The Pill: Sexual Liberation?

Summary

Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society
Episode: The Pill: Sexual Liberation?
Host: Kate Lister
Guest: Donna Drucker, Historian at Columbia University and Author of Contraception: A Concise History
Release Date: May 20, 2025

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Introduction: The Pill as a Catalyst for Change

In this enlightening episode, host Kate Lister delves into the transformative history of the contraceptive pill, exploring its origins, societal impact, and the complex legacy it holds. Joined by historian Donna Drucker, the discussion unravels the multifaceted story of how the pill became a pivotal tool in women's liberation while also uncovering the darker chapters of its development and distribution.

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The Pre-Pill Era: Limited Contraceptive Options

Before the advent of the pill, contraceptive methods were limited and often fraught with barriers.
Donna Drucker explains, “In the 1940s and 50s, contraception for men was primarily condoms, which weren’t easily accessible without significant courage. For women, options like cervical caps and diaphragms were available but were inconvenient and stigmatized, often restricted to married women with prescriptions” (12:18).

This scarcity created a pressing need for a more reliable and discreet form of birth control, setting the stage for scientific innovation.

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Origins of the Pill: Scientific Breakthrough and Collaboration

The development of the contraceptive pill was rooted in hormone research and an amalgamation of efforts from dedicated individuals.
Donna Drucker outlines the key players: “Gregory Pincus, a Harvard scientist, partnered with Margaret Sanger, a longtime birth control advocate, Katherine McCormick, an heiress with a biology background, and obstetrician John Rock” (18:01).

Together, they sought to create a reliable contraceptive method. Their collaboration led to the creation of an early version of the pill, tested primarily in Puerto Rico due to its changing political climate and lack of existing birth control access (20:54).

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Testing and Ethical Complications: The Dark Side of Innovation

The initial trials of the pill were marred by ethical oversights and severe side effects.
Donna Drucker recounts, “They tested the pill on Puerto Rican women, often without proper consent, leading to significant side effects like extreme nausea, weight gain, migraines, blood clots, and even strokes” (22:33).

Despite these adverse reactions, the proponents believed the benefits for population control outweighed the costs. This period highlights the ethical compromises made in the pursuit of scientific advancement.

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Approval and Social Shifts: The Pill Enters the Mainstream

By 1960, the pill was approved for contraceptive use in the United States, marking a significant social shift.
Kate Lister notes, “The pill allowed women to control their fertility without their male partners' knowledge, revolutionizing interpersonal relationships and contributing to women’s emancipation” (27:35).

However, access was initially restricted. Unmarried women couldn't obtain the pill until 1973, and it wasn't widely accessible until the late 1980s and early 1990s when formulations became safer and more affordable (36:44).

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Impact on Women’s Liberation and Employment

The pill played a crucial role in advancing women's rights and opportunities.
Donna Drucker explains, “With reliable contraception, women could pursue higher education and careers without the fear of unplanned pregnancies. This autonomy was fundamental in allowing women to establish themselves professionally” (44:28).

Moreover, before legal protections, women risked losing their jobs upon pregnancy. The pill empowered them to manage their reproductive health, thereby enhancing their economic and social standing (45:18).

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Government Exploitation and Population Control

While the pill was a symbol of liberation for many, it was also co-opted for sinister purposes by certain governments.
Donna Drucker discusses, “In places like South Africa, the apartheid government used contraceptives like Depo Provera to control the black African population, administering shots without proper consent” (34:49).

This duality underscores the pill's complex legacy, serving both personal freedom and oppressive state agendas.

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Evolution of the Pill: Safer and More Accessible

Over the decades, the contraceptive pill has undergone significant refinements to enhance safety and usability.
Donna Drucker highlights, “Originally, the pill contained high doses of hormones, leading to severe side effects. By the late 1980s and 1990s, formulations were adjusted to lower hormone levels, reducing health risks and making the pill safer for widespread use” (29:40).

Additionally, the expiration of patents allowed multiple pharmaceutical companies to produce the pill, increasing accessibility and variety in contraceptive options.

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The Pill and the Sexual Revolution: A Nuanced Relationship

The contraceptive pill is often credited with fueling the sexual revolution of the 1960s, but the reality is more nuanced.
Donna Drucker points out, “While the pill contributed to sexual freedom by reducing pregnancy fears, it was one of many factors driving the revolution. Cultural shifts, legal changes, and other social movements also played significant roles” (38:49).

Moreover, the pill's benefits were not evenly distributed, as men often bore the responsibility without equivalent contraceptive options, highlighting ongoing gender disparities.

