Monthly Archives: March 2021

CW: This article discusses issues of sexual abuse, violence.

When activist group Justice Now distributed surveys about a bill banning forced sterilization to inmates in the Central California Womens Facility, they received an overwhelming response. Women recalled being kept in the dark about their medical status and lied to about having ovarian cancer or other severe diseases. They were forced to sign surgical consent forms that they were not given sufficient time to read and recounted the negative health effects of sterilization procedures they did not know they had undergone. In the midst of these recounted experiences, there was enormous support for legislation that would finally give women recourse for the abuses committed against them.

Director Erika Cohns revealing documentary Belly of the Beast, shown at this years Athena Film Festival, exposes Californias complicity in what Cohn essentially amounted to a modern-day eugenics program in California, as well as the legal and bureaucratic barriers obfuscating those abuses from the public. Shot over the course of seven years, the documentary follows Justice Now and Kelli Dillon, a former inmate at the Central California Womens Facility, as they attempt to uncover the extent of the sterilizations and win reparations for the victims.

It goes even deeper than we whove been working on this for a decade now, Justice Now Communications Director Courtney Hooks said.

After Dillon awoke from what should have been a routine gynecological examination, she immediately felt something was wrong. Over the next nine months, her period stopped. She lost over 100 pounds. Her concerns over her health were dismissed by the doctor at the prison, who told her that she should be glad to have lost weight.

Disturbed, Dillon wrote a letter to Justice Now, an activist organization co-founded by human rights lawyer Cynthia Chandler that investigates the extensive medical abuses in the California prison system. Chandlers investigation uncovered a terrifying revelation: Dillon had been forcefully and secretly sterilized against her will. Before the operation, Dillon had only given permission for a hysterectomy in the case that cancer cells were found in her ovaries. But the symptoms Dillon had experienced all corresponded to surgical menopause, a medical procedure she had not approved.

I feel like I was robbed of the fullness that could have been given to me had this not happened, Dillon said in the film.

Dillon soon discovered, however, that she was not alone. After speaking to more women in the prison, she was alarmed by numerous stories frighteningly similar to hers: pap smears given at medical center visits for unrelated health problems, a sudden increase in womens reproductive problems, and reports of surgeriesjust like the one Dillon receivedafter abnormal cells were supposedly found in the womens bodies.

Her case, she realized, was part of a greater trend of sterilization in Californias prisons. She began carrying around a briefcase filled with forms to help affected prisoners contact Justice Now, helping provide crucial information to Collins team of investigators on the outside.

Finding justice and transparency in the United States legal system, however, has been difficult. The team hit barrier after barrier starting from the very beginnings of their legal actions in 2006 when Dillon became the first inmate to sue the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for damages. Because forced sterilization was explicitly illegal under federal law, Dillons lawyers believed her case should be a transparently open-and-shut victory. Despite this, the majority-white jury believed the prison doctors version of events, eventually dismissing the case on the basis that its statute of limitations had expired. The loss was devastating for Dillon.

I was looking at these documents that [were] confirming that as a Black woman, my life wasnt shit, Dillon said as she recounted the trial. It didnt mean anything. It had no purpose.

Further investigation into the sterilization of prisoners became even more difficult by the prison systems culture of silence and control. The lopsided power dynamics of the prison meant women were entirely subjected to state control with little opportunity for recourse. This environment made it difficult for women to give informed consent legally required for hysterectomies and other sterilization procedures. It was also difficult for women to find recourse as figures who spoke up faced retaliation through additional years added to their sentences.

Regardless, the team at Justice Now, with the help of investigative reporter Corey Johnson and an anonymous whistleblower within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, pieced together the facts related to the abuses occurring behind bars. Tubal ligation, a procedure that results in sterilization, was reclassified as a medical necessity that could be financially reimbursed by the state. Over half of pregnant women were forced to undergo Caesarian sections for security purposes, a procedure that allowed doctors to easily sterilize women through tubal ligation. The publication of these facts in an expose by Johnson triggered public controversy and the introduction of a bill banning forced sterilization in California prisons.

Potentially the most chilling part of the documentary is the point at which it touches on the underlying rationale of the procedures. The film features the case of OB-GYN doctor James Heinrich, who made numerous judgment calls for women to be sterilized. In a particularly revealing moment, Johnson recalls confronting Heinrich with information that the state had, at his behest, spent over $100,000 in taxpayer money on a supposedly banned procedure. The doctors response was blunt:

Thats cheaper than welfare, he said.

