birth control

Birth Control on Main Street: Organizing Clinics in the United States, 1916-1939

beth — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This past May, the birth control pill celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. News outlets all over the country covered the story, yet the early years of the birth control movement were seldom mentioned. A lack of academic research has led to the history of the early birth control movement being plagued by misinformation, myth, and appropriation by the right, particularly regarding the history of the movement’s founder, Margaret Sanger.

Birth Control on Main Street by Cathy Moran Hajo seeks to shed light on the history of a movement that was so successful that contraceptive access is something most Americans, even those on the right, take for granted.

It is the suffrage movement that is seen by feminists as the early movement to idealize, yet as Hajo points out, in reality, the birth control movement led to much more meaningful reforms. The birth control movement more directly allowed women to pursue careers and personal goals, greatly improved the health of countless women, increased women’s longevity, and led to societal sexual enlightenment, further equal rights, and allowed women to enhance their roles as mothers and partners.

While Birth Control on Main Street is about the movement as a whole (covering years 1916 to 1939), Hajo recognized the importance of providing a fact-based analysis of Margaret Sanger’s career to give a proper foundation for the rest of the movement’s history. As associate editor at NYU’s Margaret Sanger Papers Project, Hajo is the perfect expert to provide such an exploration.

What is perhaps most important for women to know about the history of the early birth control movement is that it was begun and maintained almost exclusively by laywomen activists. Men dominated the medical establishment at the time and were unsupportive of reforms that would encourage women to have fewer children. Control of the clinics remained with female activists for the first decades of the movement, despite their strong desire to work with medical professionals.

No comprehensive history of the birth control movement would be complete without a frank discussion of eugenics, and Hajo does a great job exploring both the realities of the eugenics movement itself and the actual ideologies that brought some birth control activists to involve themselves with eugenicists, including Sanger. Despite what some radicals on the right may say, for Sanger and most of her colleagues, the eugenic question of what made a woman “fit” to bear children was a question of environment, not race.

According to Hajo, the notion that early birth control activists were concerned with reducing the black population is highly misleading. In reality, states Hajo, the true shortcoming of the movement was neglect of the black population. Instead, the true study and focus should be on the unwillingness of early clinic activists to work with black communities at all. As is now well known, this was a conflict eventually overcome and the women’s movement became the most inclusive of social movements in U.S. history.

If there is one thing that is unknown about the early birth control movement, it is the actual work that went on inside the clinics. Hajo devotes a large part of the book to exploring the exact work, interactions between activists and patients, interactions between activists and birth professionals, the demographics of patients, the attitudes and ideologies of activists, admission requirements, and conflicts between local and national leaders. Birth Control on Main Street is the perfect read for any enthusiast, as well as any feminist activist who wants to know more about the collected history we share with our foremothers.

Written by: Janice Formichella, September 29th 2010

Feminist Technology

caitlin — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Edited by Kate Boyer, Linda Layne, Sharra Vostral

University of Illinois Press

On the cover of this book, a silhouette of what resembles a hand holding a speculum, above the words feminist technology, prompts questions. Whose hand holds the speculum? Is it just me, or is it kind of shaped like the letter “F”? The image hints at Feminist Technology’s project: to look at technologies in the context of the hands that design and use them, and to consider how they might or might not facilitate feminist social relations.

The scope of both feminism and technology is vast, and where they meet is no small place. So, the editors focus on just a few medical technologies, with articles on the menstrual suppressing birth control pill, the breast pump, the home pregnancy test, and the tampon. In her introduction, Linda Layne writes, “…clearly technological fixes are not enough. Feminists must also work toward undoing patriarchy in all its forms. This means not only introducing new technologies, but changing technosocial systems…”

Aengst and Layne’s article on menstrual-suppressing birth control pills explores effects of the pill on ways of thinking about gender by looking at how the construction of a monthly period as biologically “natural” gets disrupted by the birth control pill’s ability to suppress menstruation and to create new cycles. The article ends by imagining how different strains of feminism would interpret the pill. The two scant paragraphs under the header “African American feminism” are a rare glimpse, in this book, of a feminist of color perspective cognizant of the reproductive injustices historically directed toward women of color. Aengst and Layne implicitly marginalize this politic by naming it so fleetingly. The article ends by proclaiming that the pill Seasonale “might very well be a useful technology for middle and upper class women who seek convenience and can afford to choose among many contraceptive technologies.” One wonders: what about everyone else?

While the language of feminism used in the book is quite universalizing, the focus remains largely on technologies in the US and Canada marketed towards cisgender women, implicitly economically privileged. While Anita Hardon’s piece does mention the disturbing ways in which the Population Council used Norplant coercively in Brazil and Bangladesh, it does so in a way that lacks an analysis of the underlying racism that constructs the bodies of people of color as unworthy of care. In reading, I hoped for more outrage from the author at how technology has been used in decidedly unfeminist ways.