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Future of Contraception: The Quest for Male Contraceptives

Looking ahead, the possibility of male contraceptives remains a topic of interest but faces significant challenges.
Donna Drucker shares, “Although studies have attempted to develop a male pill, issues with side effects have hindered progress. Future solutions may emerge, but they will likely be limited to specific types of relationships” (47:54).

This ongoing challenge underscores the need for balanced contraceptive responsibility between genders.

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Conclusion: Lessons from the Pill’s History

The history of the contraceptive pill is a tapestry of scientific triumph, social liberation, ethical dilemmas, and governmental exploitation.
Donna Drucker summarizes, “The pill transformed women's lives by granting reproductive autonomy, but its history also serves as a cautionary tale about the misuse of medical advancements for population control and the importance of ethical standards in scientific research” (42:32).

This episode of Betwixt The Sheets offers a comprehensive exploration of the pill’s profound impact on society, highlighting both its empowering legacy and the ethical challenges it faced.

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Notable Quotes:

• Donna Drucker (12:18): “In the 1940s and 50s, contraception for men was primarily condoms, which weren’t easily accessible without significant courage. For women, options like cervical caps and diaphragms were available but were inconvenient and stigmatized, often restricted to married women with prescriptions.”

• Donna Drucker (18:01): “Gregory Pincus, a Harvard scientist, partnered with Margaret Sanger, a longtime birth control advocate, Katherine McCormick, an heiress with a biology background, and obstetrician John Rock.”

• Kate Lister (27:35): “The pill allowed women to control their fertility without their male partners' knowledge, revolutionizing interpersonal relationships and contributing to women’s emancipation.”

• Donna Drucker (34:49): “In places like South Africa, the apartheid government used contraceptives like Depo Provera to control the black African population, administering shots without proper consent.”

• Donna Drucker (38:49): “While the pill contributed to sexual freedom by reducing pregnancy fears, it was one of many factors driving the revolution. Cultural shifts, legal changes, and other social movements also played significant roles.”

• Donna Drucker (42:32): “The pill transformed women's lives by granting reproductive autonomy, but its history also serves as a cautionary tale about the misuse of medical advancements for population control and the importance of ethical standards in scientific research.”

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the rich and engaging discussion from the podcast episode, providing valuable insights into the history and impact of the contraceptive pill for those unfamiliar with the original conversation.

Transcript

[Kate Lister]

Hi, I'm your host Kate Lister. If you would like betwixt the Sheets ad free and get early access, Sign up to History Hit with a History Hit subscription. You can also watch hundreds of original documentaries with top history presenters and enjoy a new release every single week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com subscribe.

[Josie Santee]

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[Kate Lister]

Hello my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister. You are listening to Betwixt the sheets. This is a spicy podcast. This is a saucy podcast. This is the kind of podcast that might make your granny clutch her pearls. Well, not my granny, and probably not your granny too, but you know what I mean. So in order to protect everybody, I do have to let you know this is an adult podcast, spoken by adults to other adults about adulty things in an adulty way, covering a range of adult subjects. And you should be an adult too. We call that the fair dues warning, because fair do's we did warn you. So now you can't get upset with us. Right, on with the show. In 1975, country music superstar Loretta Lynn dropped one of her most successful, not to mention her most controversial songs. It was titled the Pill. And it told the story of a young woman who's decided to go and have herself some fun because she has got a reliable contraceptive now, the pill. She says she's sick of having baby after baby after baby while her husband goes out at night chasing other women. But, oh, how the tables have turned. We would play you some of that song right now, but frankly, we couldn't afford the licensing fee. But trust me, it is a belter of a tune. And there is no doubt that the arrival of the contraceptive pill in 1960 changed everything. And Loretta Lynn was a woman who knew about it. She had six children, four before the age of 20 20. Yikes. The pill promised liberation for women, but at what price? How much do we really know about its dark and troubling history? Who was it tested on, for example? And what were the early side effects like? Heads up. It's pretty gruesome. So let's break out the synthetic hormones and find out more.

[Unknown]

What do you look for in a man?

[Thrive Market Representative]

Oh, money, of course.

[Donna Drucker]

You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you.

[Kate Lister]

I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs by just turning a knob and pushing the button.

[Donna Drucker]

Now Era.

[Kate Lister]

Now.

[Donna Drucker]

Yes, social courtesy does make a difference. Goodness.

