The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution
The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution

Author: Jonathan Eig

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2014-10-13

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 0393245942

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A Chicago Tribune "Best Books of 2014" • A Slate "Best Books 2014: Staff Picks" • A St. Louis Post-Dispatch "Best Books of 2014" The fascinating story of one of the most important scientific discoveries of the twentieth century. We know it simply as "the pill," yet its genesis was anything but simple. Jonathan Eig's masterful narrative revolves around four principal characters: the fiery feminist Margaret Sanger, who was a champion of birth control in her campaign for the rights of women but neglected her own children in pursuit of free love; the beautiful Katharine McCormick, who owed her fortune to her wealthy husband, the son of the founder of International Harvester and a schizophrenic; the visionary scientist Gregory Pincus, who was dismissed by Harvard in the 1930s as a result of his experimentation with in vitro fertilization but who, after he was approached by Sanger and McCormick, grew obsessed with the idea of inventing a drug that could stop ovulation; and the telegenic John Rock, a Catholic doctor from Boston who battled his own church to become an enormously effective advocate in the effort to win public approval for the drug that would be marketed by Searle as Enovid. Spanning the years from Sanger’s heady Greenwich Village days in the early twentieth century to trial tests in Puerto Rico in the 1950s to the cusp of the sexual revolution in the 1960s, this is a grand story of radical feminist politics, scientific ingenuity, establishment opposition, and, ultimately, a sea change in social attitudes. Brilliantly researched and briskly written, The Birth of the Pill is gripping social, cultural, and scientific history.

America and the Pill
America and the Pill

Author: Elaine Tyler May

Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com

Published: 2010-09

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 1458758273

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In 1960, the FDA approved the contraceptive commonly known as “the pill.” Advocates, developers, and manufacturers believed that the convenient new drug would put an end to unwanted pregnancy, ensure happy marriages, and even eradicate poverty. But as renowned historian Elaine Tyler May reveals inAmerica and the Pill, it was women who embraced it and created change. They used the pill to challenge the authority of doctors, pharmaceutical companies, and lawmakers. They demonstrated that the pill was about much more than family planning—it offered women control over their bodies and their lives. From little-known accounts of the early years to personal testimonies from young women today, May illuminates what the pill did and didnotachieve during its half century on the market.

This Is Your Brain on Birth Control
This Is Your Brain on Birth Control

Author: Sarah Hill

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2019-10-01

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0525536035

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An eye-opening book that reveals crucial information every woman taking hormonal birth control should know This groundbreaking book sheds light on how hormonal birth control affects women--and the world around them--in ways we are just now beginning to understand. By allowing women to control their fertility, the birth control pill has revolutionized women's lives. Women are going to college, graduating, and entering the workforce in greater numbers than ever before, and there's good reason to believe that the birth control pill has a lot to do with this. But there's a lot more to the pill than meets the eye. Although women go on the pill for a small handful of targeted effects (pregnancy prevention and clearer skin, yay!), sex hormones can't work that way. Sex hormones impact the activities of billions of cells in the body at once, many of which are in the brain. There, they play a role in influencing attraction, sexual motivation, stress, hunger, eating patterns, emotion regulation, friendships, aggression, mood, learning, and more. This means that being on the birth control pill makes women a different version of themselves than when they are off of it. And this is a big deal. For instance, women on the pill have a dampened cortisol spike in response to stress. While this might sound great (no stress!), it can have negative implications for learning, memory, and mood. Additionally, because the pill influences who women are attracted to, being on the pill may inadvertently influence who women choose as partners, which can have important implications for their relationships once they go off it. Sometimes these changes are for the better . . . but other times, they're for the worse. By changing what women's brains do, the pill also has the ability to have cascading effects on everything and everyone that a woman encounters. This means that the reach of the pill extends far beyond women's own bodies, having a major impact on society and the world. This paradigm-shattering book provides an even-handed, science-based understanding of who women are, both on and off the pill. It will change the way that women think about their hormones and how they view themselves. It also serves as a rallying cry for women to demand more information from science about how their bodies and brains work and to advocate for better research. This book will help women make more informed decisions about their health, whether they're on the pill or off of it.

