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In the spirit of The Paris Wife and Loving Frank, the provocative and compelling story of one of the most fascinating and influential figures of the twentieth century: Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood--an indomitable woman who, more than any other, and at great personal cost, shaped the sexual landscape we inhabit today. The daughter of a hard-drinking, smooth-tongued free thinker and a mother worn down by thirteen children, Margaret Sanger vowed her life would be different. Trained as a nurse, she fought for social justice beside labor organizers, anarchists, socialists, and other progressives, eventually channeling her energy to one singular cause: legalizing contraception. It was a battle that would pit her against puritanical, patriarchal lawmakers, send her to prison again and again, force her to flee to England, and ultimately change the lives of women across the country and around the world. This complex enigmatic revolutionary was at once vain and charismatic, generous and ruthless, sexually impulsive and coolly calculating--a competitive, self-centered woman who championed all women, a conflicted mother who suffered the worst tragedy a parent can experience. From opening the first illegal birth control clinic in America in 1916 through the founding of Planned Parenthood to the arrival of the Pill in the 1960s, Margaret Sanger sacrificed two husbands, three children, and scores of lovers in her fight for sexual equality and freedom. With cameos by such legendary figures as Emma Goldman, John Reed, Big Bill Haywood, H. G. Wells, and the love of Margaret's life, Havelock Ellis, this richly imagined portrait of a larger-than-life woman is at once sympathetic to her suffering and unsparing of her faults. Deeply insightful, Terrible Virtue is Margaret Sanger's story as she herself might have told it.… (more)
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It is well known that American women had few rights in 1900.
• Imprisonment
• Court cases
• Exile to England
• Journalistic censure
In Sanger’s voice, Feldman addresses the common criticisms leveled against the feminist and mother of the birth control movement. She focuses a lens on Margaret Sanger’s enigmatic personal life. Sanger, one of thirteen siblings, mourned her mother’s premature death. The daughter of an alcoholic father, she married with trepidation. A trained nurse, she suffered from tuberculosis. Frightened of the responsibility, Sanger became a wife and mother. She broke sexual taboos and struggled with family responsibility. She triumphed in the establishment of Planned Parenthood, but sacrificed her family. Her life ended in heartbreak and isolation.
Historically accurate, the book hinges on a first person narrative by Sanger, which downplays the events surrounding the birth-control movement in favor of her own personal agenda. Pocket narratives by her children and husbands fill in detail. If the reader can move past Sanger’s self-focused aggrandizement, he will cheer, chide and salute the strides made for the female sex. On the cusp of Planned Parenthood’s centennial in October 2016, Miss Feldman successfully navigates the controversy over the pioneer who sacrificed personally for the good of all women.
The title stems from a Margaret Sanger quote from 1914:
“It is only rebel woman, when she gets out of the habits imposed on her by bourgeois convention, who can do some deed of terrible virtue.”
Ellen Feldman's Terrible Virtue tells the story of Margaret Sanger, widely regarded as the woman who helped bring about birth control education for women and the founder of Planned Parenthood. I didn't know much about Sanger, so I was curious to read more about her.
Sanger's mother had thirteen children and her father was an alcoholic who fancied himself a socialist atheist philosopher. Sanger watched her mother give birth year after year and become a shell of a woman, worn out by caring for so many children without any help from her husband.
Margaret was intelligent and thanks to her older sisters who raised enough money, she was able to attend nursing school. She also became passionate about social justice, as well as men. She had relationships with many men and believed in free love.
Yet she married Bill Sanger and they had three children- two sons and daughter named Peggy. Peggy was diagnosed with polio, a diagnosis Margaret disagreed with, and she refused to let her daughter wear a leg brace.
One day Margaret was asked to speak to some women about health issues, and she began to talk about contraception, which was a forbidden topic at the time. Women were hungry for more information and soon Margaret's talks drew more and more women.
She also drew attention from authorities and Margaret was arrested. Margaret fled the country for Europe, leaving behind her family. When she eventually returned, she devoted so much of her time and energy to the issue of contraception and women's health that her relationship with her husband and children suffered.
The story is told from Margaret's point of view, with some characters- her husband, her son, her sister, her lawyer and others in her life- telling their story in small doses. I think the novel may have been stronger if we heard more of their voices.
It was difficult for me to completely empathize with Margaret. She is, to say the least, a very complicated character. She was a pioneer in women's health, and her determination to help women understand and have access to contraception changed the world for women. So many poor women were trapped, forced year after year to have babies because contraception was not available to them.
But she wasn't a good mother or wife. It's one thing to say that her husband knew what he was getting into with Margaret and her extramarital affairs, but her children didn't deserve to have an absentee mother. They were sent a boarding school that was horrible, and at the end of her life, I wonder how much she regretted not having a better relationship with them.
I recommend Terrible Virtue as it brings to light how difficult life was for women because they didn't have any control over basic health care regarding contraception. The world changed dramatically for women once this happened, and Margaret Sanger was the one who changed it.
