MIAMI UNIVERSITY the Graduate School Certificate for Approving the Dissertation
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MIAMI UNIVERSITY The Graduate School Certificate for Approving the Dissertation We hereby approve the Dissertation of Jennifer Cellio Candidate for the Degree: Doctor of Philosophy _____________________________________ Director Dr. Cynthia Lewiecki-Wilson _____________________________________ Reader Dr. Katharine Ronald _____________________________________ Reader Dr. Morris Young _____________________________________ Graduate School Representative Dr. Mary McDonald ABSTRACT ‘MORE CHILDREN FROM THE FIT, LESS FROM THE UNFIT’: DISCOURSES OF HEREDITARY ‘FITNESS’ AND REPRODUCTIVE RHETORICS, POST DARWIN TO THE 21ST CENTURY by Jennifer Cellio This project examines discourses of hereditary “fitness” and their variations at three moments when they seep into public and political circulation: the rhetorics of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century eugenics, of the twentieth-century birth control movement, and of late-twentieth-century assisted reproductive technologies. More specifically, it studies the construction of the label “the Unfit”—a phrase present throughout scientific and eugenic literature of the early-twentieth century. Informed by the concept of “survival of the fittest” as popularized by Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer, hereditary “fitness” has been redeployed in scientific and public discussions of reproduction for sexist, racist, ableist, classist, and heteronormative ends. While the ability to produce offspring has always been intertwined with the notion of “survival of the fittest,” the misuse of these discourses, under the guise of science, results in discriminatory practices largely directed at women. By tracing its circulation at specific historical points, I reveal the social constructedness of hereditary “fitness” and complicate current beliefs about what it means to be “fit” for reproduction and/or parenthood. To establish the construction of hereditary “fitness” as a instrument of the eugenics movement, I examine several rhetorical formations within the discourses of science and eugenics—including definition, special topoi, kairos and audience, and figures of thought—to make visible the specific work each performs. In each chapter, I emphasize the ways these rhetorical formations participate in the production of women as fit objects and subjects for reproduction. Theoretical discussions of the power of language to shape, construct, and produce often stop short of showing the processes by and through which language works on a subject or object. Similarly, definitions of rhetorical elements can be abstract, often accompanied only by decontextualized quotes and excerpts for illustration. Here, I perform a deliberate, measured study of these rhetorical elements in an effort to lay bare the persuasive action of the elements themselves as well as their effects upon us. ‘MORE CHILDREN FROM THE FIT, LESS FROM THE UNFIT’: DISCOURSES OF HEREDITARY ‘FITNESS’ AND REPRODUCTIVE RHETORICS, POST DARWIN TO THE 21ST CENTURY A DISSERTATION Submitted to the Faculty of Miami University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English by Jennifer Cellio Miami University Oxford, Ohio 2008 Director: Dr. Cynthia Lewiecki-Wilson © Jennifer Cellio 2008 TABLE OF CONTENTS Dedication iv Acknowledgements v Chapter One 1 Constructions of “Fitness,” Rhetorics of Reproduction, and the Power of a Word Chapter Two 31 Defining “The Unfit,” Reifying “Fittest,” A Discursive Paradigm Shift in Theories of Human Inheritance Chapter Three 66 The ‘Female Moron’ and Her ‘Hyperfecundity’: Special Topoi of Eugenic Sterilization Chapter Four 105 Responding to Risk: Birth Control, Eugenics, and the Role of Kairos Chapter Five 130 ‘Healthy, Accomplished, and Attractive’: Visual Representations of ‘Fitness’ in Egg Donors Afterword 157 Unfit is Unfit is Unfit: Eugenics by Any Other Name? Works Cited and Consulted 166 iii DEDICATION For Russell Miller: without you I truly would not have survived the work of this degree. I am deeply grateful for your constant support and encouragement. And for Janet and James Cellio: with all due respect for nature, it was your nurture that shaped me into who I am and made this life possible. Thank you. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thank you first to the two people who helped me most with this project: my Director, Cindy Lewiecki-Wilson, and my second reader, Kate Ronald. Though you have both taught me a great deal about rhetoric and writing and research, you yourselves have also given me two ideal examples of what it is to be an exemplary mentor. Thank you, Cindy, for your guidance, your invaluable insights, your generosity with your time, and your excellent advice. Your ability to see potential in my project always inspired me to work harder—even when I didn’t think I could. And Kate, I truly appreciate your careful reading and your willingness to sit down and untangle an idea with me. Working with you both has been a tremendous honor as well as one of the great pleasures of my years at Miami. Heartfelt thanks also to Morris Young and Mary McDonald, the other members of my committee. Your useful and insightful feedback pushed me to rethink my ideas on many occasions and my work is certainly richer for your input. Many others at Miami deserve thanks and credit. To Mary Jean Corbett, the primary reason I decided to pursue post-graduate studies at all. Had you not invited me to be your undergraduate associate I might never have realized my love for teaching and for English. To Shevaun Watson and Connie Kendall: thank you both not only for your savvy advice and support but for your camaraderie. Thank you to Lisa Shaver, Liz Mackay, Cristy Beemer, and Sarah Bowles for your friendship and for reminding me, as each of you finished, that this goal was within my reach. Being “in school” with you always felt less like work and more like fun. I am exceptionally grateful for the companionship and support of Susan Pelle; Susan, your combination of intelligence, optimism, graciousness, and passion for your work constantly inspired me. I simply cannot imagine a better writing partner and friend. No less essential to my ability to complete this degree is Katie Young—my oldest and greatest friend—who has cheered me on through many, many, many years of school. Thank you, Kate. I owe an enormous thanks to my parents, Jan and Jim Cellio, whose love, faith in me, and encouragement sustained me each and every day. I could not have done it without you. Finally, thank you to Russell Miller. You have given me the greatest gift of all in your unconditional support. At every step of the way—through classes, exams, and, finally, writing this dissertation—you buoyed my confidence, insisted I could finish, picked up my slack, and never once pressured me to sacrifice quality for completion. I can’t ever thank you enough. v Chapter One Constructions of “Fitness,” Rhetorics of Reproduction, and the Power of a Word It is precisely because of the large overlap between forms of scientific thought and forms of social thought that ‘keywords’…can serve not simply as indicators of either social meaning and social change or scientific meaning and scientific change but as indicators of the ongoing traffic between social and scientific meaning and, accordingly, between social and scientific change. —Evelyn Fox Keller and Elisabeth Lloyd, Keywords in Evolutionary Biology. The idea of a value-free science presupposes that the object of inquiry is given in and by nature, whereas the contextual analysis shows that such objects are constituted in part by social needs and interests that become encoded in the assumptions of research programs. —Helen E. Longino, Science as Social Knowledge. Meaning emerges not from objective, disinterested, empirical investigation, but from individuals engaging in rhetorical discourse in discourse communities—groups organized around the discussion of particular matters in particular ways. Knowledge, then, is a matter of mutual agreement appearing as a product of the rhetorical activity, the discussion, of a given discourse community. —James Berlin Rhetoric and Reality. At its most elemental, this dissertation is about a single word—“unfit”—and the consequences that accompany its use, especially when it is deployed in discourses related to eugenics, heredity, and reproduction. Arguably, this single word—the many permutations of which emerge in a broad range of contexts and for diverse purposes, but are almost always derogatory—has served as argument and proof for some of the most appalling human rights violations of the past century: draconian immigration restrictions, involuntary sterilization, the Holocaust, “ethnic cleansing.” Constructed and popularized during the British and American eugenics movements, a period extending roughly from 1850-1930, the word “unfit” came to stand in for individuals and groups who existed outside the norm, who were viewed as raced, classed, gendered, or disabled in ways that marked them as “abnormal” or “inappropriate,” in a cultural and national hegemony that rested on upper-class, Anglo, patriarchal values.1 In fact, during much of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century, the noun form (“the unfit”) “evoked an image of physically and morally weak people associated with society’s failures” (Carlson 9). The scientific culture of the period I examine (the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth 1 Though philosophies of selective citizenship and reproduction have been in place since the beginnings of Western civilization, my discussion of “The Eugenics