In looking at the book’s final articles on the training of feminist designers in universities, I wondered about how feminist design might be imagined even outside of the increasingly inaccessible world of higher education. Considering means of production, in what conditions would people create these new objects, and how would their labor be valued? What materials would be used?

While Feminist Technology provides a trove of historical anecdotes on the development of various technologies, it could do better at revisiting the question of what makes a technology feminist by critiquing the very model of feminism it uses—and the voices it might implicitly exclude. If this topic interests you, consider also the feminist technology blog Difference Engines, whose “concerns are not only with gender, but all manner of differencing, including race, ethnicity, and humanity.”

Written by: Vani Natarajan, September 26th 2010

In Our Control: The Complete Guide to Contraceptive Choices for Women

admin — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Laura Eldridge

Seven Stories Press

The pill is turning fifty this year, and article upon article is being written trumpeting how hormonal contraception has revolutionized women’s lives. While this is true, perhaps the bigger story is how for many women, the pill is the default contraceptive option – despite potential side effects or inconveniences.

Laura Eldridge wants to change that. Believing that women should take control of their contraceptive health by looking at the political, medical, and social implications of birth control, she set out to write a book that both challenged and informed women about something so few of us actually talk about. Her final product, In Our Control, brings a straightforward, nonjudgmental, and honest look at the pill, the patch, the ring, and, yes, even fertility awareness methods.

In Our Control isn’t content to simply discuss contraceptive options as if they exist in a vacuum. Instead, Eldridge traces the history of birth control development, painting a backdrop of the political context and gender inequalities that are inextricably intertwined with each birth control option.

Nuanced discussions of medical side effects and precautions are deftly arranged between critiques of the medical-industrial complex. Eldridge walks readers through the thought process within her critiques, which allows the reader to become a smart consumer of contraceptive options. For example, her discussion of the HPV vaccination and the pharmaceutical industry’s rush to push it to the public is critical, yet evenhanded and well researched. The chapter on menstrual suppression drugs casts a wary eye towards the way feminist themes of empowerment have been misappropriated in advertising for such products.

While the main focus of In Our Control is on a discussion of contraceptive options, I felt the book really shined in its final chapters on the HPV vaccination, birth control options for men, environmental concerns about contraception, and international issues in contraception. It was in these chapters that Eldridge combined her inquisitive and unorthodox style of writing with a critical look at contemporary issues in contraception. I found myself unable to put the book down through these chapters.

Eldridge’s fresh voice was apparent on every page of In Our Control, and evoked the pro-woman, community-oriented feel of a volume of Our Bodies, Ourselves. By placing exhaustive information about contraception into the hands of her readers, Eldridge is ensuring that women can approach their health professionals fully armed with all of their options, enabling them to have an honest conversation about which method is best for them.Gwen Emmons

Written by: Gwen Emmons, June 14th 2010

Jungle Laboratories: Mexican Peasants, National Projects, and the Making of the Pill

admin — Sat, 01 May 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Gabriela Soto Laveaga

Duke University Press

Professor Gabriela Soto Laveaga’s newest monograph, Jungle Laboratories, is a telling history that unravels the transnational political economy of barbasco yam production in Mexico from its discovery to its use in the early medicalization of synthetic hormonal steroids that created the birth control pill. According to Laveaga, the developing country context of the Pill’s history was so successfully erased from history that even the “peasant” culture in Oaxaca has allegedly forgotten its own crucial role in one of the past century’s most important scientific breakthroughs. Part of what Marxist theorists would call the “false consciousness” of history is revealed in this book.

Although production of synthetic hormones in Mexico predated World War I, controlling the barbasco trade in the the early to mid-1970s became a national project for the Mexican government. After reading Jungle Laboratories, I got the sense that “making the pill” was part of a larger initiative of “making a nation” consisting of “biocitizens” who were not just part of elite scientific knowledge production but were also expected to self-regulate their own population growth as part of President Luis Echeverría’s vision of a new Mexico.

While women were targeted for birth control campaigns, “male campesinos were encouraged to read agrarian law and technical manuals to become better and more productive citizens.” It is clear from these examples that women were positioned as part of the "population problem" to be acted upon by policies, whereas men were seen as the future policymakers and the population empowered by educational campaigns. Although the author could have written a feminist analysis of the nationalist projects, she did not; this is my own feminist reading taken from separate examples in the text that were separated by almost a hundred pages in Laveaga's book.