[Kate Lister]

What beautiful dance. Goodness has nothing to do with it, dearie. Hello, and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society. With me, Kaylister. When the pill was first introduced, it was rightly heralded as a game changer. An emancipatory tool that allowed women to control their reproductive systems for the first time. But this was a very hard won battle, and it's one that's still being fought all around the world to this very day. So what part did the Pill play in the social emancipation of women? And what can we learn from its complex history? Today, I am joined by Donna Drucker, author of A Concise History, who is a historian at Columbia University. We are going to dive into the early history of the Pill. How it was tested, who it was tested on, and just how mad some of the early versions of this were. Are you ready to do this? I'm ready to do it. Let's crack on. Hello, and welcome to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Donna Drucker. How are you doing?

[Donna Drucker]

Oh, I'm doing very well. How are you?

[Kate Lister]

I'm so excited to talk to you about this. I'm surprised we haven't had this as a subject before now, but I'm thrilled we've saved it just for you. You are the author of Contraception A Concise History, and we're here to talk about the Pill. But before we get to the Pill, can I ask you, what was the origin story of that book? Do you remember when you had the moment of like, I must write about this?

[Donna Drucker]

Yes. I did my PhD dissertation on Alfred Kinsey and the Kinsey Reports.

[Kate Lister]

I'll do it.

[Donna Drucker]

And in studying them, I realized that he hardly ever talked about the role of contraception in sexual behavior.

[Kate Lister]

He doesn't.

[Donna Drucker]

And being so deep in his kind of thinking and world, I didn't really pay that absence all that much attention at first. But then I thought, wait a minute. Of course contraception will play a very significant role in people's decision to have sex or not. And so I thought, well, I want to understand the history of contraception better so I can understand its role in the history of sexuality. And that's the origin of the book.

[Kate Lister]

I never really clocked that before. I've read Kinsey a number of times, and, no, he doesn't mention contraception in that very much at all. I'm trying to think. Does he say anything about it at all?

[Donna Drucker]

Not really. I think he omits it or puts it to the side because contraception was really kind of one of the only ways that scientists could talk about sexual behavior. And my thinking is that he thought it was kind of a well studied topic and he wanted to turn the conversation about sexual behavior to actual sex and not focusing on, you know, how to prevent pregnancy. But it's just speculation.

[Kate Lister]

Well, good call. For anybody who's listening who isn't aware of who Kinsey is and what he did, could you give us a very quick overview?

[Donna Drucker]

Sure. Alfred Kinsey was an American scientist. He was originally an entomologist. He studied a species of insect called the gall wasp. And in the late 1930s, he became interested in human sexual behavior, in part because he was writing textbooks on science education and realized that they really said nothing about human sexual behavior. And also because students were starting to come to him to ask other questions about biology. And he thought, I should start a marriage course. And so in 1938, he begins a marriage course for students who are engaged or in the early years of marriage. It takes off like gangbusters. And then he realizes, time to leave the Golewals behind. He starts interviewing people up in Chicago and Indianapolis. The marriage course gets left behind, and his work sort of snowballs into the two large volumes, one called Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, one called Sexual Behavior in the Human Female. They come out in 1948 and 1953, and there are these enormous compendiums of human sexual activity that still have resonance in sexology today.

[Kate Lister]

And it was a proper earthquake moment. I mean, ever since then, there's been a lot of scientists going back to it, going, excuse me, Kinsey, just a second there just. I think we might have some issues with bits and pieces of this. But what it did is it normalized a lot of taboo sexual behaviors, Said things like, masturbation is pretty much a universal experience, sexual dysfunction, lesbianism, gay, all of these kind of sexual things. It basically said that it's not a moral issue. This is normal human behavior.

[Donna Drucker]

Absolutely, absolutely. He documents incredibly wide range of behavior, thought, desire, experience. And listeners may know him from the zero to six scale, or what's called the Kinsey scale, which is something you can take a quiz about online, but really you just need to look at it, which just places people on a scale from 0 to 6 in terms of how heterosexual they are to how homosexual their feelings, desires, behaviors are.

[Kate Lister]

I love that. And he. This came out, as you said, in the 40s and 50s. And recently I've been doing some research around the history of sex ed. And it's really interesting that. Because when you say that he started his course on married life, what you notice is that wherever any brave soul attempts to do this, to give people the education they need, often around contraception as well, is there's an absolute mad scramble for it. People are desperate for this information. And then the authorities get involved and it all gets shut down. And it's like, well, you can't do that. There was a pamphlet that was printed in London. It came for an American one. It was like Fruits of the Something or Other. At one point, they were printing, like, over a Thousand a day just trying to get this information out there. And then it all got shut down. People must have been absolutely starved for this kind of information about sexual.

[Donna Drucker]

Absolutely. I mean, he was teaching at Indiana University, which was to some extent still is in rural southern Indiana. And you couldn't read any books about it if you were just an average student. You might have seen some kind of skin magazine, but it would be very hard to find films non existent. Television wasn't popular yet, so there really wasn't any source of information besides maybe your friends giving you poor information, maybe a doctor telling you to abstain and kind of your own, your own experience.

