The Strange Career Of Abortionist Inez Brown Burns

Ionah Romanos

HIST 180

Professor Riggin

17 May 2023

Term Paper

In the book "San Francisco's Queen of Vice: The Strange Career of Abortionist Inez Brown Burns", Lisa Riggin highlights the upbringing and navigates the challenges that Inez Brown Burns, an infamously controversial figure in the early 1900s due to her profession as an abortionist and her operation of an illegal abortion clinic. With notary forces such as District Attorney Pat Brown, who strived to implement conservative agendas to free San Francisco from such corruption.

From the beginning of District Attorney Pat Brown’s involvement in politics, he has made it clear of his political, conservative views and measures. Even his own father, Ed Brown who owned a poker club, was an

The societal expectations of women were traditional, with their primary responsibility or “purpose” to life being getting married, bearing and raising children, and being proper and dutiful to their husbands. Moreover, there were many rights that were permitted to men that were not also given to women, such as the right to vote. With all these unfair expectations imposed on women, it fails to recognize the different circumstances that women can be faced with, such as Burns' situation with working as a prostitute to have some money for herself and her family, which is an occupation that many people frowned upon. Burns further continued to defy these expectations on women with her beginning her job as an abortionist, which created many more challenges for Burns, especially with the sour stigma that is already surrounded towards getting an abortion done, being the one who performs these procedures was much more controversial. By being an abortionist, it completely defied the typical roles of women at this time, expected to have domestic responsibilities such as women having the responsibility of bearing children, with abortion now offering women the chance to change that. With the medical procedure of abortion itself being perceived as problematic and condemned by many at this time, to be a woman doing these abortions it emphasizes a degree of independence, perseverance, and courage that are contrary to common perceptions of femininity and womanhood. In consideration to the many other women that are mentioned throughout the book, these traits are what makes Burns such a unique individual who is filled with confidence and determination. In comparison to the women that were mentioned in the prologue of the novel, such as Madeline Rand, it is clear that Burns has the glamour and drive that makes her a leader to begin with. Attending her own