RUNNING HEAD: MEET THE QUEEN OF TABOO: MARY CALDERONE 1

Melonie Sherman

Professor Lucy Flowers

WGS 2000-90

December 9, 2018

Meet the Queen of Taboo: Mary S. Calderone

“We’re still a sexophobic society, afraid of the wrong things for the wrong reasons.”

“I don’t want to control anybody’s mind or anybody’s heart—I just want to help free people

from the concert of sex as evil instead of a gift from God.”

Thick gloves are a useful necessity during the winter, but do you know the strange uses

for mitten type clothing in the past? In the case of Mary S. Calderone, mittens were a nightmare.

From a young age Calderone was forced by her mother wear mittens every hour of the day to

fight the urges of self-sexual discovery. Yes, I mean masturbation. Despite the cruelty and

strange rule, this event in Calderone’s life eventually inspired her future career and

achievements; but let’s start from the beginning.

Born in 1904, Calderone was born to a prominent family; later to live solely with her

father after her parent’s divorce. Can’t imagine why right? From the beginning of her career,

Mary Calderone pursued acting and arts after she gave up medicine. Calderone went on to marry

her first husband and have her first two daughters only to later suffer her first divorce and the

loss of her first born to pneumonia. Realizing she would never make the top of the acting career

latter, Mary ditched it around the same time. The loss of her first daughter inspired her to resume
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her medical studies at the University of Rochester School of Medicine where she graduated with

her first M.D. in 1939. After an internship, the University of Columbia’s School of Public Health

rewarded her with her master’s in public health. Here, she met her second husband and had two

more daughters. With the initial steps into the medical world taken, Calderone went on to pursue

breaking the social taboo of sex; a feat she accomplished by informing the public of responsible

family planning, contraceptives, and sexual health education during a time of gender inequality

and religious morals; thus, freeing women from ignorant myths and inequal reproductive rights.

Starting with 1953, Mary Calderone became the medical director of the Planned

Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA,) a position she held for eleven years, with the primary

goal of ensuring acceptance of medically correct contraception information and ensuring the

acceptance of the conversations surrounding the taboo of sexual health. Calderone proceeded to

use her position to conduct clinical trials and collect scientific information surrounding the use

and effectivity of contraceptives such as the IUD, Emko Foam, and birth control. The following

research lead the medical establishments of American to accept common medical practice and

distribution of information about reproduction and sexual health. Calderone is also credited with

influencing medical authors to include the study of contraceptives and family planning into

medical school curriculum through her written Manual of Family Planning and Contraceptive

Practice of 1964.

Additionally, after realizing that her work at the PPFA failed to address the social and

mental issues regarding human sexuality, Calderone left the PPFA to co-fun the nonprofit

educational organization SIECUS to specifically the distribution of information about human

sexuality. Here, Calderone threw ‘taboo’ into the American social realm. Conversations about

sexual relationships, contraceptives, masturbation, and adolescent self-discovery were

campaigned across the country. Quickly she became an advocate for parents to be their

children’s main educator about sex and that sex, although a natural part of human life that can’t

be erased, needs to be considered with responsibility and with another person of trust and

companionship.

Calderone’s feats were impressive for their time because of their influence on the

woman’s equality movement. More specifically, because of gender inequality, women were not

only restricted in the sexual realm, but the social realm as well. In the realm of sex, women were

expected to obtain a higher standard in comparison to men. For example, women were expected

to retrain their abstinence until marriage or else they’re not qualified to be married. Also,

because of myths regarding the female reproduction system, such as menstruation, women were

not included in clinical trials to test medication effectivity and were more likely to be

misdiagnosed as being hysterical or overly emotional. Also, the major use of sexual scripts, or

the expected feeling and actions based on sexual experiences, enforced ideology that was more

beneficial to men than women causing extreme anxiety regarding the topic of sex and the erosion

of natural female lust. Colonialization was commonly the cause of this due to reorganized native

lands to be primarily heteropatriarchy. Even today these ideologies hold in modern times and

effect women now.