[Kate Lister]

The levels of sexual ignorance they must, especially around contraception. What kind of contraception was even available in the 1940s and 50s?

[Donna Drucker]

40S and 50s, I'll say men, for anyone with male anatomy would be condoms, although they would also not be all that easy to find if you didn't have a lot of courage to ask the pharmacist a wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

[Kate Lister]

Something for the weekend.

[Donna Drucker]

Yeah, women. Only married women in most cases could find a cervical cap or a diaphragm from a physician. But again, they weren't very popular. You would have had to make a good case for it. They weren't all that easy to insert or remove. So there was a hunger and a need for some other kind of contraception that would be easier to use, be more discreet, less messy, that wasn't as kind of dependent on the moment.

[Kate Lister]

Nicely put.

[Donna Drucker]

As other methods were.

[Kate Lister]

Can you paint a bit of a picture about why reliable contraception was so important? Because it goes beyond just like protecting about STDs, which is also incredibly important. But why at this time for women in particular, was contraception so badly needed?

[Donna Drucker]

It's a time when, at least in the US women had the right to vote, but they still didn't have a lot of other rights. So it was very hard to prosecute for sexual assault or rape. On a broader scale, women couldn't get loans, bank loans or credit cards. And so they're more restricted financially, they have less access to higher education. So if they are pregnant, they're very much tied to a particular man. If, you know, they can get married or they want to get married, but if they don't want to get married, they don't care for the man or he doesn't care for her. There is an incredible stigma against unwed mothers. I think. Of course, it's not just the case in the us it's the case in a lot of countries. And so if there's a way to prevent pregnancy for encounters that are pleasurable or not, then that can save a lot of grief, sorrow, despair, financial ruin.

[Kate Lister]

It goes really does contraception really does go to the heart of women's liberation in so many different ways. The ability to control how many pregnancies you have. Because we're existing in a system where women are financially dependent upon men, especially if they get pregnant. You have to get married, he's going to support you. But having all of those babies, I don't know, like, what's the largest family number you've ever seen in your research? I've seen some like shocking ones, maybe.

[Donna Drucker]

Around 20, I think it's like, I mean, but ow, ow.

[Kate Lister]

The physical demand of that of birthing 20, carrying and birthing 20 babies, I can't imagine. Unbelievable, right? And of course that then has a huge knock on effect, doesn't it? Like you can't go and get a job or have much of a social life or any of the other stuff if you've got 20 babies or even.

[Donna Drucker]

One baby really, if you want to. Especially at the time, you know, of course household chores took a lot more time than they do now. They're a lot less conveniences. And so if you had more pregnancies, you were also taking care of more children with all these other household chores and your husband wasn't going to help, it wasn't his job. So your chance to develop yourself in other ways were very limited.

[Kate Lister]

So you can see there is this huge need for some kind of reliable contraception. I am going to have to tell people now that this history is not quite the yay, well done guys that you might have been hoping.

[Donna Drucker]

No.

[Kate Lister]

But tell me a little bit about the contraceptive pill and where that came from.

[Donna Drucker]

The contraceptive pill comes out of scientific research on hormones and also on steroids. So once scientists found out the different kinds of hormones in the body and had a rough understanding of what those hormones could do, of course they realized, well, hormones are required for pregnancy. And then the next step in the logic chain is what hormones can be then stopped to prevent pregnancy. And there's really kind of two pharmaceutical companies in the 40s that start investing in this research. I will focus on the US companies. There are some other European companies, companies as well, and they're called Syntex and Searle. Their names aren't all that important. But two scientists discover this connection with progesterone. And so Gregory Pincus is a Harvard scientist who ends up getting denied tenure and he establishes his own research foundation, and he's doing research on preventing pregnancy in rabbits, but he doesn't have any money. So the dream team of four that come together in the US Are Pincus himself, Margaret Sanger, who's a longtime birth control advocate since the 1910s. She's promoting the diaphragm cervical cap. But she doesn't have the money, but she has the motivation and the will. Katherine McCormick is the heiress to the International Harvester Company.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, ka ching. Hello.

[Donna Drucker]

Yeah. And her husband passes away. He was mentally ill for a very long time. He passes away in 1947. And she has a lot of money. And she also is one of the first woman to have a degree in biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. So she has the interest and the money. And the last person involved is a obstetrician gynecologist called John Rock, and he's in Massachusetts, and he's very Catholic, he's very religious, but he is also seeing the wear and tear on women who can't control pregnancies. And so he is teaching women the rhythm method, or what we would know later as the rhythm method.

