Stopes, Marie
Stopes, Marie (1880–1958). Birth control pioneer. Methodical and brilliant as a palaeobotanist, with an international reputation in her twenties, but disordered emotionally, her radical vision of an ideal marriage and clarification of sexual conduct prompted deep changes in social attitudes. Encountering fierce hostility from the catholic church and much of the medical profession, many of whom were nearly as ignorant as the public, in a background of moral panic engendered by post-First World War venereal disease figures, she faced libel and lawsuits with courage. With her second husband, she opened Britain's first birth control clinic at Holloway (1921), and published a stream of successful sociological works, but indifferent poetry and plays. Passionate but arrogant and opinionated, with an alarming indifference to others' feelings, hence isolated, her crusades attacking prejudice and prudery nevertheless encouraged social reform and the economic emancipation of women.
A. S. Hargreaves
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Stopes, Marie