The book is written in her voice and she is a really hard character to get behind – she is not a very likable woman but as a woman I have to be grateful for her pioneering the cause. Far too many women were having far too many children and it was not good for them or the babies they couldn’t provide for.
Margaret gave a lot up for her passion but so did her family. One has to wonder why she went down such a traditional path when she was so obviously a women ahead of her time living a very nontraditional life. I was pleased to have read this fictionalized version of her life. It wasn’t perfect but neither was she – despite the good she did. I’ll be interested in finding further volumes to read to round out my knowledge.
I participated in a TLC Book Tour and was provided a copy of the book by the publisher for an honest review.
Terrible Virture by Ellen Feldman
Harper, 2016
Fiction (Historical); 272 pgs
Terrible Virtue is coming out at a time when it is needed most. Women's health
There was a time when the law (the Comstock Laws) limited and prohibited the sale and advertisement of contraceptives. Just to talk about them was not only considered indecent but was illegal as well. Not only was it considered lewd and immoral, but it was also seen as promoting promiscuity (some would say this is true still today). With the changing times came the women's suffragist movement in which women began to ask for the right to vote. They wanted to be heard, and rightfully so. Along with that came women like Margaret Sanger who advocated for women's health issues; her top priority being contraceptives (what she would later come to call birth control).
Terrible Virtue is a novel about Margaret's life, particularly the early years of her activism and fight for women's rights. Ellen Feldman recreates Margaret's life, imagining what it must have been like for Margaret in a time when so many seemed against her as she fought for social change. One of eleven children, Margaret knew hardship of growing up in a home with so many children as her mother and father struggled to care for them all. It isn't surprising that Margaret would take an activist role given her upbringing and her beliefs. She felt very passionately about many things, but especially about educating women about their bodies and about the use of contraceptives.
As a nurse working in the tenements with the working class and the poor, she saw how the women struggled, unable to control the number of children they had, dying in childbirth, and sometimes performing abortions on themselves. Margaret wanted to spare them that. No one should have to use a button hook to perform an abortion. As a result, Margaret fought hard to educate women from all walks of life about their contraceptive options, writing up pamphlets and providing advice that flew in the face of the Comstock Laws. She wanted to save lives and give these women some control over their own lives. She would go on to open the first clinic in 1916 for women's health issues, specializing in providing them with information on birth control and family planning. She is known today as the founder of Planned Parenthood.
Margaret devoted her life to her cause, believing the only way to change the law was to first break it. Her path was not an easy one. She sacrificed much in the end. Including her family. I really felt for her children who longed for the love and attention of their mother. While I do imagine Margaret loved them, she wasn't really there for them. Her cause was her first love. Her children always took a backseat. Her marriage suffered as well. Although, that wasn't as surprising given Margaret's view on traditional marriage. Her many affairs were, for the most part, out in the open. Her husband knew going in what her beliefs about fidelity were--she thought he agreed. As much as I might disagree with her choice in lifestyle, it isn't fair of me to fault Margaret for hers as open and honest as she was about it all, at least not when I really think about it.
Written in memoir style, it was hard to remember this novel is fiction. Author Ellen Feldman paints Margaret Sanger as the human being she likely was, both her admirable qualities and her many flaws. She was charismatic and passionate. She was extremely competitive and determined, at at time when both qualities were viewed as negatives in a woman. Margaret could be ruthless and calculating, but she also could be generous and thoughtful. While I admire Margaret in many ways for the strides she made, I admit to not being a fan of her on a personal level. Whether that's because of the way she was drawn in the novel or based on her real character, is hard to say. That would depend on how realistic the author was in her portrayal of Margaret.
Periodically throughout the novel, Feldman includes viewpoints of others in Margaret's life written in the form of letters to Margaret. The one from her middle child was particular poignant. And another from her sister was quite revealing. All help form a more whole picture of who Margaret was and the impact it had on those around her.
There is some controversy surrounding Margaret Sanger in regards to her involvement with the Eugenics movement, which, while addressed in the book to some degree, is mostly glossed over--something I wish the author had delved into a little more deeply. I could not help but do a little digging of my own after a conversation I had with a coworker on the subject. I can see why Eugenics might have been appealing, especially to someone like Margaret who was in the medical profession. It was a popular theory at the time, and while she did not subscribe to the whole of Eugenics, Margaret did support it in part, at least as far as it played into her ideas surrounding birth control. She felt strongly about any decision regarding family planning being in the hands of the individual. There is a lot of misinformation out there, including quotes attributed to Margaret that weren't actually hers and statements she made taken out of context--this done in an effort to discredit and suppress her. This, at least, Feldman does mention to some extent.
I admit I had only known the bare basics about Margaret Sanger before reading Ellen Feldman's novel Terrible Virtue. Margaret was a fierce supporter of women's rights and pushing for necessary social change. She fought hard and sacrificed much. Feldman reminds us, however, that Margaret was also very human, and at times conflicted, especially where her children were concerned. I imagine there is much more to the woman than Feldman could possibly cover in her novel--or else it would turn into a biography.Overall, I found Terrible Virtue to be a compelling and fascinating book about a significant figure in American history.