Here, Cohn situated the film within the historical context of the United States extensive propagation of eugenics. Heinrichs attitude, as University of Pennsylvania Law professor Dorothy Roberts notes, mirrors the rationale of the leaders of Californias eugenics movement who justified sterilizing disabled and minority women with the rhetoric of cost efficiency and taxpayer savings. At the peak of the United States eugenics movement in the early 20th century, California led all other states in sterilization; German scientists even came to study Californias program as a model for the Nazis later eugenics system. After eugenics itself became taboo after the defeat of the Axis powers in World War II, population control policies continued to target women of color.

Heinrich was part of a legacy, Roberts said. If you just stop and make him the face of it, do you really get at the problem?

Indeed, the problem extends well beyond Heinrich. A state document leaked by the whistleblowersigned by the Federal Receiver appointed to enforce federal laws governing the ethical medical treatment of prisonersechoes Heinrichs justification for sterilizing women during labor and delivery: cost-efficiency.

The film focuses on the root cause of the problem: state policy that continues to dehumanize Black and Latina women, targeting them as criminals who must be stopped from reproducing for the good of society. It recognizes that Justice Nows advocacy is a small microcosm of a systemic problem across the nation. A title card at the end of the film notes that the true extent of sterilization programs across the country remains unknown.

Ultimately, through Dillon and Collins work with Justice Now, the bill banning the forced sterilization of prisoners was passed into law. Despite this victory, however, the film refuses to offer neat resolutions. Justice Now is still working on uncovering information on sterilization programs in other states, and even today, Collins and Dillon still fight for justice for the victims of sterilization who have still not received reparations from the state.

We have yet to get an apology. We have yet to be acknowledged. We have to crack this thing wide open. CDC has to be made accountable, Dillon said. This is just the beginning.

Staff Writer Julia Tong can be contacted at julia.tong@columbiaspectator.com.

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Excerpt from:

'Belly of the Beast' exposes forced sterilization in the U.S. justice system - CU Columbia Spectator

One of the most challenging items on President BidenJoe BidenThe Hill's Morning Report - Biden officials brace for worst despite vaccine data Congress looks to rein in Biden's war powers Democrats seize on voting rights; GOP cries foul MOREs policy agenda is comprehensiveimmigration reform. Debate on any bill will be overshadowed by the current surge in migrants to the southern border, the latest uptick in a secular trend that began in the 1980s. But looking back even further, the questions of who deserves admission to America and in what numbers were also on the agenda of a new administration 100 years ago.

Since we are confronted with the clamor of multitudes who desire the opportunity offered by American life, wrote Calvin Coolidge in February 1921, we must face the situation unflinchingly, determined to relinquish not one iota of our obligations to others, yet not sosentimental as to overlook our obligations to ourselves.

Coolidges immigration essay, Whose Country Is This, was published in, of all places, Good Housekeepingshortly before his inauguration as vice president. On the surface, his sentiments were not terribly different from those many might express today. But immigration legislation President Warren Harding would shortly sign set America on a course very different from paths being considered in 2021.

The 1920 Republican Party platform had declared that The immigration policy of the U. S. should be such as to insure that the number of foreigners in the country at any one

time shall not exceed that which can be assimilated with reasonable rapidity, and to favor immigrants whose standards are similar to ours. But such bland language belied the anti-immigrant fervor that was gripping the nation.

Between 1900 and 1915, more than 15 million immigrants landed in the U.S. That number was equal to the total who had arrived in the 40 years 1860-1900. The majority after 1900 came from non-English speaking European countries, including Italy, Poland and Russia. Italian arrivals numbered three million, and two million of the East Europeans who landed were Jews. These were not viewed as people whose standards are similar to ours.

By 1920, nearly 14 million Americans, 13.2 percent of the population, were foreign born. While a slightly lower percentage than in 1900, the gross number had increased by 3.5 million, or 33 percent, in just two decades. And after a migration hiatus during World War I, arrivals in 1921 were soaring. Exclusionists feared a return to pre-war numbers, when it was not uncommon to see over a million come ashore each year.

Moves toward immigration restriction had begun in Theodore Roosevelts administration. Concerned with the broad impact of immigration on both American culture and prevailing wages, Roosevelt signed the Immigration Act of 1907, the first federal statute to restrict new arrivals based on health or moral character. The Act created the Dillingham Commission, whose exhaustive report in 1911 recommended arrivals pass a literacy test and originated the idea of entry quotas based on national origin.

