Katie & Kayleigh's Discussion Leader Questions

The next three pieces were written by Anne Sexton. They show how familiar and comfortable she was writing about  "familial dysfunction, female sexuality, the complexities of motherhood, and the erotics of suicide." 

• "The Abortion"

1. How does the line "Somebody who should have been born is gone" translate in the poem?
2. Why do you think Anne Sexton compared the pain of loosing a child to the ""dark socket" of the earth? What do you think the purpose of using the environment to explain her pain was?

• "In Celebration of My Uterus"

1.  What does the "celebration of the uterus" does for the image of a women? Do you think this goes against the idea of "penis envy"?
2. The line "it is good this year that we may plan again and think forward to a harvest. A blight had been forecast and has been cast out" looks at women as a crop, or a form of reproduction. Is this a positive or negative image of women?

• "For My Lover, Returning to His Wife"

1. What type of self image does the narrator hold in this piece? 
2. This poem focuses on what the wife did to her husband. Why do you think Sexton focuses on her faults, more so  than focusing on what the husband overcame by forgiving his cheating wife? What does this say for women?

The next piece was written by Margaret Sanger. She was an advocate for using birth control as a means of protection for women in the early 1900's. She helped to open the first birth control clinic in 1916.

• My Fight for Birth Control

1. The dates on this piece are amazing  to think about. For almost 100 years, the issue of using birth control has been controversial among many. Despite it, how does the ability to use it help women gain a voice throughout history?
2. Being able to produce offspring is something women often dream of doing. It is their true role as a women in nature. Why would women  want a "few simple means of limiting the family like coitus interruptus or the condom"? How did these acts of control give them power over men?