Feminism, biomedicine and the ‘reproductive destiny’ of women in clinical texts on the birth control pill
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 15098839 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Anne Carson (0000-0003-4223-9418, Wilfrid Laurier University, corresponding author), Andrea Carson (0000-0001-5503-3334) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue | 7 |
| Pages | 830-843 |
| Publication date | 2018-07-03 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Culture Health & Sexuality (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1369-1058 • E-ISSN: 1464-5351 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13691058.2017.1384852 |
| PMID | 29043903 |
| OpenAlex | W2766665049 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 8 |
| References cited | 30 |
The birth control pill is one of the most popular forms of contraception in North America and has been a key player in women's rights activism for over 50 years. In this paper, I conduct a feminist deconstructive analysis of 12 biomedical texts on the birth control pill, published between 1965 and 2016. This study is situated amongst the feminist scholarship that challenges the representation of women's bodies in biomedicine. Findings suggest that clinical texts on the birth control pill continue to universalise women's lives and experiences, and essentialise them based on their reproductive capacities. One way the texts accomplish this is by making women absent or passive in the literature thereby losing concern for the diversity of their lives, interpretations and identities as more than reproductive beings. The consequence of such representations is that biomedical texts disseminate limited forms of knowledge, in particular concerning definitions of 'natural' and 'normal' behaviour, with important consequences for the embodied experiences of women
Biology · Biomedicine · Birth control · Destiny (ISS module · Embodied cognition · Epistemology · Family planning · Feminism · Pill · Political science · Population · Scholarship · Situated · Sociology · Demography · Engineering · Gender Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · Law · Medicine · Philosophy · Reproductive Health and Contraception · Reproductive Health and Technologies
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| Unique citing works | 8 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,14 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2024 (6) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 8 |