[Kate Lister]

What is the rhythm method, Donna? And please don't do this at home.

[Donna Drucker]

Yeah, it's something. So this is a sort of a bit of a side trip, but I guess in addition to mechanical methods like the condom in the diaphragm, one scientist in Japan and one in Germany discovered the time of ovulation. It was possible sort of to time heterosexual sex so that you would reduce the risk of having sex when the woman was ovulating. The Roman Catholic Church loves this method because there's no interference in the act of sex. But it's a way sort of. Again, this is all sort of. It's a way to somewhat control the chance of a pregnancy. So Rock is a firm believer. He tries to teach this method. It can sort of work if you're, like, very, very rigid about it, but you end up denying your desire. Because when women are ovulating, that's when they want to have sex, because their bodies are like, hello, here we are, all ready to go. But he realizes this isn't practical working, and so he's the one who has access to patients who might be able to test the pill on women. So the four of them together, their different strengths, are able to produce a trial pill, and it is tested. I mean, here comes the part where kind of like scientific motivation comes into contrast with how we think about contraception now, which is these folks were mostly more interested in population control than they were in women's autonomy. And so they have collaborators who test the pill on some of roc's patients with consent, but also involuntarily on women in a psychiatric hospital in Massachusetts and also in Puerto Rico.

[Kate Lister]

Why did they go to Puerto Rico?

[Donna Drucker]

Puerto Rico because its relationship with the US Mainland was changing. There were a lot. Lot of wonders about whether Puerto Rico would become the next state. And also it had a burgeoning population and basically no access to any kind of birth control. Pincus had some connections to hospitals and physicians in Puerto Rico, and so an early version of the Pill was tested there at the time. There's not like the apparatus that we think of today with out of any kind of medical trial, like control groups and consent forms and oversight, federal oversight and things like that.

[Kate Lister]

Who were they testing it on? I mean, Puerto Rico women. But what was the demographic of women they were trialing?

[Donna Drucker]

It was mostly women, Puerto Rican women who had probably at least one child to show that they were fertile themselves. And they didn't have. They didn't have any fertility problems. That would kind of confound the results. So they found, like, nurses in hospitals, they went into poor neighborhoods to ask women to give this a try. And a number of women did go through the trial, and they find that the pill works, but it also comes with tremendous side effects because the hormone.

[Kate Lister]

Levels were really high, weren't they?

[Donna Drucker]

Yes.

[Kate Lister]

What are we talking about here? What kind of things are being reported?

[Donna Drucker]

So, in terms of side effects, there's the same side effects we see today, and we'll get to that, but they're more extreme. So nausea, weight gain, bloating, migraines. Migraines. More seriously, blood clots and strokes.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, wow.

[Donna Drucker]

Yeah. So Pincus and his collaborator in Puerto Rico, it's a woman physician named Idris Rice Ray. And they recognize the side effects, but they're not all that concerned about them. They think the pill is so good, it's so effective, it will do wonders for population control. And these women are just complaining.

[Kate Lister]

So they knew about these side effects? They'd seen them?

[Donna Drucker]

Oh, sure. Oh, absolutely.

[Kate Lister]

And they went, stuff and nonsense. You're just making a big fuss about nothing.

[Donna Drucker]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Women are making a fuss. Like the benefits outweigh the costs from our perspective. And so the pill is eventually approved in the US for regulation of menstruation in 1957, and then it is approved for contraceptive purposes in 1960. And then the story changes quite a bit.

[Kate Lister]

I'll be back with Donna after this short break.

[Thrive Market Representative]

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[Unknown]

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[Hannah]

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[Kate Lister]

Birth control advocates, you know, cozying up, eugenicists aside, which is always horribly disappointing whenever you study this history, because you're rooting for people so hard. You're like Margaret Sanger and Mary Stokes, my God, I want you to be a hero, but why are you doing the awful thing? Stop it. But anyway, that's just what happened. But it was controversial, the birth control movement. People got into a real twist about it. So when these guys came back from Puerto Rico and went, we've got the pill, how was that received?

[Donna Drucker]

It was seen as a major social shift because it could change interpersonal relationships. So a woman could now take a pill and control her fertility without telling her husband or her male partner. And lots of nation states were like, hello, okay, we can use this to control our populations. We can keep people we don't want to be having children from having more children, and we can take it away from people we do want to have children. So it becomes part of a global interest in population control, either to forward the number of children for certain people or to limit the number of children other people have, of course, very much tied up in racism. Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

And it's all sounding depressingly familiar even today, isn't it, with the pronatalist movement? So in the early days then, was it a case that you could just go down to your local pharmacist and say, hello, I'm a woman who'd like to have sex, please. I like the pill.

