B. Anthony and Motherhood

Scott and Amanda pointed me to an article in the Times by Stacy Schiff who writes about Susan B. Anthony and abortion. Read them for the abortion stuff. I liked what Schiff said about Anthony and motherhood.

Schiff writes that her grudge with Anthony dates back to her childhood when her school bus drove past Anthony’s old home and closer to her dreaded school. I grew up a few blocks from Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s old home and was good chums in 6th grade with the boy who lived in the house. I guess that partially explains my allegiance to the ever fertile Stanton.

Schiff writes about Anthony’s disgust with the pregnancies of her fellow suffragettes.

In her personal life Anthony was clear in her conviction that women were not preordained to motherhood, that sometimes a woman and her womb might go their separate ways. A devoted aunt, she claimed to appreciate her colleagues’ offspring, some of whom even felt warmly toward her. But she had little patience for maternity. At best she was the ever-helpful friend who asks if you realize what you are in for just as you have vomited your way through your first trimester. At worst she was a ruthless scold.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s pregnancies were Anthony’s despair: how was it possible, she wailed, “that for a moment’s pleasure to herself or her husband, she should thus increase the load of cares under which she already groans”? She was equally indulgent toward Antoinette Brown Blackwell, one of the movement’s most gifted orators: “Now, Nette, not another baby, is my peremptory command.” Over and over she needled Stanton, galled that the suffragette dream team had “all given yourselves over to baby making and left poor brainless me to do battle alone.” Stanton was the mother of six — one of whom weighed more than 12 pounds at delivery — when she received those cheering words.

Motherhood still knocks quite a few good women off their game. Things are no doubt easier today; there’s more control over the whole business, less drudgery, and less danger of death. But it still is very hard to take over the world with toddlers clinging to your legs and karate practice at 4:00. However, I’m really glad that I had kids and often wish that I had five or six of ’em. (More later.)