In his 2019 study The Guarded Gate, Daniel Okrent has documented the anti-immigrant pseudoscience of eugenics that had been gaining credibility since the turn of the century. Our obligations to others notwithstanding, Calvin Coolidges 1921 Good Housekeeping column went on to argue that biological laws tell us that certain divergent people will not mix or blend in America. The eugenicists provided data alleging to prove those biological laws.

On May 19, 1921, Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act of 1921. Theforce behind the legislation was Washington state Rep. Albert Johnson, Republican chair of the House Immigration and Nationalization Committee. The committees Expert Eugenics Agent, was Harry Laughlin, a former school principal, superintendent of the notorious Eugenics Record Office and a national advocate for compulsory sterilization laws.

But even among those for whom blatant racial arguments held little appeal, there was bipartisan support for restriction across the political spectrum. With the economy slipping into a sharp postwar depression, the Senate vote for the Act was an overwhelming 78-1, with 17 abstentions, and the measure passed the House by acclamation. Harding signed it the same day.

The bill mandated that no more than 3 percent of the total number of immigrants from any specific country already living in the United States in 1910 could now migrate to America in the year ending June 30, 1922. The math effectively capped total immigration to America at fewer than 400,000 for 1922, compared with 800,000 in 1921. But arrivals from eastern and southern Europe would feel the brunt of the impact: Italian immigration in 1922 would be limited to 40,000, compared with 220,000 in 1921.

The Emergency Act of 1921 would be one-upped by the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924, signed by Coolidge as president. That legislation enacted an even more severe formula, capping a nations immigration quota at 2 percent of its U.S. population in 1890 (and formally excluded all immigration from Asia). For Italians, the 40,000 cap from the 1921 Act would be further reduced to 4,000.

The long-term impact of the 1921 and 1924 legislation could be seen half a century later. By 1970, the foreign-born population had plunged to 9.6 million, from 13.9 million in 1920. The percentage of the population that was foreign born dropped to an all-time low of 4.7 percent, down from 13.2 percent in 1920. It took until 1965 for legislation to pass reversing that trend. Today, the incidence of foreign-born residents is again approaching 14 percent.

In 2021, America is open to those divergent people who so troubled Calvin Coolidge and his contemporaries. And the case for immigrants to augment the countrys labor force and national wealth is stronger than ever. But in the long term, any comprehensive legislation still must confront the thorny issues of exactly what kind of documented immigrants America wants, and in what numbers they should arrive.

The system today offers preference to applicants who are members of families already resident in the U.S. But there is strong support for a merit-based system, used in Canada and Australia, that awards application points based on education, employment history and language ability. While not based on race or ethnicity, these criteria would represent a contemporary answer to the call in 1920 to favor immigrants whose standards are similar to ours.

Americans agree in principle with the Coolidge maxim that the nation should relinquish not one iota of our obligations to others. But balancing those responsibilities with our obligations to ourselves will remain a complex policy challenge.

Paul C. Atkinson, a former executive at The Wall Street Journal, is a contributing editor of the New York Sun.

Read more:

What Joe Biden can learn from Calvin Coolidge on immigration | TheHill - The Hill

When Kelli Dillonwas a 24-year-old inmate at a California womensprisonin 2008, shebegan to experience abdominal pain. A doctor at thecorrectional facilitytold her he suspected cancer and that he needed to perform exploratory surgery. He found no cancer, butsterilized her withoutherconsentor knowledge.

Dillonsstoryis the focus of a new documentary aboutthe unconscionable practice of coerced sterilization of womenmostly Black and Latinain Californias prisonsand the history of eugenics in the United States.

Belly of the Beastwill bepresented online at 6 p.m. this Monday,March29by theWomen and Girls Fund of The Community Foundation, GermannaCommunity College and theUMWWomen and GenderStudy Program.

Believing in eugenics, California state legislators passed a law in 1909 authorizing involuntary sterilization. By the time the program ended 70 years later, Californiahadsterilized 20,000 peoplemostly women and girlsinstate institutions whowerelooselyclassified as having disabilities or deemed unfit for reproduction.

#BellyoftheBeast does not reach for happy endings and is most absorbing in its thesis, which makes the stakes of this battle against human rights violations loud and clear. NYT review

REGISTER: cfrrr.org/belly-of-the-beast/

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Germanna, UMW, Community Foundation host virtual documentary "Belly of the Beast" tonight - Fredericksburg Today

The University of Maine System now has a policy for renaming campus facilities six months after it changed the name of a UMaine building named for a former eugenicist.

