A Girl Like Her: New Adoption Documentary by Ohio Adoptee Ann Fessler

Ann Fessler, with author Craig Hickman, Boston 2007

I've been involved in adoptee rights on a very active level for about 20 years and much longer in a less active way.  During that time I've seen a continued unawareness--even incredulity--among some adoptees that out of wedlock pregnancy was once a shame and a scandal; that often girls and women with an unmarried pregnancy had no "choice" other than adoption. Unfortunately,  this has caused a lot of misunderstanding for some adoptees about the reasons they were surrendered for adoption. Instead of  looking at the status and role of women during what is now called The Baby Scoop Era--the patriarchal control of  family, church, school, and state that proscribed women, especially sexually active women, to limited opportunities and options--they place individual blame for genuine adoption grievances on their natural mothers.  I'll  write more about this some other time, but I'm mentioning it now by way of introduction to the new documentary A Girl Like Her by my friend Ann Fessler.

Ann Fessler is an Ohio adoptee (and OSU grad!), filmmaker, author, and professor of photography at the Rhode Island School of Design.  For the last few years her work has focused on adoption, especially its effect on first mothers.  Her book The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v Wade (2006), a collection of  birthmother oral histories with historical analysis, received strong reviews from The New York Times , Mother Jones, Newsweek, and other major media.  The book was  a 2007  finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award, and  last year made the Ms Readers" Top 100 Best Feminist Non-Fiction Books of All Time. It's  a very important book, and essential reading for anyone who wonders how we (adoptees and birthparents) got to where we are today, still entangled in sexual, gendered, and cultural stereotypes, state  sponsored adoption secrets and lies, and the continued confiscation and sealing of our birth records in Ohio for "your own good"--or somebody elses.

Last month Ann released a new documentary A Girl Like Her,  I haven't seen the film, so I can't comment on it.  Here,  is a description of it though, from the film's website:

A GIRL LIKE HER combines footage from films of the time period about dating, sex, “illegitimate” pregnancy, and adoption—that both reflected and shaped the public’s understanding of single pregnancy during that time—with the voices of these mothers as they speak today, with hindsight, about the long-term impact of surrender and silence on their lives...

...Between 1945 and 1973, an unprecedented 1.5 million women in the United States surrendered children for adoption due to enormous social pressure. They were expelled from high schools and colleges and forced to leave jobs as teachers and nurses because they were pregnant. They were sent away to distant relatives or to maternity homes to make the “problem” disappear. These women gave birth to their first child, left it behind and returned home, where they were expected to keep their secret, move on and forget. Many of these women have remained silent and as a result their collective story has remained untold. The space created by this absence has been filled with myths and stereotypes that continue to affect them, their adopted out children (now adults), and current adoption policy. A GIRL LIKE HER brings this hidden history to light as the women’s stories collide with the authoritative voice-overs and images from films that purported to represent them...

and the trailer

A GIRL LIKE HER film trailer_Fessler from Ann Fessler on Vimeo.

The only scheduled screening at this time is at the American Adoption Congress' annual conference in Denver at the end of April. I'm sure it will get around, and maybe even to Ohio . I hope so.