In general, Laveaga could have drawn out more of a critical analysis. The introduction gave an anthropologist like me high hopes for the inclusion of social theories ranging from Nikolas Rose’s biocitizenship to Michael Taussig’s theories on the layering of history and the magic of the state. However, with the exception of a couple of mentions, the theoretical underpinnings to this story were almost invisible. Given its gripping narrative, and implications for social theories pulled from elsewhere, Laveaga’s book is a good buy for an undergraduate curriculum such as reproductive health and medical anthropology. It is also an engaging read for women who are curious about the political economy of the pills they are popping on a daily basis.

Written by: Maya N. Vaughan-Smith, May 1st 2010

Brainscan #22

admin — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 18:18:00 +0000

By Alex Wrekk

As a lesbian with an incredibly regular menstrual cycle, I generally don’t ever really think about birth control. It’s not something that affects my life, and other than the random conversations about birth control that I have with my friends and loved ones who do use it, I don’t usually find literature on the topic particularly interesting. With that said, the zine _Brainscan #22 _ not only discusses a type of birth control called Intra Uterine Device (IUD), but also presents the facts and personal experiences of the use of this device so well that even I took immediate interest in the topic.

In the first half of Brainscan #22, author Alex Wrekk describes what exactly an IUD is and how it works. For a quick overview, the IUD is a small T-shaped device that “is inserted through the vagina through the cervix and into the uterus as a form of birth control.” One type of IUD is wrapped in copper wire and acts as a spermicidal and ovicidal that works for up to twelve years. Another type of IUD is not wrapped in copper wire, “but instead contains low doses of hormones similar to birth control pills. The hormonal one can last up to five years.” The easy-to-understand information presented in this zine comes from all of the facts that Wrekk gathered from different pamphlets, doctors and nurses who know a lot about the subject, and any other information that she got on it while visiting Planned Parenthood for the insertion of her own IUD. After a quick discussion about the political aspects of getting an IUD in the United States, the second half of the zine veers away from a medical description of the IUD, to Wrekk’s personal experience. She describes the occurrence of pain from the insertion, and also the relief from knowing that she was pretty much set on birth control for the next ten to twelve years.

I was completely unfamiliar with the IUD prior to reading this zine. My friend who works for a feminist healthcare clinic read the zine and said that most of the medical information was right on, with a few variations in detail here and there. But the overall honesty of Wrekk’s experience, the simple language used to describe what an IUD is and why anyone would want one, as well as the appealing layout and concise gathering of information, makes this little zine a strong packet of good and accessible information. I only wish that _Brainscan #22 _could become available at every gynecologist’s office across the country.

Written by: Chelsey Clammer, February 9th 2008

Handbook of the Evolution of Human Sexuality

admin — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 02:07:00 +0000

Edited by Michael R. Kauth

Haworth Press

The style and content in a sentence: Professional enough for an academic, but thought provoking for the general public. If you’re reading this with thoughts that the “Evolution” part of this title might limit the diversity of coverage of “Human Sexuality,” read on. Most of what we might have learned about evolution and sex on public television, in high school biology, health class and even in psychology 101 leaves everything other than heterosexual, reproductive, cave-man sex in the archeological dust. Handbook of the Evolution of Human Sexuality balances out former schooling in an extremely intelligent way.

The chapters are peer reviewed articles, also published as part of the Journal of Psychology and Human Sexuality. Chapters include The Evolution of Sexual Pleasure, How Ecology, Genes, Fertility and Fashion Influence Mating Strategies, Sexual Strategies Across Sexual Orientations and several chapters on same-sex orientation. The authors, mostly US & UK leaders in psychology, include an independent researcher, a clinical psychologist and an archeologist well read in sex, art and ethno-botany.

Artifacts in the form of art and traditions are provided and sociological explanations for sexual orientations and behaviors throughout human evolutionary history are proposed. Early images of women are interpreted as images of power rather than simply as sex-objects. Male-male sexual interactions are explained as adaptive alliances rather than subversions of society. Cross dressing, transgender and trans-sex are given a history much older than this century in places other than metro-sexual.

The articles are written to stand intellectual scrutiny, but the average person could probably read parts as an amendment to traditional text-book biology. Fascinating observations about same-sex interactions in social species are described. Historical evidence of accidental and intentional hormone alteration by humans with natural agents - such as consumption of hormones in mare’s urine (think 'premarin'), estrogenic plants and plants used for birth control - make the handbook memorable, quotable and eye opening to a history of human use of drugs affecting sex, often considered to be new or unnatural.

Sociologists, biology nerds, LGBTQ allies, alternative academics and anyone who’s spent lonely evenings reading about the science and history of sex could enjoy this book. Evolutionary psychologists ought to keep it as a professional reference. Though written to expand a discipline’s understanding of human behavior, this book appeals to curiosity about diversity in sexuality and individual choice.