When the university systems trustees voted to rename Clarence Cook Little Hall in September 2020, the systems policy for naming facilities was silent on removing names from facilities or renaming buildings. The trustees on Monday approved a new policy that addresses changing or removing facility names.

Under the new policy, the Board of Trustees has the right to remove a building name under extraordinary circumstances when the continued use of the honorees name would compromise the public trust and reflect adversely upon the university and/or University of Maine System and its reputation.

It sets up a process for renaming a facility. And it requires that any agreement to name a facility as part of a campus donation include a morals clause, which protects the universities from financial consequences for changing a name when it brings discredit upon the university.

Last year, UMaine sought approval to rename the building named after Clarence Cook Little in 1966. Little was a former UMaine president from 1922 to 1925. He brought more funding to UMaine than any previous president and went on to start The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor in 1929. But later in his career, he served as a scientific voice for the tobacco industry at a time when it denied the link between smoking and cancer. He was also a president of the American Eugenics Society.

Eugenics was a movement aimed at improving the genetic quality of the human population, historically by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior and promoting those judged to be superior. The term is now associated with white supremacy and racism.

The process any campus must now follow to recommend a name removal resembles the one UMaine developed to recommend changing the name of Little Hall. A task force must present grounds for removal in a written report after seeking input from a diverse group of stakeholders. The university system chancellor and the presidents council would then review the request and decide whether to refer it to the Board of Trustees for a final vote on the name change.

UMaine President Joan Ferrini-Mundy convened a task force in March 2020 to consider renaming Little Hall in response to a student petition. That task force recommended last June that the building instead be named after a person of Wabanaki descent, a historically significant Black person or woman.

See more here:

Maine universities now have a way to rename campus buildings - Bangor Daily News

A high BMI is one of the underlying health conditions that can now qualify you for a vaccine in the DMV - but what does that number really mean?

WASHINGTON A high BMI, or body mass index, is one of the underlying health conditions that can qualify you for a vaccine in D.C., Virginia, and now in Maryland. With about 40% of U.S. adults considered obese, how exactly do we use BMI measurements and obesity as a health indicator when it comes to COVID-19?

The Q&A Team at WUSA9 went to two local experts to find out everything you might not know about BMI.

QUESTION: Is BMI a true measure of health?

ANSWER: Turns out, the BMI measurement a simple calculation based on weight and height leaves a lot to be desired.

BMI is a little better than looking at just weight alone. Even still, it's only an estimate, Dr. Scott Kahan, Director of the National Center for Weight and Wellness, said. It's a proxy of body fat percentage, and even that is only a proxy of what their health risk is, secondary to the weight.

The CDC also speaks to the uses and shortcomings of the measurement, describing it as an inexpensive and easy screening method for weight, where the resulting score indicates a person is in one of four categories: underweight, healthy weight, overweight, and obese.

BMI does not measure body fat directly, but BMI is moderately correlated with more direct measures of body fat, it reads. Furthermore, BMI appears to be as strongly correlated with various metabolic and disease outcomes as are these more direct measures of body fatness.

Q: Whats the back story of the BMI measurement and its creator?

A: The modern-day use of the BMI measurement comes along with a disturbing origin story and leaves lingering questions about how useful it is today.

Psychotherapist and Professor at George Washington University Paula Atkinson teaches courses about the myths of the U.S.'s measures of health, thin idealism, and society's relentless oppression of large bodies.

She considers BMI a ridiculous indicator of health.

It actually has an exceedingly racist history in that the guy who invented it did it to perform race science ... he was using the BMI to prove that thin white bodies are superior to larger brown bodies, she explained. it's a super racist, awful measure of health. And we're still using it.

Atkinson referenced the Belgian mathematician, astronomer, sociologist and statistician Adolphe Quetelet, who first invented the BMI measurement nearly 200 years ago that is used today; originally known as the Quetelet Index until American physiologist Ancel Keys came up with the term Body Mass Index in 1972.

Quetelet's initial findings have since been associated with eugenics; a racist method of seeking to improve humanity that was used throughout history, such as in Nazi Germany and throughout American slavery.

Q: So given that the measurement alone isnt a one-size-fits-all health indicator, why should people with a high BMI still sign up to get the COVID-19 vaccine?

A: "We're not really talking about BMI but rather, we're talking about more broadly, whether meeting the clinical definition of obesity should be used as a condition that allows someone to have expedited access to the COVID vaccine, Dr. Kahan explained. "Everything that the studies show so far, would support that."

