Choice Reviews Online · 2004 · 162 citations · 0 references
MedicineGender StudiesHealth PolicyContraceptionFamily PlanningReproductive HealthContraceptive MethodsContraceptive UseHormonal ContraceptionMale ContraceptionReproductive Health PolicyReproductive HistoryAdministrative Regulation Of ContraceptivesContraceptive HistoryHormonal Male ContraceptionMale Contraceptive UseModern Contraceptive UseReproductive Co-responsibilityReproductive ResponsibilityTwentieth-century Historiography
The book traces the history of male hormonal contraceptives, noting that since their introduction scientists, feminists, journalists, and entrepreneurs have debated acceptance and that early interest came from China, India, and Western feminists, with the eventual introduction hinging on evolving ideas about reproductive responsibility. The author seeks to explain why, despite early technical feasibility, a male contraceptive pill has yet to reach the market, by offering a detailed examination of the cultural, scientific, and policy dynamics surrounding the male pill from the 1960s to the 1990s. The study documents the WHO‑led global research network of the 1970s and traces how the search for a male pill required reorganization of drug‑testing standards, protocols, and family‑planning infrastructure, including new clinics, spaces, professionals, and patient categories. The book concludes that the male pill narrative reflects the construction of masculinities in the late twentieth century as much as it does the technical development of safe and effective contraceptive technologies.
The Male Pill is the first book to reveal the history of hormonal contraceptives for men. Nelly Oudshoorn explains why it is that, although the technical feasibility of male contraceptives was demonstrated as early as the 1970s, there is, to date, no male pill. Ever since the idea of hormonal contraceptives for men was introduced, scientists, feminists, journalists, and pharmaceutical entrepreneurs have questioned whether men and women would accept a new male contraceptive if one were available. Providing a richly detailed examination of the cultural, scientific, and policy work around the male pill from the 1960s through the 1990s, Oudshoorn advances work at the intersection of gender studies and the sociology of technology. Oudshoorn emphasizes that the introduction of contraceptives for men depends to a great extent on changing ideas about reproductive responsibility. Initial interest in the male pill, she shows, came from outside the scientific community: from the governments of China and India, which were interested in population control, and from Western feminists, who wanted the responsibilities and health risks associated with contraception shared more equally between the sexes. She documents how in the 1970s, the World Health Organization took the lead in investigating male contraceptives by coordinating an unprecedented, worldwide research network. She chronicles how the search for a male pill required significant reorganization of drug-testing standards and protocols and of the family-planning infrastructure—including founding special clinics for men, creating separate spaces for men within existing clinics, enrolling new professionals, and defining new categories of patients. The Male Pill is ultimately a story as much about the design of masculinities in the last decades of the twentieth century as it is about the development of safe and effective technologies.