Not Quite the Whole Story
by Tom Neven on 01/07/2008 at 9:34 AM
I recently watched a documentary called Not for Ourselves Alone, about the work of pioneer women's rights activists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. This PBS production -- yes, your tax dollars at work -- was directed by Ken Burns, best known for his in-depth documentaries of the Civil War, baseball and jazz.
There's one thing about both Stanton and Anthony you might not have known before watching the program: both women were adamantly pro-life. You wouldn't have known it after watching the program, either, since Burns chose to completely gloss over this aspect of the women's beliefs.
One wonders: Could this documentary have been produced by the same Ken Burns whose research skills led him to discover so many poignant letters and diaries of Civil War soldiers, both famous and obscure? The same man who brought us the history of baseball in soporific detail?
How could he have overlooked only this aspect of his subjects? Well, it wasn't overlooked. In 1999, when the documentary was being made, Serrin Foster of Feminists for Life mailed documentation on Stanton and Anthony's pro-life views to Burns' production company. "We got a letter thanking us for the materials," Foster said, but none of it appeared in the program.
At the time the program was aired on PBS stations around the country, Nat Hentoff, a columnist for The Village Voice and a rare pro-life voice on the liberal Left, asked Burns why this crucial info was left out. Burns replied that "the largest social transformation in American history" should not have been "burdened by present and past differing views on choice."
The two suffragists' thoughts on abortion are not that hard to find. For example, Stanton wrote, "When you consider that women have been treated as property, it is degrading to women that we treat children as property to be disposed of as we see fit."
Anthony wrote in the suffragist publication The Revolution about the "horrible crime of child-murder" wherein a woman "destroys the little being, she thinks, before it lives." In an 1875 speech entitled "Social Purity," Anthony said that men bore some responsibility for this "most monstrous crime," but she stressed that women were equally culpable for terminating the life of their unborn children.
The work of the woman is not to lessen the severity or the certainty of the penalty for the violation of the moral law, but to prevent this violation by the removal of the causes which lead to it.
Burns perhaps could have consulted the book Pro-Life Feminism: Yesterday and Today edited by Mary Krane Derr, who found essay after essay by early feminists denouncing the violence of abortion. Derr writes:
According to the early feminists, abortion resulted from the denial of the pregnant woman's humanity as much as from a denial of the unborn child's. Women felt pressured into aborting because they were deprived of truly life-affirming sexual and reproductive options. This is still very much the case. If we don't want unborn children to be treated as insensate clumps of tissue, we must first of all ensure that their mothers are not treated as insensate clumps of tissue.
The feminist movement in fact did not embrace abortion as a cause until the late 1960s as part of the sexual revolution. But not all feminists have abandoned the ideals of their movement's founders. In addition to women like Foster at Feminists for Life, there are others like feminist author Sidney Callahan, who says,
Feminism began with an analysis of the abuse of power and the impulse to fight inequality. My going on to take a pro-life position was a natural extension of feminism, just making it deeper.
I'm not really surprised to see a politically correct version of feminist history produced by PBS. While the network broadcasts a lot of very good programs, there are certain points of view you will never see on its stations. The next time they hold one of their regular beg-a-thons and protest waaay too much how they provide programming for everyone, just remember back to how they censored an important part of women's history.
1. rosabacio said the following at 11:46 AM on Jan 7:
I'm a regular PBS viewer and I never expect conservative view in any of their programming. Kind of sad...other than Great Performances, Masterpiece Theatre, and Live from Lincoln Center the pickings are few. But you are right, we should protest during their beg-o-thon. My guess is those who are supporting PBS are more liberal in their ideology which is why the programming reflects that.
2. Esther said the following at 12:02 PM on Jan 7:
This is a topic close to my heart. (Especially being a female, and a Historian.) The early feminists would be rolling in their graves if they knew how twisted feminism has become. True Feminism = Pro-life.