[Donna Drucker]

No, no surprise. It was at first very hard to obtain, especially if you were not married.

[Kate Lister]

Gotta be married, number one.

[Donna Drucker]

Yes. The rights of unmarried people to have contraception or to have access to it wasn't permitted until 1973. And so for a good, oh, 13 years after the pills approved, you could, you could get it in that period, but it wasn' federally allowed. Even married people officially couldn't get it until they were until 1965. And so it spreads like wildfire across countries. It's not that hard to formulate. So lots of different companies start to make it, get the patent.

[Kate Lister]

And they were all side effect free then, presumably because those women in Puerto Rico were just making a big old fuss about nothing. Right?

[Donna Drucker]

Yeah. You know, the dosage was very high in terms of what we have now, the figures that I have are that the original dose of Enovid was 9.85 milligrams of progestin and 150 micrograms of estrogen. And then by 2012, the average dose was 0.1-3 milligrams of progestin, and 20-50 micrograms of estrogen.

[Kate Lister]

Jesus, what was happening to these women?

[Donna Drucker]

Then the reporting of side effects finally reaches a critical point. About eight or nine years after the pill is introduced in the US There were deaths.

[Kate Lister]

This isn't just headaches and sore boobs going on.

[Donna Drucker]

No, no, this, the blood clots and the strok were very real, very serious and quite deadly. There was a journalist named Barbara Seaman who ended up writing a book about this called the Doctor's Case against the Pill, which came out in 1969. And it precipitated federal hearings about the side effects and the deadly side effects of the pill. And so over time, the pill effects are diminished due to the lower dosage. But as anyone who's taken the pill knows, you know, different formulations can still generate these same kinds of side effects.

[Kate Lister]

Can you either confirm or dispel a myth for me, the reason why? And if you're not on the contraceptive pill, this is a little life lesson for you. The contraceptive pill, you take it all month long, apart from seven days where you either take a placebo or you just stop taking it. And you're supposed to have a period, a bleed in that break. Can you tell us why they factored that into the design of the pill?

[Donna Drucker]

Yes, so it would mimic your standard menstrual cycle. So it's more of a psychological component of pill taking that you suppress your hormones for 21, 22, 23 days and then you have a normal, and I'm using air quotes here, a normal menstrual period in those days, Was that supposed.

[Kate Lister]

To placate a lot of the naysayers about this, sort of like the Catholic Church and religious figures, that you could have a break. So it was more natural.

[Donna Drucker]

It's more for women's psychology. So if you were used to having a menstrual period, if you didn't have one at all, it would sort of be very strange and kind of unsettling. And so this is kind of an imaginary period of sorts to kind of of match your, what would be a so called normal monthly cycle.

[Kate Lister]

But we don't actually need to be doing that.

[Donna Drucker]

Nope.

[Kate Lister]

That's just so shitty, all of those periods. And we just didn't need to be having those ridiculous.

[Donna Drucker]

So many tampons. So many.

[Kate Lister]

So many tampons were not made right. So what's interesting, I thought when I was reading into the history of the pill, I can understand why, like the church might Be going, no, I very much think not. I can understand why moralists might be freaking out, but I was quite surprised to find there was some resistance from within the early feminist movement itself. I thought that was really interesting. The argument being that it actually being on the pill means that some women might feel pressured into having sex with a man, whereas before they could have said no. I was quite surprised to read that.

[Donna Drucker]

Yeah, I think that's a fairly uncommon argument that in a way, the pill is sort of for men so that they can have sex whenever they want without any consequences. So it's kind of like it's still in kind of this moral framework that anytime you have sex, you should be prepared to have the consequences of it.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, I'm not a fan of that argument either. We're gonna have to talk about. It's already been quite dark already. But one of the strangest things about this history is that on one hand, in one direction, you've got women fighting for all women to have access to the pill. Not just married women, not just women that can pay for it. But going along parallel lines are the fact that the American government and maybe other governments are using the pill on poor people to stop them having children. And you, you start to have. I guess it's not the pill, but enforced sterilizations start to happen as well. And it's really strange that you've got some women saying, we want this, and then other communities going, stop doing it this all at the same time.

[Donna Drucker]

Yes, this kind of especially comes into play when different means of taking anti pregnancy hormones come into play. So it's a little harder to regulate or to watch over people taking the pill if you have to take it every day. But once it's available, at least in some countries in a shot, I'm thinking especially of the Depo Provera shot. Once it's possible to give people a monthly shot or a shot every three months or so, it's much easier to regulate. And so the most prominent historical example of this is in South Africa where an apartheid government wanted to reduce the number of black Africans who were becoming pregnant. And so they would have these vans, like healthcare vans, that would go to rural areas and do some kind of perfunctory medical care. But these vans would also be stocked with Depa Provera, and people would get these shots they were told that was good for them and so on. But of course, it was really to control black African populations.