Atkinson says its especially important since people with a higher BMI are often marginalized in our thin-centric society, even in health care.

I like that most people who happen to be in these categories are saying, you know what, I don't get anything for living in a big body in this culture. I might as well go get the vaccine. And I think that's great."

On social media, many have spoken up to share their plans to go get the vaccine because of a high BMI, encouraging others to join them, and not let shame or stigma get in their way.

I've seen a lot of people who are hesitant to take up a spot in getting a vaccine early, they feel like they've done this to themselves, Dr. Kahan explained. Although there is a volitional component, in terms of weight gain or weight loss, much of our body weights are outside of our direct control.

Atkinson hopes people will keep that BMI number in perspective. What we know is that your relationship with your body is the most important thing. If you suddenly think that now your body is inferior, you're not going to take good care of it. And that's the history of fatphobia, she explained.

Please, Oh, please, please, don't let it affect your self-esteem. Don't let it affect your relationship with your body.

The rest is here:

Here's why BMI measurements don't tell the whole story of your health - WUSA9.com

Beyond the Classicsis a bi-weekly column in whichEmily Kubincanek highlights lesser-known old movies and examines what makes them memorable. In this installment, she highlights the historical value of Lois Webers Where Are My Children?

Few filmmakers knew how to make silent films about women as well as Lois Weber. Social topics barred from most feature films were never off-limits for Weber, who came to fame thanks to her scandalous political films of the 1910s. Webers films were revolutionary for their time, and even now they depict historical events like the birth control movement and the complicated ideas that came with them in rare moving image form.

Thanks to Webers insistence on bringing tough realities into narrative film, we can see how women viewed the subject of birth control and abortion more than one hundred years ago in Where Are My Children? (1916). Weber fictionalizes Margaret Sangers landmark obscenity case in an emotional story that is still fascinating to watch today. One of her first social issue films, Where Are My Children? kickstarted a career centered around crafting remarkable films about womens issues, even if those issues are thought of differently today.

Co-written and co-directed by Weber and her husband Phillips Smalley, Where Are My Children? is not shy about its political stance on birth control. The film begins with a statement onscreen stating the importance of discussing birth control and Universals support of depicting the subject in a drama film. While the studio and filmmakers note the necessity of adults having access to this film, it does not condone unsupervised children being subjected to the topic of birth control. The choice to begin the movie with a stark declaration of intent gives viewers a clear indication of what theyre in for, which was something audiences in 1916 had yet to experience.

The film then enters Heavens gates, where a golden hue tints the angelic images of clouds and angels. The intertitle cards tell us that unborn children reside here until they are either born on Earth, often unwanted, or theyre sent back to Heaven, hinting at abortions. Immediately, this is much different than most movies we watch today that deal with abortion or birth control, but the religious perspective on reproduction was the perspective many people understood in 1916. Weber knew this and recognized the effect it would have on capturing its audience. To modern viewers watching today, its the first of several signs of this films age, but also of the historical value of the film, too.

The main plot ofWhere Are My Children?centers around District Attorney Richard Walton, played by Tyrone Power, Sr., and his wife, Mrs. Walton. They live a lavish life but lack the one thing Mr. Walton longs for: a family. His wife cannot have children and so he soaks up time with his nieces and nephews to fill the void. Mrs. Walton is a socialite and liaison between her high-class friends who need abortions and the one doctor she knows will perform them in secret. What she isnt telling her husband is that she is capable of having children but isnt ready to be a mother yet and has had several abortions herself.

One of the events that impact the Waltons is a case that Mr. Walton takes on involving a Dr. Malfit, who has been charged with obscenity for distributing pamphlets on the new idea of birth control. This is a direct reference to Margaret Sanger, who coined the term birth control and was charged with obscenity two years earlier in 1914. Sanger, like Dr. Malfit in the film, spent time as a nurse in the poorer neighborhoods of the Lower East Side of New York City. There, she witnessed similar scenes depicted in the film, including worn-down mothers with more children than they can feed. The overcrowding and lack of sexual education in poorer neighborhoods led Sanger to advocate for efforts of preventing pregnancy before the need for abortion.

Many adults did not understand how to prevent pregnancy on their own, since the topic of sex was far too foul a topic to discuss openly. This is what led Sanger to distribute several magazines and pamphlets on the subject, including one in 1914 titled Family Limitation. This is also what led to her being indicted for obscenity. However, she did not plead her case in court like Dr. Malfit does in the movie. Instead, she fled to England, where she hid out and educated herself on European birth control methods until the charges against her were dropped.

