Feminism & Birth Control

What is feminism, really?...

Feminism has occurred
in three general waves...

  • First Wave
    • 19th & early 20th century; mostly about voting rights; women of color excluded
  • Second Wave
    • Mid-20th century; "women's liberation movement" for social & legal rights; non-middle class women excluded
  • Third Wave
    • Late 20th & early 21st century; attempted to address shortcomings of previous versions via intersectionality
  • Fourth Wave (?)

A history of birth control, starting before the first wave of feminism...

Abstinence

The most effective form of birth control because the best way to avoid unplanned pregnancy is to abstain from sex. 

Withdrawal 

(Date of origin unknown, but recorded in the Book of Genesis)

Condoms made of fish bladders, linen sheaths, and animal intestines

3000 BCE

Items inserted into vaginas to prevent sperm from reaching egg (called pessaries)

1850 BCE

Plants with contraceptive
and abortifacient properties ingested in proper dosages

600 BCE

Thomas Malthus publishes
An Essay on the
Principles of Population 

1798

Condoms and diaphragms
made of vulcanized rubber

1838

Comstock Act passed in U.S., outlawing the shipment of
sex items or information
through the U.S. Postal Service

1873

Formation of the
Malthusian League in Great Britain with the goal of promoting
family planning

1877

Margaret Sanger

Nurse who advocated birth control and family planning

Prosecuted under Comstock Act:

  • 1914 for a publishing the book Family Limitation
  • 1916 for opening the first birth control clinic in U.S.

Founded American Birth Control League in 1921, which later became Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of reproductive health services in America

The "rhythm method"
(aka "calendar method")
utilizes the ovulation cycle itself
to determine egg fertility

1932

Birth control pills are prescribed by a doctor and taken every day to adjust hormone levels, preventing sperm from fertilizing eggs

1960

Intrauterine devices (IUDs)
are inserted into the uterus
by a doctor to prevent
sperm from reaching eggs

1968

Safe and legal access to abortion
is affirmed as a constitutional right by the Supreme Court
in the Roe v. Wade decision

1973

Contraceptive implants, shots, patches, and new types of pills offer a greater variety
of birth control options

1990s - 2000s

The responsibility for birth control falls mainly to people with uteruses and remains a controversial topic

Today