[Kate Lister]

I suppose that's the most obvious and extreme example, but there are examples all over the place. Of local governments and local authorities deciding that they're not going to risk these poor young women becoming pregnant and injecting them with this. What was it called? The monthly injection.

[Donna Drucker]

Pre Depo Provera.

[Kate Lister]

Thank you. That's. That's the one. And it's when I was first reading about this history, genuinely shocking because it's within living memory.

[Donna Drucker]

Oh absolutely, absolutely.

[Kate Lister]

So that's happening. Awful. When does the pill become mainstream? I suppose. When, when does it become accessible to everyone and less of a health risk really?

[Donna Drucker]

When? I would say probably by the late 1980s, early 1990s. It takes time to kind of tinker with the formulations. Some of them are to see what different levels of hormones kind of work for different kinds of people. And then once the patent expires, then. And the pill can be manufactured by any company which has pharmaceutical capacity. And I don't even know how many pills, different combinations of pills there are on the market. 40 or 50 at least. And also at the same time that the pill formulations were being experimented with was also, in addition to Depa Rivera, you could also get birth control from the NuvaRing. So it was the ring that you inserted in your vagina for, for three weeks at a time and then took it out to have your kind of so called normal flow. You could also much later have a hormonal iud. So there used to be of course the copper iud, which still does exist, but also those kind of two technologies kind of come together in the form of a hormonal IUD which can last like five to eight years, depending on which one you buy. So the pill isn't kind of just the pill, it's really like this whole world of hormonal, hormonal management of pregnancy or non pregnancy.

[Kate Lister]

It's interesting that you said it probably wasn't until the late 80s or 90s that it was genuinely available for everybody and hopefully governments had stopped using it to make people infertile without their consent. But I've often heard it linked said that the sexual revolution of the 1960s was linked to the pill. That suddenly the pill arrived and everybody threw off their knickers and started dancing around in wild reckless abandonment. And I just wonder, as someone that studied this history, is that over simplistic, what do you think?

[Donna Drucker]

In a way it just kind of sounds right, like here comes the pill. And then, you know, it becomes like a plot point in movies like Prudence in the Pill and it's kind of made fun of, it enters popular culture and so it just seems like. Right. But in reality, it's much harder to trace. There's so much else happening in the 1960s that would kind of potentially contribute to feelings of sexual freedom. And again, we're thinking sexual freedom for who and under what condition, at what age, what social class and so on. And so of that idea of connecting the pill and the sexual revolution loops back around to that argument you brought up a few moments ago about was the pill really for women? And in a way, you could see the pill as something that's great for heterosexual men in a way that they don't have to worry about getting women pregnant anymore. So it's great for them. But the women can enjoy sex too, of course, but they're still the ones whose bodies are experiencing, you know, all the potential changes and side effects of the pill. So it's not quite as freeing for them.

[Kate Lister]

I'll be back with Donna after this short break.

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[Kate Lister]

I think it was Time magazine who listed the pill as one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century. Because once you can't move past the dark and the nasty history of it. But, but the impact of this, of this drug was undoubtedly colossal on women and on women's freedom. What was the long term result of being able to reliably control your fertility?

[Donna Drucker]

It's really extraordinary in a lot of ways cause it's also a different way of thinking about medicine because it's a preventative, but it's also taken by people who are healthy. And it also could be taken for someone's entire fertile life, you know, 40 years or so. So it really changes how people think about medicine and what medicine can and cannot do for your body. And again, it does change for women who are taking it voluntarily, of course, it changes their own heterosexual relationship. And so they have more control over deciding when to be pregnant, when not to be. Although it can also be a point of coercion if a partner takes your pills away or doesn't allow you to refill your prescription or things like that. And it changes kind of state's relationship to its population, because states now recognize, well, we could use this to control who gives birth. But also, like in the Eastern Europe from the 60s, you know, through about 1991, the pill was hardly available at all. And that was in part because countries like Romania were also outlawed abortion, because Romanian government wanted to promote birks. And the pill was seen as sort of like this decadent Western invention. So it's unevenly accepted and spread throughout the world. But it also, you know, changes women's relationships with their bodies, with medicine, with men, between them and the state. It upends all kinds of relationships.

