Midterm Flashcards
victorian era to WWII (29 cards)
female husband
crossdressing women who could pass as men during the Victorian era. at that point so long as you looked male at the courthouse, you could be married.
significant: law only gets involved bc of polygamy and figuring out who’s the heir. implies that there were plenty of female husbands out there who were behaving, language of impossibility implying that they do exist.
sodomy law
enforced against any kind of sex that wasn’t procreative, including anal sex and bestiality.
significant because it was really hard to get these prosecutions unless you were literally 1) caught in the act 2) incriminating yourself or 3) breaking some other law/being a pedo. ends up targeting gay male assaults which creates the stereotype of predatory gay men
mann act
1910, made it a crime to transport women across state lines for immoral purposes (ex; prostitution).
significant because it primarily focused on protecting white women and was used to target black men who were in intimate relationships with white women, ex; jack johnson.
chamberlain-kahn act/american plan
1918, federal law that gives gov’t permission to forcibly quarantine any woman suspected of having a venereal disease. they could be held in detention as well.
significant because it is a campaign to control women’s sexuality — in the South women = chastity, and teens/women who were sexually self-determinant were challenging the gender hierarchy and threatening the women = chastity thing. control women to help men
circumcision
surgery to remove the skin that covers the top of the penis/foreskin.
significant because US medicine promoted male circumcision as a way to reduce disease (penile cancer, UTIs, venereal disease) and is associated with cleanliness. even though it does not necesscarily have health benefits.
victoria woodhull
1870s free love advocate and feminist who believed she had a constitutional right to have sex with people she loved, even outside of marriage. exposes beecher, a renowned preacher, for cheating with the wife of a newspaper editor, she exposes him for his hypocrisy.
significant because she challenged the separate spheres (private, public) of the victorian era and american culture in general.
american medical association
1840s founding, professional group of american physicians, goal is to better public health via advocacy and resources
significant because it reflects the professionalizing of physicians, how they carved out a niche for their profession to set them apart from other doctors, midwives, practicioners. privatizing the medical sphere.
victorian-era vibrator
electric devices that were marketed as cure-alls that could be used by everybody — men, women, old, young — and benefitted everybody
significant because they represent the innovation that happened to get past the comstock law, they’re advertised as health devices and can skirt the regulations. but due to innuendo in advertising it’s clear that they’re sex toys
harry laughlin
1910s, leading american eugenicist who wrote a sterilization law used by states to create their own eugenic sterilization laws
significant because his eugenics laws formed the basis for practices of forced sterilization in the usa, and also restrictions on immigration and segregating the ‘unfit’
U.S. vs. One Package
1936, NY, confirms that physicians have the right to distribute contraceptives to patients for medical purposes
significant because it contributes to the collapse of comstock’s restriction of birth control because it questions the original intentions of comstock — apparently an earlier draft of comstock had a physician exempt clause
american civil liberties union
1920 founding, american nonprofit civil rights organization that provides legal assistance in cases where it considers civil rights at risk
significant because it is involved in landmark cases that shape america’s civil liberties, and helped demolish comstock and establish women’s health laws about birth control etc.
m. sayle taylor
1920s, radio broadcaster of ‘the voice of experience’ who focused on sex advice and authored several books on sexual hygiene
significant because he works to disseminate sexual information to the masses and finds himself in violation of/testing comstock, i’m sure
age of consent laws
victorian era, laws that set a minimum age of consent and vary by state, meant to protect the chastity of unmarried girls/children
significant because it defines where the boundary between child and woman is (legally?) and is meant to prevent prostution but also prevent rape
harriet pilpel
30s, ACLU lawyer who worked with Ernst (NY State v. Birth Control Clinic case) and defended people like Alfred Kinsey. Wrote pamphlets, spoke on tv/radio, wrote pro-birth control books
significant bc she was a key part of the ACLU, was on their board, and her actions were essential in making progress for sexual rights in the USA.
alfred kinsey
1930s, american sexologist who created the kinsey scale which analyzed sexuality as a scale from 0 (strictly hetero) to 6 (strictly homo) and said that sexuality is a slider, not exlusively one thing or another.
significant because he helped spread information about sexuality to the american public and dispute victorian-era beliefs that women don’t/can’t enjoy sex
jack johnson
1910s, black man, world heavyweight boxing champion, had relationships with multiple women
significant because he was charged under the mann act, showing that the act was less of a protection for white women and more a way to prosecute interracial relationships at the height of jim crow
margaret sanger
early 1900s, american nurse who opened the first birth control clinic in the usa and campaigned relentlessly for women’s reproductive rights
significant because her campaigning is likely why women have access to birth control today. her work is contentious because of its eugenics tones and potential racism, she wanted every woman to have access to birth control PERIOD and believed that is what would give women freedom.
roger baldwin
1920s, founder and director of the ACLU and former educator
significant because he expanded the scope of the ACLU to all political leanings rather than strinctly leftist, under his guidance some of the biggest cases (evolution, birth control) were undertook
nudism
practice of going nude in private and public, doing ordinary activities without clothes on
significant because they believed seeing the nude body frequently would take away its stimulation, nude DNE lewd. advocated for the nude body being printed in media, leads to parmelee vs. US where you can depict the naked body for science and education. also difficult to determine what’s entertainment and what’s serious nudity
anthony comstock
1870s, american anti-vice politician who passed the comstock act and other obscenity laws during the victorian era. meant to suppress vice, and loops the federal gov’t in as an enforcer by adding the caveat that nothing obscene can be sent through the mail
significant because his acts were so ridiculously influential on law and society. leads to all kinds of crackdowns and loopholes and fundamentally altered the way that americans thought about sex, obscenity, and predators
griswold v. connecticut
1965, establishes a constitutional right to privacy
significant because it makes laws against birth control unconstitutional. argument that the constitution implies privacy in the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 9th amendments, and since birth control is a private matter between married couples, no laws can attack it
abortion law
laws that vary by state and permit, prohibit, or allow under specific circumstances for an abortion to be performed.
significant because they are so contentious. hotly debated and at the core of women’s reproductive rights debates today.
WWI and venereal disease
during WWI up to 1/3rd of all US servicemen were infected with a venereal disease, this was seen as deeply impacting the army’s success and health
significant because solutions to this problem were to target women, police women in order to protect men. leads to the american plan being instituted, and also the forcible detention of women suspected to have a venereal disease. at this time no cure for them so super serious
eugenics
practice of arranging reproduction in a human population to increase ‘desirable’ characteristics. discredited as unscientific because it was used to justife the persecution of minorities, the disabled, and nonwhites.
significant because it’s tied into the birth control movement, but arguably it still exists today in some capacity (CRISPR, prenatal screenings, etc.)
