Interesting non-fiction

I recently finished WakeUp Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race Before Roe v. Wade by RickieSolinger and Elaine Tyler May. Ms Solinger was a keynote speaker at my annual adoption conference. She was so interesting, I had to get this book and read it. I forget how engrossing non-fiction can be. And, this subject is particularly apropos in light of the most recent Supreme Court ruling regarding employer insurance and contraceptives. I also found it interesting because my birth mother was single and pregnant during the time that is studied in this book. When I read how punitive society was to unwed mothers, I can understand why she represented herself as being married when it was time to deliver my sister and me.

The book details the differences in treatment by society, by agencies, by healthcare professionals based on the race (white or black) of the mother. Chapter after chapter I found myself shaking my head. In the end she posits that control of female fertility and reproduction as evidenced in the law and social convention serve a social agenda. In the period 1945 – 1965, that agenda was trying to shore up a fraying concept of the family unit as a white, married male and female and the “legitimate” children of that union. The household was to be headed by the male, of course.
So, what do you suppose the agenda is now?