Written by: Heather Irvine, July 4th 2007

Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters

admin — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 13:00:00 +0000

By Jessica Valenti

Seal Press

Jessica Valenti is a part of the feminist blogger elite, and for good reason. The blog she helped to establish, Feministing.com, receives a significant amount of web traffic and is well-known among young, internet savvy, hip feminists. Full disclosure: I read Feministing every now and then. Having read Valenti’s writing on the blog—which tends to be oversimplified and, quite frankly, bratty—I was hoping her analysis in book form would show a tad more depth. Unfortunately for Valenti, there’s a downside to fame; it opens you up for public criticism.

If Full Frontal Feminism is supposed to be the spark that ignites young women to claim their identity as "feminists" and hop aboard the Third Wave train, then women are in deep trouble. Valenti writes like feminism's version of Ann Coulter, and let’s face it, Ann Coulter is hardly known for her intelligent commentary. Flamboyant and egotistical, much of Valenti’s analysis is trite, at best. She makes sweeping generalizations (“When you’re a feminist, day to day life is better. You make better decisions. You have better sex.”), repeatedly refers to her opponents by juvenile names ("The consequence of having the last name Buttars is apparently being a huge asshole."), confuses “truth” with “opinion,” and seems to have done very little actual research to back up her claims, as very few citations accompany her assertions.

At times, she doesn’t feel the need to make an assertion at all, responding with a facile yet grandiose “Puke,” a deliberately ironic “Yeah,” or a pithy “Terrifying,” as though this is all that she needs to make her case. And despite hackneyed attempts every now and again to mention other marginalized groups, the truth is that this book overwhelmingly reflects the viewpoint of its white, middle class, (I assume) heterosexual, entitled, American, liberal feminist writer.

Valenti doesn’t give her readers credit for being able to do the thing she most wants them to do: think critically. This is apparent in the fallacious style by which she presents her perspectives. My personal favorite—taken straight from the right wing, talk radio instruction manual—is how Valenti uses the bait-and-switch tactic to “prove” her point (e.g., contending that anti-abortion advocates simply hate sex). A close second is when she uses the most extreme cases to illustrate a point as though they aren’t the exception to the rule (e.g., making the case for all women to have access to Emergency Contraception because rape victims should have access to it). These tactics are most unfortunate because, even as a person who is largely ideologically aligned with Valenti, I began to question her standpoint as fearmongering overshadowed politics.

Perhaps Valenti believes that young women won’t be moved unless they’re shocked by what she says, or completely scared to death. Fear is a powerful motivator, but it belittles the audience in the process. Oh, and did I mention that she uses the book as a forum to talk public trash about petty tiffs she’s had with other bloggers? If fear doesn’t sell you on feminism, apparently Valenti believes taking sides in some inane, personal dispute will.

Full Frontal Feminism is written in sound bytes, each chapter being comprised of smaller (usually) one page-long explanations of a given issue: sex education vs. abstinence only, virginity pledges, expensive weddings, unattainable beauty standards, and other typical feminist fare. Apparently, the television has taken its toll (or so Valenti thinks) on the public because there is no sense of organization or logic to the structure of the book. And solutions? Those must have been left for someone else to tackle because you won’t find them here, at least not outside of the standard volunteer, give money, and vote.

Now I know I’ve pretty much run this book into the ground, but I do want to say that I get what Valenti is trying to do here. And it’s a really smart idea. She wants to reach out to young women who don't call themselves "feminists" and let them know that it’s okay, cool even, to be down with the F-word. She wants to tell them that they already believe in feminist ideals and have benefited from the women’s movement. And she wants to encourage them to continue in that tradition in order to kick some misogynist ass. That’s a really honorable goal that, unfortunately, was a victim of poor execution.

If you’re truly looking to find out why feminism matters, you’d be better served to flip to the booklist in the back of Full Frontal Feminism and read some of the titles listed there—including Colonize This_!, _Listen Up: Voices from the Next Generation, To Be Real, and The Fire This Time—because cool packaging is really great, but if there’s nothing of substance inside then what you are selling is just the packaging.

Eds note: Since comments seem to have been discontinued on Feministing in order to silence critique, folks are welcome to continue discussion in the "Comments" on the _Full Frontal Feminism _review on this blog. All comments have been, and will continue to be, approved. Feminist Review blog encourages healthy and necessary debate. As our mission says, "Feminist Review blog believes that all opinions - positive and critical - are valuable and seeks to give voice to communities that remain on the margins" and to create a space where "differences can be represented and explored."

Written by: Mandy Van Deven, April 27th 2007