On my journal I posted highlights from the chapter entitled "The Limitation of Offspring" in the 1876 book "The Relations of the Sexes" by early feminist Eliza Bisbee Duffey. (here)
I have too much to say about this topic just to leave it in a comment, but I will leave you all with a quote:
"When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit."
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
3. P&P said the following at 2:25 PM on Jan 7:
Part of what's missing is that the early feminists were also speaking of their own respective socioeconomic class. As the feminist movement grew and matured, it became evident that reproductive choice (both abortion and birth control) was not only a health issue, but an economic one as well.
Yes, you can pull out the old "Margaret Sanger was a eugenicist" card, however she also saw that poor immigrant women suffered mightily from physically bearing far too many children (not to mention dying in child birth), and also hindered them from growing economically, as they had too many mouths to feed and not enough money for food.
Like it or not abortion has been around prior to biblical times. Even if you outlaw it, it will continue to exist in the "private clinics" for the very rich or the back alleys for the very poor.
4. kendra said the following at 2:50 PM on Jan 7:
I think the lack of inclusion has less to do with political correctness and more to do with artistic direction. The abortion quesion / issue is so polarizing that it likely would have overshadowed the thesis of the documentary.
In my professional writings and filming, I often choose to leave polarizing issues by the wayside; choosing, instead, to focus on my final vision. I think Ken's choice is more about the "bigger picture" than some grand conspiracy to parlay his own politics.
5. Melissa said the following at 4:20 PM on Jan 7:
So Burns copped out and chose to eliminate an important part of the philosophies that were relevant to the vision of some of the original proponents of feminism.
He obviously wasn't as interested in producing a film that objectively explored history, as he was in producing a palatable film for today's average viewer.
It could be misleading to the average viewer. They will probably think they're getting "the whole story" in lots of detail, since that's what Ken Burns is known for.
It's not a question of politics. If it's a film reporting "in depth", it should do so. If it's not palatable for some to realize that the original feminists were pro-life, that's not a question of politics. It's more like choosing to only hear/believe what you want to, regardless of what actually happened.
6. Gene said the following at 5:19 PM on Jan 7:
Like it or not abortion has been around prior to biblical times.
So has murder, ipso facto, we shouldn't concern ourselves with it.
7. Paul said the following at 11:08 PM on Jan 7:
P&P, rape, murder, theft have also been going on since biblical times, but it doesn't mean that it should be legal and that we should have "rape clinics" or "theft rooms" where these illicit actions could be done with impunity.
It's time to get off that fence and see the gravity of the situation.
8. Michaela said the following at 11:17 PM on Jan 7:
Although I agree that it's interesting how much feminism has changed in the past century, I do agree that putting issues of abortion in the documentary would have overshadowed Burns' main point. I am currently working on a documentary and it's hard to decide what to include and what to leave out. A lot of good information in left out because it detracts from or overshadows the thesis or doesn't fit into the show. However, it is curious that he didn't even mention their views on abortion in passing.
9. gypsy said the following at 8:11 AM on Jan 8:
Another reason why it is important to teach yourself and your children history, instead of letting the 'powers that be' or the cultural current take you where it may.
10. Jen said the following at 12:59 PM on Jan 8:
What makes anyone here think that a nonbeliever should have any reason to subscribe to Christian beliefs? You can't expect the world's creations to reflect Christ, and it's a waste of time to bash them; instead we ought to pray, and put Christ first in our own lives.
11. Tom Neven said the following at 1:59 PM on Jan 8:
Jen
You don't have to be a Christian to (a) be pro-life (see Nat Hentoff, an atheist) or (b) be an honest journalist. Burns had no excuse for leaving out this material, and any honest, unbiased journalist would salivate at the prospect of reporting something that is otherwise not very well known.
He left this out, even after it was brought to his attention, for reasons of political correctness. Even his resort to the lame word "choice" in his response to Hentoff reflects this.