Just Get on the Pill
Just Get on the Pill

Author: Krystale E. Littlejohn

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2021-08-31

Total Pages: 181

ISBN-13: 0520307453

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"The average woman concerned about pregnancy spends approximately thirty years trying to prevent conception. She largely does so alone using prescription birth control, a phenomenon often taken for granted as natural and beneficial in the United States. In Just Get on the Pill, Littlejohn draws on interviews to show how young women come to take responsibility for prescription birth control as the "woman's method" and relinquish control of external condoms as the "man's method." She uncovers how gendered compulsory birth control-in which women are held accountable for preventing and resolving pregnancies in gender-constrained ways-encroaches on women's reproductive autonomy and erodes their ability to protect themselves from disease. In tracing the gendered politics of pregnancy prevention, Littlejohn argues that the gender division of labor in birth control is not natural. It is unjust"--

Sweetening the Pill
Sweetening the Pill

Author: Holy Grigg-Spall

Publisher: John Hunt Publishing

Published: 2013-10-07

Total Pages: 215

ISBN-13: 178099608X

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Millions of healthy women take a powerful medication every day from their mid-teens to menopause - the Pill - but few know how this drug works or the potential side effects. Contrary to cultural myth, the birth-control pill impacts on every organ and function of the body, and yet most women do not even think of it as a drug. Depression, anxiety, paranoia, rage, panic attacks - just a few of the effects of the Pill on half of the over 80% of women who pop these tablets during their lifetimes. When the Pill was released, it was thought that women would not submit to taking a medication each day when they were not sick. Now the Pill is making women sick. However, there are a growing number of women looking for non-hormonal alternatives for preventing pregnancy. In a bid to spark the backlash against hormonal contraceptives, this book asks: Why can't we criticize the Pill? ,

A Good Man
A Good Man

Author: Leon Speroff

Publisher: Arnica Publishing

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13:

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What motivated the man behind the development of the birth control pill? What was the reaction from the Catholic Church? How did the introduction of oral contraception affect the lives of women around the world? For the first time, discover the remarkable story of Gregory Goodwin Pincus, the man who championed the research and development of the pill. Dr. Leon Speroff, himself a renown specialist in reproductive endocrinology, has written a comprehensive biography revealing the personal story behind this dedicated man. The author has interviewed Pincuss living relatives, and numerous others who knew the scientist personally. This book successfully balances the hype and emotional reaction to oral contraception with objective evidence of its value in the world. Thoroughly researched, this is a fascinating read.

The Doctor's Case Against the Pill
The Doctor's Case Against the Pill

Author: Barbara Seaman

Publisher: Hunter House Publishers

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780897931816

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Considered the definitive statement on modern birth-control technologies, this Anniversary Edition includes new, up-to-date chapters on the dangers of Norplant and the risks women on the Pill face today. Because it tells the truth about the Pill, this book provides women with the information they need to make good choices for their own body.

A History of the Birth Control Movement in America
A History of the Birth Control Movement in America

Author: Peter C. Engelman

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2011-04-19

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 0313365105

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This narrative history of one of the most far-reaching social movements in the 20th century shows how it defied the law and made the use of contraception an acceptable social practice—and a necessary component of modern healthcare. A History of the Birth Control Movement in America tells the extraordinary story of a group of reformers dedicated to making contraception legal, accessible, and acceptable. The engrossing tale details how Margaret Sanger's campaign beginning in 1914 to challenge anti-obscenity laws criminalizing the distribution of contraceptive information grew into one of the most far-reaching social reform movements in American history. The book opens with a discussion of the history of birth control methods and the criminalization of contraception and abortion in the 19th century. Its core, however, is an exciting narrative of the campaign in the 20th century, vividly recalling the arrests and indictments, banned publications, imprisonments, confiscations, clinic raids, mass meetings, and courtroom dramas that publicized the cause across the nation. Attention is paid to the movement's thorny alliances with medicine and eugenics and especially to its success in precipitating a profound shift in sexual attitudes that turned the use of contraception into an acceptable social and medical practice. Finally, the birth control movement is linked to court-won privacy protections and the present-day movement for reproductive rights.

