This project examines discourses of hereditary “fitness” and their variations at three moments when they seep into public and political circulation: the rhetorics of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century eugenics, of the twentieth-century birth control movement, and of late-twentieth-century assisted reproductive technologies. More specifically, it studies the construction of the label “the Unfit” – a phrase present throughout scientific and eugenic literature of the early-twentieth century. Informed by the concept of “survival of the fittest” as popularized by Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer, hereditary “fitness” has been redeployed in scientific and public discussions of reproduction for sexist, racist, ableist, classist, and heteronormative ends. While the ability to produce offspring has always been intertwined with the notion of “survival of the fittest,” the misuse of these discourses, under the guise of science, results in discriminatory practices largely directed at women. By tracing its circulation at specific historical points, I reveal the social constructedness of hereditary “fitness” and complicate current beliefs about what it means to be “fit” for reproduction and/or parenthood.
To establish the construction of hereditary “fitness” as a instrument of the eugenics movement, I examine several rhetorical formations within the discourses of science and eugenics – including definition, special topoi, kairos and audience, and figures of thought – to make visible the specific work each performs. In each chapter, I emphasize the ways these rhetorical formations participate in the production of women as fit objects and subjects for reproduction. Theoretical discussions of the power of language to shape, construct, and produce often stop short of showing the processes by and through which language works on a subject or object. Similarly, definitions of rhetorical elements can be abstract, often accompanied only by decontextualized quotes and excerpts for illustration. Here, I perform a deliberate, measured study of these rhetorical elements in an effort to lay bare the persuasive action of the elements themselves as well as their effects upon us.