On the Pill

In this examination of the pill's cultural and medical history, the author re-explores the scientific and ideological forces which led to its development, the parts women played in debates over its application and the role of the media, medical profession and pharmaceutical industry.

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The commercial availability of the birth control pill in the early 1960s permitted women far greater reproductive choice, created a new set of ethical and religious questions, encouraged feminism, changed the dynamics of women's health care and altered gender relations. In this exploration of the pill's cultural and medical history, the author re-examines the scientific and ideological forces that led to its development, the parts women played in debates over its application, and the role of the media, medical profession and pharmaceutical industry in deciding issues of its safety and meaning. Watkins' study seeks to help us understand the contraceptive revolution and to appreciate the misinterpretations that surround it. The author argues, for example, that the pill did not instigate the sexual revolution and she describes how the media's blurred coverage of sexual behaviour and contraception produced the enduring, but inaccurate image of the pill as the symbol of sexual revolt. She demonstrates that the women who requested oral contraceptives from their physicians in the 1960s became more active participants in their own medical care.
Drawing on traditional sources as well as interviews, television news recordings, professional journals, popular magazines and newspapers, the text provides a history of one of the 20th century's most significant medical and cultural developments.