Upholding Ideology, Eroding Autonomy: Gendered Compulsory Birth Control and the Problems of Sex and Gender

• In Event: 2156 - Reproductive Control and Decision-Making

Abstract

In this chapter (from a working book manuscript drawing on data from 103 in-depth interviews), I move from examining how the connection between sex and gender structures inequality in contraceptive use to more explicitly examining the consequences of sex and gender ideologies for gendered health inequity. Though improving the use of highly effective methods of birth control has been upheld as the solution to a variety of social ills, doing so has a variety of unintended consequences. Drawing on women’s narratives of preventing pregnancy and birth, I show how the interaction of sex and gender in contraception can generate a compulsory birth control system for women—in interactions with their partners, their families, and their doctors. The analysis shows how birth control is stratified by gender at two points on the continuum from pre-conception to birth—in both contraception and abortion. Contrary to assertions that gender inequality is an unfortunate, but beneficial feature of contraceptive use, this analysis sheds light on how taken for granted assumptions about sex and gender encroach on women’s ability to protect themselves from disease, and ironically, can sometimes undermine their ability to prevent pregnancy.

Author

• Krystale Littlejohn, Occidental College