The Dr. Malfit case takes up a small portion of Where Are My Children?, but its role in the film and in representing the birth control movement as a whole is very important. Sanger is a figure with a complicated legacy as we look back at what she believed in during the years she advocated for birth control and eventually founded the first Planned Parenthood. She, like many scientists and doctors at the time, supported the concept of eugenics as a viable reason for birth control within the United States.

Eugenics is most notably connected with the torture and genocide perpetrated by Nazis during World War II, but before that, many prominent Americans advocated for some kind of selective breeding. Even before the Nazis, eugenics was grounded in prejudice and racist ideals that viewed poor families, disabled adults, or people of color as lesser choices for parents. Since the invention of birth control by Sanger and the Nazis eugenics experiments, the beliefs that backed eugenics have been discredited. However, its important to consider when we remember the birth control movement and first-wave feminism of the early 20th century.

Eugenics bleeds into Dr. Malfits case inWhere Are My Children?, especially in the dramatized scenes of the doctor working with poorer families before his arrest. The people he takes care of are either helpless or drunks who are deemed unfit for parenthood. Many believe today that this sentiment underlined a lot of how advocates for birth control thought of people in poverty at this time. Eugenics is also within the other plots in the film that depict abortion.

Mrs. Walton helps her wealthy friends get abortions when they need them, but she also helps a young girl who is staying with the Waltons. They take in the daughter of one of their servants, but she soon comes under than charms of Mrs. Waltons skeevy younger brother. She becomes pregnant, but the father wants nothing to do with her or her baby. Mrs. Walton takes the girl to her doctor, but the procedure goes much differently for this young girl. She stumbles back to their house after the procedure and collapses in Mr. Waltons arms shortly before dying of complications from her abortion. Like the rest of the lower class characters, the young girl does not sidestep the consequences of unprotected sex and perishes as punishment.

Soon after, Mr. Walton takes the doctor to court for performing illegal abortions, and he learns that his wife has been lying to him and using the doctors services as well. When Mr. Walton finds his wife and her socialite friends having a party at his home when he returns, he goes on a rampage. He tells them that they are selfish heathens who are killing what should be children born to further the human race. These women are viewed as potentially the only thing worse than a poor mother of many children: a childless wealthy woman.

The outdated morality within the plot of Where Are My Children?is vastly different than what is believed today in terms of a womans right to abortions and why birth control is important. Still, it is a historical feat for Weber to have put these controversial and complicated topics on screen. When most movies skirted around the social issues involving American women, Weber put them front and center. Its thanks to her insistence on incorporating everyday issues into her films that we can see the origins of birth control, as problematic as they may be.

We also see in the story the prevalence of abortions at the time, which has been distorted when people discuss the history of abortion today. Webers film is an artifact that we can analyze alongside Sangers speeches or pamphlets as representations of this point in history. It also laid the groundwork for films that we watch today about abortion in our current political climate, like the fantastic 2020 drama Never Rarely Sometimes Always.

Where Are My Children?also led Weber to a prolific career in representing women in feature films. While it sparked massive controversy throughout the country, leading to bans on screening the film, it also led to significant recognition of Webers name as a filmmaker. She soon became the highest-paid director, male or female, of 1916, andwent on to make more films focused around womens issues, including her masterpiece Shoesthat same year. Eventually, Webers contributions and control over her films outshined her husbands, and she made films on her own, even creating her own production company. Other films she made that were concerned with womens experiences include What Do Men Want?, The Blot, and Too Many Wives.

Social issue films started to become outdated in the latter half of the 1920s, but Webers legacy has gained recognition in the past few decades. Beyond her ability to bring reality to movies, she has created some of the most striking images in cinema history. The cracked mirror shot in Shoesis an iconic image in and outside the world of film. And Where Are My Children? ends with Mr. Walton and Mrs. Walton sitting by the fire with their ghostly children they never raised hovering behind them, which is a scene as haunting as they come.

Lois Weber remains one of the greatest filmmakers of the silent era and her films are a rich source for understanding the social consciousness of the early 20th century. She dared to create social change via entertainment, which reached more people than other activists realized. Addressing the audiences lived experiences also moved them in ways other films that tried to separate themselves from real-life could not. Weber was committed to making the films she wanted to make, which were inseparable from politics. To Weber, Truth holds her mirror up to politics.

Originally posted here:

Where Are My Children? and Lois Webers Trailblazing Films About Women - Film School Rejects