Welcome to the Junior Lab Contraception&Genre website
What’s new?
New publication
Leslie Fonquerne, member of the Junior Lab Contraception&Genre, published an article entitled “‘The pill doesn’t open the fridge door!’ Medical and gynecological violence in contraception consultations” in the journal Santé Publique.
The use of oral contraception requires regular medical consultation, increasingly exposing users to the risk of medical and gynecological violence, with lack of consent at its core. The case study of a gynecological consultation, as well as the analysis of interviews and observations, reveal various forms of medical violence, with a focus on the patients’ dependence on the medical profession. The interconnectedness of these different forms of medical and gynecological violence encourages us to consider them as part of a continuum of gender violence.
The article is available here.
New publication
Mireille Le Guen, member of the Junior Lab Contraception&Genre, published an article entitled “Reasons for rejecting hormonal contraception: a systematic review” in the journal Social Science and Medicine.
In the article, the authors conducted a systematic review of the recent scientific literature in order to construct an evidence-based typology of reasons for rejecting hormonal contraception, in a continuum perspective from complaints to choosing not to use it, cited by women and men in Western countries in a recent time.
Eight main categories emerged: 1) problems related to physical side effects, 2) altered mental health, 3) negative impact on sexuality, 4) concerns about future fertility, 5) invocation of nature, 6) concerns about menstruation, 7) fears and anxiety and 8) the delegitimization of the side effects of hormonal contraceptives.
The findings indicate that women’s preferences regarding hormone use should be included as a criterion in the contraceptive decision-making process in order to allow them to achieve their contraceptive autonomy.
The article is available here.
Contraception&Genre seminar : next session
« Gender and contraceptive market. Compared historical perspectives »
24th June 2021 – from 2PM to 5PM (Paris time / GMT +1)
Via Zoom
Claire Jones, Senior Lecturer in History of medicine at Kent University: «’We’ve been using your pessaries with great success’: Contraceptive Consumers in Interwar Britain»
Pauline Mortas, PhD candidate at University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne: «Vicious husbands and resigned wifes? The gender of contraceptive consumption in France (1870s-1930s)»
To receive the link by mail, please follow this link, or write us an email at contraception.genre@gmail.com
More info here.
New publication
Pauline Mortas, member of the Junior Lab Contraception&Genre, published an article entitled ““Forces viriles immédiatement retrouvées“. La fabrique des masculinités par les publicités contre l’impuissance dans la presse de la Troisième République” [““Immediate recovery of virile strengh”. Press advertisements against sexual impotence and the mking of masculinities during the Third Republic”] in Le Temps des Médias.
This article questions how press advertising shaped models of masculinity between the 1870s and the 1930s. Focusing on advertisements against male sexual impotence, it shows the rise of a market which, while participating in the sexualization of masculinity, also aims to preserve its clients’ manliness. The masculine models promoted in those ads reflect the political concerns of the Third Republic, from colonial ruling to fighting degeneration and depopulation.
The article est available here.
New publication
Pauline Mortas, member of the Junior Lab Contraception&Genre, published an article entitled “Hot Stuff. Anatomy of the sex market at the dawn of the twentieth century” in the journal French History.
In this article based on a rich legal dossier on a violation of obscenity laws, she highlights the formation of a sex market in early twentieth-century Paris and examines the anatomy and characteristics of this market structured around various products: erotic books and photographs, sex toys, remedies for increasing sexual potency and various contraceptives.
The article is available here or upon request from the author.
New publication
Mireille Le Guen and Mylène Rouzaud-Cornabas, both members of the Junior Lab Contraception&Genre, published with other colleagues an article entitled “The French pill scare and the reshaping of social inequalities in access to medical contraceptives” in the journal SSM-Population Health.
In this article, the authors highlight changes in contraceptive practices around the 2012-2013 French “pill sacre” that differed according to women’s social background which is notably marked by a decrease in the use of medical contraceptives (i.e. subject to medical prescription) among upper class and working class women between 2010 and 2016.
The article is available for free access here.
New publication
To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Neuwirth Law legalizing contraception in France, the members of the Junior Lab Contraception&Genre review in an article for Population & Societies the history of contraception in France, comparing the French context to other contraceptive situations in the world.
The full article of Population & Societies available here.
Program of the Conference entitled “Gender and contraception: what kind of (r)evolutions ?” is now available!
Keynote speakers are:
Elizabeth Watkins (University of California, U.S.A.)
Nelly Oudshoorn (University of Twente, The Netherlands)
Françoise Vergès (Collège d’études mondiales, France)
Diana Greene Foster (University of California, U.S.A.)
Contraception & Genre 