Beyond the Pill
Beyond the Pill

Author: Jolene Brighten

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2019-01-29

Total Pages: 331

ISBN-13: 0062847112

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"All women need to read this book."—Dave Asprey, author of The Bulletproof Diet "Groundbreaking solutions for the common hormonal struggles women face both on and off birth control."—Amy Medling, founder of PCOS Diva and author of Healing PCOS A natural, effective program for restoring hormone balance, normalizing your period, and reversing the harmful side effects of ‘The Pill’—for the millions of women who take it for acne, PMS, menstrual cramps, PCOS, Endometriosis, and many more reasons other than contraception. Out of the 100 million women—almost 11 million in the United States alone—who are on the pill, roughly 60 percent take it for non-contraceptive reasons like painful periods, endometriosis, PCOS, and acne. While the birth control pill is widely prescribed as a quick-fix solution to a variety of women’s health conditions, taking it can also result in other more serious and dangerous health consequences. Did you know that women on the pill are more likely to be prescribed an antidepressant? That they are at significantly increased risk for autoimmune disease, heart attack, thyroid and adrenal disorders, and even breast and cervical cancer? That the pill can even cause vaginal dryness, unexplained hair loss, flagging libido, extreme fatigue, and chronic infection. As if women didn’t have enough to worry about, that little pill we’re taking to manage our symptoms is only making things worse. Jolene Brighten, ND, author of the groundbreaking new book Beyond the Pill, specializes in treating women’s hormone imbalances caused by the pill and shares her proven 30-day program designed to reverse the myriad of symptoms women experience every day—whether you choose to stay on the pill or not. The first book of its kind to target the birth control pill and the scientifically-proven symptoms associated with taking it, Beyond the Pill is an actionable plan for taking control, and will help readers: Locate the root cause of their hormonal issues, like estrogen dominance, low testosterone, and low progesterone Discover a pain-free, manageable period free of cramps, acne, stress, or PMS without the harmful side effects that come with the pill Detox the liver, support the adrenals and thyroid, heal the gut, reverse metabolic mayhem, boost fertility, and enhance mood Transition into a nutrition and supplement program, with more than 30 hormone-balancing recipes Featuring simple diet and lifestyle interventions, Beyond the Pill is the first step to reversing the risky side effects of the pill, finally finding hormonal health, and getting your badass self back.

This Man's Pill
This Man's Pill

Author: Carl Djerassi

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2003-04-25

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 019159301X

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October 15, 1951 marks the birthday of one of the key episodes in 20th century social history: the first synthesis of a steroid oral contraceptive in a small laboratory in Mexico City - an event that triggered the development of the Pill. Carl Djerassi has been honoured worldwide for that accomplishment, which ultimately changed the life of women and the nature of human reproduction in ways that were not foreseeable. On the 50th anniversary of this pivotal event, Djerassi weaves a compelling personal narrative full of self-reflection and occasional humour on the impact this invention has had on the world at large and on him personally. He credits the Pill with radically altering his academic career at Stanford University to become one of the few American chemists writing novels and plays. This Man's Pill presents a forcefully revisionist account of the early history of the Pill, debunking many of the journalistic and romantic accounts of its scientific origin. Djerassi does not shrink from exploring why we have no Pill for men or why Japan only approved the Pill in 1999 (together with Viagra). Emphasizing that development of the Pill occurred during the post-War period of technological euphoria, he believes that it could not be repeated in today's climate. Would the sexual revolution of the 1960s or the impending separation of sex ("in bed") and fertilization ("under the microscope") still have happened? This Man's Pill answers such questions while providing a uniquely authoritative account of a discovery that changed the world.