It's not often that an author's foreword already makes me raise my eyebrows, which is exactly what happened here, and it made me a little concerned about the book before I even truly began. Here, let me share the things that made me say, "hold on... what the fuck?" before the story even started. The author starts with a broad-strokes introduction to the history of Laurelton State Village for Feeble-minded Women of Childbearing Age, an institution where women who were deemed "mentally or morally defective" (that is, anything from being a lesbian or a prostitute to simply a woman who wasn't obedient to her husband) were imprisoned so that they couldn't bring more children with similar "defects" into the world. Lovely. She then continues:
"At the helm of this profitable public institution was a fascinating superintendent named Dr. Mary Wolfe. Dr. Wolfe had earned a medical degree when few women went to college. She was one of our nation's first female psychiatrists, an outspoken leader of the women's suffrage movement of the 1910s, and a brilliant public speaker. She was an early feminist, a crusader for women's civil rights, and an advocate for the health and welfare of women. At first glance, it was easy for me to see why my grandmother would want to work for such an intelligent, modern-thinking woman."
I'm sorry??? You just said all that about the institution and yet you think the woman who literally founded it was in any way an advocate for women's health? I know that "women's rights" back then were not exactly the same as we would define them today, but still... this is a pretty big leap... and then on the next page she quotes another passage "written by another celebrated feminist, a champion of women's reproductive rights, and also, like many other progressives of her era, an avid eugenicist". At this point I was utterly confused. Segregating women so they could literally not have children on the off chance that they would turn out "defective" is literally the opposite of championing women's reproductive rights. At least the blurb of the book mentioned something about the institution's dark secrets coming to light, so I didn't think the author was actually suggesting that these ideas were good or the women who espoused them worthy of praise. But the way all of it was worded... I went into the book with more apprehension than excitement after this foreword.