Forced Sterilization Wasn’t a Mistake. It Was Misogyny and Racism Working Together.

“All they know about is slavery”

Do we? Or is that all you heard before you stopped listening so people stopped sharing with you? Because there is too much more. Like all Survivors there are worlds of untold stories.

Forced sterilization is one of the clearest, most brutal examples of misogyny and racism colliding—and reinforcing each other.

It wasn’t accidental. It wasn’t rare. It wasn’t “of its time” in a harmless way.

It was policy. It was practice. It was power.

Here’s why this matters so deeply:

• Women’s bodies were treated as public property
  Misogyny made it acceptable to control women’s reproduction. Racism decided which women were targeted. Because Black women courageously risked their lives to tell these stories we are aware of these stories. Telling these stories isn’t “division” it is the only path to truth, and the only way we learn from it and end the practice. Never again means telling the stories. 

• Black women, Indigenous women, poor women, and women with disabilities were singled out
  They were labeled “unfit,” “irresponsible,” “burdens,” or “undesirable”—language that stripped them of humanity and justified violence disguised as medicine or social good.

• Consent was ignored or manipulated
  Procedures were done without full explanation, under threat of losing welfare, medical care, or freedom. That is coercion, not choice. Black women know about that and can speak to that. 

• The harm crossed generations
  Forced sterilization didn’t just end pregnancies. It ended bloodlines, futures, cultural continuity, and women’s right to decide what legacy they would leave behind. Those stories can be told by Black women.

• Institutions worked together
  Hospitals, courts, social services, prisons, and schools often aligned—showing how systemic misogyny and systemic racism don’t operate separately, but in tandem.

And this is why conversations about misogyny that ignore race are incomplete.
And conversations about racism that ignore sex-based oppression are unfinished.

Forced sterilization exposes the truth about sex-race oppression:

• Misogyny answers the question “Who gets controlled?”

• Racism answers the question “Which women are considered expendable?”

When people minimize either part, they erase the lived reality of women who were harmed at the intersection.

Naming this collision isn’t about the past alone.
It’s about recognizing patterns—so they cannot quietly return under new language, new policies, or new justifications.

This is a clear example of misogyny may be the oldest oppression but it never means one of the others will not catch and harm you too. Listen to women.