[Kate Lister]

I read one article about the history of the pill, and it made a point I hadn't even considered before. It said that being able to control when you have a baby meant that women could become more established at work, are more established in their careers. I'd even thought of that, and it made the point that it was pretty. Like, why would a woman go to university in, like, the 1940s? Because she was inevitably going to have to get married and have a baby, and then whatever career she'd had, she's gonna have to give it up because you can't do that with a baby. And it made the point that being able to control that means that women can get pregnant later in life. So they're more established in their work, they can have a career. I thought that was fascinating. She looked.

[Donna Drucker]

That's true, yes. Because I don't know about other countries, but I know in the US it was until the 70s, it was perfectly legal to fire someone if they got pregnant.

[Kate Lister]

Yes.

[Donna Drucker]

And so if women could take the pill, then they can avoid being fired. I mean, there's. You kind of think about the sexual revolution argument, like, oh, it's a way to let people have more pleasure and can encourage, like, enjoyment, you know, without the fear of pregnancy. But it's also, in a way, the pill is a very practical tool for Managing your employment status and your finances before laws protected you against being fired.

[Kate Lister]

So as a final question then, we should probably talk about the future of the pill. Specifically, will men ever get a pill all of their very own?

[Donna Drucker]

Well, people have tried.

[Kate Lister]

What's the issue?

[Donna Drucker]

It has side effects.

[Kate Lister]

Has side effects.

[Donna Drucker]

I know. So there was a international study done between 2008 and 2012 which was an injectable contraceptive vaccine that included regular doses of both a long acting progestogen and a long acting androgen, which kind of suppresses sperm production. It was tested on men who were in a long term monogamous partnership for at least one year. And after the test was over, men's sperm count would return, turn to normal. It had an effectiveness rate of 92.5%.

[Kate Lister]

Okay, that sounds good, but isn't the pill at like 99, something like that?

[Donna Drucker]

But a independent data safety and monitoring committee established by the WHO terminated the study early due to men's complaints. And their complaints were all the same ones that women had had been putting Forward since the 1950s. Headaches, dizziness, weight gain, loss of libido, all that kind of thing. And of course when the study was terminated, there was lots of conversation like, oh, poor men. Couldn't I think this now handle what women handle all the time. But fact of the matter is the study was terminated based on their complaints. And so there are other kinds of like anti sperm, like gels particular that are being tested for men now. But there still has not been a major advancement in the technology of contraception for, you know, decades.

[Kate Lister]

Do you think there ever will be? And also I just as somebody like I would be the one that gets pregnant, I just can't ever envision a situation where I would be in flagrante with a gentleman and he would say, don't worry, I'm on the pill. And I would think, well, that's all right then, sunshine.

[Donna Drucker]

It's not an easily solvable problem because some women would just love to give all the responsibility to a partner and just enjoy their lives, enjoy their experiences. But it can be very hard to give that level of trust over to, you know, especially if you're in a, not in a long term monogamous relationship.

[Kate Lister]

I mean, if you don't take the pill, I'm getting pregnant, right?

[Donna Drucker]

So I think a male hormonal contraceptive could work. It likely will sometime in the next maybe decade or so. But it would only be in very particular kinds of relationships. It wouldn't be for everyone.

[Kate Lister]

Donna, you have been fascinating to talk to thank you so much. And if people want to know more about you and your research, where can they find you?

[Donna Drucker]

I am on Blue sky or X at Hist of Sex and you can find my books on Alfred Kinsey, on contraception, on infertility technology, and on machines using sex research at any bookstore, also at audio and ebook versions. So feel free to find my writing wherever you find your books.

[Kate Lister]

Thank you so much for dropping by. You've been marvelous.

[Donna Drucker]

Oh thank you. It's been a pleasure.

[Kate Lister]

Thank you for listening. And thank you so much to Donna for joining us. And if you like what you heard, don't forget to like review and follow along wherever it is that you get your podcasts. If you'd like us to explore a subject or maybe if you just wanted to say hello, then you can email us@betwixt historyhit.com Coming up, we are gonna find out about the murderous affairs of King James the First and Sixth and delve into the the Truth about the Minotaur. This podcast was edited by Tom Delagi and produced by Sophie G. The senior producer was Charlotte Long. Join me again Betwixt the Sheets the History of Sex Scandal in Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.

[Josie Santee]

Hey, this is Josie Santee from the Every Girl Podcast and this episode is brought to you by Nordstrom. Summer's here and Nordstrom has everything you need for your best dressed season ever. From beach days and weddings to weekend getaways in your everyday wardrobe, discover stylish options under a hundred dollars from tons of your favorite brands like Mango Skims, Princess Polly and madewell. It's easy too, with free shipping and free returns in store order, pickup and more. Shop today in stores [e-mail] or download the Nordstrom app.

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