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English Women Doctors, Contraception and Family Planning in Transnational Perspective (1930s-70s).

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

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Type

Article

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Authors

Rusterholz, Caroline  ORCID logo  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8611-031X

Abstract

This paper explores the influence of English female doctors on the creation of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and the production and circulation of contraceptive knowledge in England and, to a lesser extent in France, between 1930 and 1970. By drawing on the writings of female doctors and proceedings of international conferences as well as the archives of the British Medical Women's Federation (MWF) and Family Planning Association (FPA), on the one hand, and Mouvement Français pour le Planning Familial (MFPF), on the other, this paper explores the agency of English female doctors at the national and transnational level. I recover their pioneering work and argue that they were pivotal in legitimising family planning within medical circles. I then turn to their influence on French doctors after World War II. Not only were English medical women active and experienced agents in the family planning movement in England; they also represented a conduit of information and training crucial for French doctors. Transfer of knowledge across the channel was thus a decisive tool for implementing family planning services in France.

Description

Keywords

Birth control, Contraception, Family planning, Transnational, Women doctors, Contraception, England, Family Planning Services, Female, France, History, 20th Century, Humans, International Planned Parenthood Federation, Physicians, Women, Publications, Women's Rights

Journal Title

Med Hist

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0025-7273
2048-8343

Volume Title

63

Publisher

Cambridge University Press (CUP)

Rights

All rights reserved
Sponsorship
Swiss National Science Foundation grant number P300P1_171604.