S05.E04: Sex

[formerlyfreedom]

Quote

A salute to Margaret Sanger's crusade for accessible birth control; the creation of the Kinsey scale; Gloria Steinem's undercover work at The Playboy Club.

Retellings by: Alison Rich on the birth of birth control; Gabe Liedman on The Kinseys; and Katie Nolan on Gloria Steinem

Starring: Amber Tamblyn as Margaret Sanger; Jason Mantzoukas as Gregory Pincus; Hillary Anne Matthews as Katherine McCormick; Josh Charles as Alfred Kinsey; Jillian Bell as Clara Kinsey; Jane Krakowski as Sheralee; Abbi Jacobson as Gloria Steinem

[justjen]

Was this one kind of boring? And what was up with Derek crying...like what lead up to it.

I enjoy Alison Rich.

[attica]

Aww, I feel like I have to defend Margaret Sanger. She wasn't a eugenicist, you guys! She just took funding from them. Which, okay, looks bad, but it's not like anybody else was lining up to give her the dough she needed (aside from the lady with the International Harvester cash, as noted). Sanger took the view that, although the eugenics peeps wanted birth control to, you know, purify the populace, they had a mutual interest in developing the pill.  She knew that once ladies could control reproduction, the eugenics crowd would be drowned outta the convo. Which is what happened.  Here's my source for the info, and a very interesting read it is. (Also, her niece, Olive Byrne, was one of the inspirations for Wonder Woman. Fun fact!) 

[ganesh]

I thought the first narrator toed the line of sloppy, but I think she gave just enough for the actors to work with to make it watchable. The Kinsey skit killed me just because of the whole "you like doing dudes, I like doing dudes, we should do dudes," with the two guys throwing the blanket over themselves, and then the chalkboard with the 3 --> YOU sight gag.

I don't mean any offense to the final narrator, but I kept thinking that Abbi would have been a better narrator for Abbi. Great casting for the bunny mother though. 

I wouldn't say the show was boring. These were good stories, but they just didn't pop as much. 

[kicotan]

On 2/15/2018 at 10:11 AM, attica said:

Aww, I feel like I have to defend Margaret Sanger. She wasn't a eugenicist, you guys! She just took funding from them. Which, okay, looks bad, but it's not like anybody else was lining up to give her the dough she needed (aside from the lady with the International Harvester cash, as noted). Sanger took the view that, although the eugenics peeps wanted birth control to, you know, purify the populace, they had a mutual interest in developing the pill.  She knew that once ladies could control reproduction, the eugenics crowd would be drowned outta the convo. Which is what happened.  Here's my source for the info, and a very interesting read it is. (Also, her niece, Olive Byrne, was one of the inspirations for Wonder Woman. Fun fact!) 

If eugenics is described as the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics, then yes she was a eugenicist.  She might not have been a racist, but she definitely believed in eugenics.

[attica]

40 minutes ago, kicotan said:

If eugenics is described as the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics,

She desired to permit women to 'control breeding' for no other outcome than the breeding women's happiness.

[kicotan]

27 minutes ago, attica said:

She desired to permit women to 'control breeding' for no other outcome than the breeding women's happiness.

 I disagree.  She didn't mention a breeding woman's "happiness" when she wrote this:

"...We do not know that mentally r******* parents will have mentally r******* children. But we do know that mentally r******* parents cannot bring up their children in the way that will produce valuable citizens, not without a great deal more help than is often available. We do know that when a couple have produced several blind children, or several deformed children, or several mentally deficient children, they should not in the interest of themselves and in the interest of society produce any more.

It is time that we as communities with a sense of responsibility for our citizens, which means ourselves, should do something about a situation. The answer to much of the problem is a program of sterilization..."

-Margaret Sanger, "Sterilization: A Modern Medical Program for Human Health and Welfare," 5 Jun 1951.

https://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/webedition/app/documents/show.php?sangerDoc=239501.xml

[peeayebee]

I really enjoyed Alison Rich. She just seemed like a fun, cool person.

[mledawn]

I'm a fan of Katie Nolan, so I was looking forward to this episode. I loved her ep, but I wish we had more of a lead-in about why Derek was welling up.

Katie definitely puts up with a lot of shit doing what she does, so Gloria Steinem was a perfect story for her. She is funny but also can be serious. This is one of my favourite rants of hers.

[Scott]

Pet peeve/nitpick of the week, in the Kinsey story: It's not the "University of Indiana", it's "Indiana University".  

[Rinaldo]

Hear hear, @Scott. Although I can forgive the gaffe in a drunk narration more easily than I can in published books by eminent authors who use the introduction to thank the institution that provided the lecture series or whatever that led to the book, and get the name of that institution wrong EVERY TIME. Are there no fact checkers at major publishers any more? (Silly me, of course there aren't.)

There is no "University of Indiana" anywhere. It's Indiana University.