In the social realm of the twentieth century, women were not as respected as men and

were not given the same rights as their male counterparts despite the woman’s suffrage

movement succeeding in this century. Around the time of Calderone’s birth in 1904, women

were restricted by morals of tradition, religion, and custom. For example, from the year 1900 to

1920 women were not allowed to take part in federal voting, involvement in the army, denied

education and work opportunities, and couldn’t hold their land in their own name if married. The
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1920’s brought with it nineteenth amendment; a ratification to the constitution that allowed

women to vote in federal elections. However, social inequality didn’t follow the same process.

Ingrained social roles continued throughout society until the 1960’s second way of feminism.

Women still had the tendency to follow the opinions of their husbands strictly and put their

family first before their own. The 1960’s second wave specifically addressed social obligations

for gender inequality while the first wave focused on legal and federal activities. More

specifically, problems with sexual harassment, workplace inequality, sexuality, role in the

family, etc. It wasn’t until the 1980’s that extreme social and legal gender inequality was mostly

abolished from American society. So, for Mary Calderone to make such large accomplishments

during timeframe of 1950 to the 1970s for women is impressive to say the least.

The impact of Mary Calderone effects women in most areas in their life today. With the

establishment of medical sciences accepting new distribution of sexual health and enforcing it

into required medical school curriculum, women today get more accurate health treatment than

they would have in the nineteenth or twentieth century. Clinical trials and research became more

involved in a female’s reproductive system and medication effectiveness for medical conditions

caused by such mentioned organs. For example, in my case, oral contraceptives would not have

been tested to find effectivity against diseases; and conditions wouldn’t have been researched if

the myths of the female reproductive organs had not been defeated. A genetic condition such as

polycystic ovarian disorder would have likely been diagnosed as an overreaction or caused by

the woman’s own negligence to her health.

Another common impact of Calderone’s work is sexual education in school for young

teens and young adults to increase knowledge of general sexual health while also informing

young girls about their reproductive rights and choices. For example, the ability to say no, to
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have other options regarding contraceptives, to have other choices in the case of pregnancy, and

to have formal medical support for pregnancy.

In conclusion, women today would not have the same medical care or rights without the

work of Mary Calderone, and the increase in sexual disease and fear of the ‘taboo’ of sex would

still be prominent today. Because of these facts, I believe that it can be agreed on that Mary

Calderone has earned her place in the American woman’s hall of place and should be used as

inspiration as women proceed to gain full equality internationally.

Works Cited

Brown, C. (1999). In Memory of Mary Steichen Calderone. The Journal of Sex Research. 36(2),

218-219.

Epstein, H. (1999). The Grande Dame of Sex Education. Humanist. 59(1), 39.

Fox-Genovese, E. (1999). Women’s Status: A Century of Enormous Change. The Public

Perspective. 10(3). Retrieved from https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/public-

perspective/1999/103.html

Michaels, E. (1983). Dr. Mary Calderone: Physicians Have a Vital Role in Sex Education.

Canadian Medical Association Journal. 128(2), 176.

Shaw, S. M., Lee, J. (2015). Women’s Voices Feminist Visions: Classic and Contemporary

Readings, Sixth Edition. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.

Quotetab. (2016). Mary Calderone Quotations. Quotetab. Retrieved from

https://www.quotetab.com/quotes/by-mary-calderone#pVsLMaM07SkkoQ3L.97 on

December 10, 2018.

(1912). Mary Steichen, 1912. [Photograph.] Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Retrieved from

https://cfmedicine.nlm.nih.gov/gallery/photo_49_2.html on December 10, 2018.

(1920.) Mary Steichen on her 16th birthday. [Photograph.] Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

Retrieved from https://cfmedicine.nlm.nih.gov/gallery/photo_49_3.html on December

10, 2018.
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(1970.) Mary Steichen Calderone on her travels, ca. [Photograph.] Harvard University,

Cambridge, MA. Retrieved from

https://cfmedicine.nlm.nih.gov/gallery/photo_49_4.html on December 10, 2018.

(1982.) Mary Steichen Calderone on her 78th birthday. [Photograph.] Harvard University,

Cambridge, MA. Retrieved from

https://cfmedicine.nlm.nih.gov/gallery/photo_49_5.html on December 10, 2018.