ABSTRACT
In France, a government ministry on the status of women has been established to combat the unjustified inequalities, and it has been decided to classify sexism and racism as a single entity. This idea derives directly from the feminism of the 1960s. As the struggles of these three women indicate—Clemence Royer in France, Alice Lee in Britain, Margaret Sanger in the United States— feminism has not aimed solely to minimize the existence of sex differences, and still less to make woman into a near–man. Among the female figures fascinated by science and feminism, one of the most remarkable is the Frenchwoman Clemence Royer. As the proponent of a biologizing vision of life and society, Clemence Royer very clearly articulates what her feminism represents from that perspective: a power over life by means of maternity. Margaret Sanger, a heroine of the movement for woman’s liberation, was also an inspirational symbol to eugenicist groups.
