As many women and their families celebrated Mother’s Day this year, an auspicious milestone in the social and cultural history of women’s health also occurred: the Pill turned 50 years old. Sunday May 9, 2010 marks the 50th anniversary of the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of the birth control pill.
Throughout its history, the Pill has been the center of ongoing controversy about what it means for women to be able to medically control their reproductive health. Whether it is seen as a boon to women’s emancipation by empowering them to control their bodies, or as an instrument of moral decay, the Pill certainly medicalized contraception, leading to, if not sexual revolution, at least a broadening of perceptions about what constitutes women’s health. As pointed out by Andrea Tone, Canada Research Chair in the Social History of Medicine at McGill University, in an interview with the Globe and Mail: “Prior to 1960, it was rare for a woman to talk to a doctor about birth control… But the Pill required a gynecological exam, a consultation and discussion about intimate matters, which led to the wider conversation about women’s health.”
You can read more about the Pill and how it has shaped both women’s health and the broader social and cultural landscape over the past 50 years in the following articles:
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