Chikako Takeshita
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262016582
- eISBN:
- 9780262298452
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262016582.003.0027
- Subject:
- Biology, Bioethics
This chapter demonstrates that researchers were focused on improving and measuring the contraceptive efficacy of the device in the early phase of the development. It specifically illustrates how the ...
More
This chapter demonstrates that researchers were focused on improving and measuring the contraceptive efficacy of the device in the early phase of the development. It specifically illustrates how the intrauterine device (IUD) was developed as a technoscientific biopower, or a technological solution to what was widely viewed as a population problem. It reviews the historical links among contraceptive development, population science, and Western imperialism. This chapter shows that the early dissemination efforts of the IUD yielded mixed results. It notes that the IUD was regarded as a contraceptive given to the masses, while user-controlled contraceptive methods were characterized as appropriate only for educated upper- and middle-class Western individuals.Less
This chapter demonstrates that researchers were focused on improving and measuring the contraceptive efficacy of the device in the early phase of the development. It specifically illustrates how the intrauterine device (IUD) was developed as a technoscientific biopower, or a technological solution to what was widely viewed as a population problem. It reviews the historical links among contraceptive development, population science, and Western imperialism. This chapter shows that the early dissemination efforts of the IUD yielded mixed results. It notes that the IUD was regarded as a contraceptive given to the masses, while user-controlled contraceptive methods were characterized as appropriate only for educated upper- and middle-class Western individuals.
Chikako Takeshita
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262016582
- eISBN:
- 9780262298452
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262016582.003.0054
- Subject:
- Biology, Bioethics
This chapter describes how researchers negotiated the safety of the intrauterine device (IUD). It explores the initial introduction of the modern IUD to American women and why health risks were ...
More
This chapter describes how researchers negotiated the safety of the intrauterine device (IUD). It explores the initial introduction of the modern IUD to American women and why health risks were neglected. It argues that the reproductive choice of women in the global North and the control over fertility in the global South became interlaced in the process of negotiating the acceptability of the IUD as a contraceptive method for women throughout the world. This chapter shows that the copper-bearing IUD was initially conceived as an improved and more scientific device for limiting the fertility of the global South. It suggests that the safety of the modern IUD has greatly improved since its first introduction.Less
This chapter describes how researchers negotiated the safety of the intrauterine device (IUD). It explores the initial introduction of the modern IUD to American women and why health risks were neglected. It argues that the reproductive choice of women in the global North and the control over fertility in the global South became interlaced in the process of negotiating the acceptability of the IUD as a contraceptive method for women throughout the world. This chapter shows that the copper-bearing IUD was initially conceived as an improved and more scientific device for limiting the fertility of the global South. It suggests that the safety of the modern IUD has greatly improved since its first introduction.
Chikako Takeshita
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262016582
- eISBN:
- 9780262298452
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262016582.003.0103
- Subject:
- Biology, Bioethics
This chapter describes how side effects of a hormone-releasing intrauterine device (IUD) created a unique product, Mirena. It specifically analyzes the making of Mirena, while revealing the ...
More
This chapter describes how side effects of a hormone-releasing intrauterine device (IUD) created a unique product, Mirena. It specifically analyzes the making of Mirena, while revealing the behind-the-scenes aspects of this now increasingly popular contraceptive method and reconstructs the historical paths that produced this device. This chapter provides further insight into how governance over women’s bodies is delicately differentiated at intersections of race and class. It also reveals how various body/technology pairings were configured, creating a network of connections that reflect the racialized global context within which technoscientific interventions in women’s bodies are imagined.Less
This chapter describes how side effects of a hormone-releasing intrauterine device (IUD) created a unique product, Mirena. It specifically analyzes the making of Mirena, while revealing the behind-the-scenes aspects of this now increasingly popular contraceptive method and reconstructs the historical paths that produced this device. This chapter provides further insight into how governance over women’s bodies is delicately differentiated at intersections of race and class. It also reveals how various body/technology pairings were configured, creating a network of connections that reflect the racialized global context within which technoscientific interventions in women’s bodies are imagined.
Chikako Takeshita
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262016582
- eISBN:
- 9780262298452
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262016582.003.0010
- Subject:
- Biology, Bioethics
This book explores how developers of modern intrauterine devices (IUDs) have adapted to different social interests. It details how they understood the political stakes of women’s bodies. It argues ...
More
This book explores how developers of modern intrauterine devices (IUDs) have adapted to different social interests. It details how they understood the political stakes of women’s bodies. It argues that scientific work organizes itself in response to the socially and geographically diverse demands around fertility control and acts on women’s bodies through its discourse. It shows an example of the global political economy of women’s bodies in the history of this contraceptive device. It believes that women’s social empowerment is a prerequisite to reproductive self-determination and well-being. This book describes how different modes of governance over women’s bodies are linked to one another. An overview of the chapters included in this book is finally given.Less
This book explores how developers of modern intrauterine devices (IUDs) have adapted to different social interests. It details how they understood the political stakes of women’s bodies. It argues that scientific work organizes itself in response to the socially and geographically diverse demands around fertility control and acts on women’s bodies through its discourse. It shows an example of the global political economy of women’s bodies in the history of this contraceptive device. It believes that women’s social empowerment is a prerequisite to reproductive self-determination and well-being. This book describes how different modes of governance over women’s bodies are linked to one another. An overview of the chapters included in this book is finally given.
Chikako Takeshita
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262016582
- eISBN:
- 9780262298452
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262016582.003.0079
- Subject:
- Biology, Bioethics
This chapter deals with the mechanism by which pregnancy is prevented as it relates to antiabortion politics. It examines the alliance between contraceptive researchers and reproductive-choice ...
More
This chapter deals with the mechanism by which pregnancy is prevented as it relates to antiabortion politics. It examines the alliance between contraceptive researchers and reproductive-choice feminists around the debate on intrauterine device (IUD)’s mechanism of action. It describes how contesting views on the mechanism of the IUD were built in relationship to each other. This chapter shows that IUDs are not abortifacient by pointing to the unlikelihood of fertilization. It suggests that IUD developers appropriately claim themselves to be allies of feminists. It reveals that the scientific debate around the IUD’s mechanism of action is an important ingredient in the discursive transformation.Less
This chapter deals with the mechanism by which pregnancy is prevented as it relates to antiabortion politics. It examines the alliance between contraceptive researchers and reproductive-choice feminists around the debate on intrauterine device (IUD)’s mechanism of action. It describes how contesting views on the mechanism of the IUD were built in relationship to each other. This chapter shows that IUDs are not abortifacient by pointing to the unlikelihood of fertilization. It suggests that IUD developers appropriately claim themselves to be allies of feminists. It reveals that the scientific debate around the IUD’s mechanism of action is an important ingredient in the discursive transformation.
Chikako Takeshita
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262016582
- eISBN:
- 9780262298452
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262016582.001.0001
- Subject:
- Biology, Bioethics
The intrauterine device (IUD) is used by 150 million women around the world. It is the second most prevalent method of female fertility control in the global South and the third most prevalent in the ...
More
The intrauterine device (IUD) is used by 150 million women around the world. It is the second most prevalent method of female fertility control in the global South and the third most prevalent in the global North. Over its five decades of use, the IUD has been viewed both as a means for women’s reproductive autonomy and as coercive tool of state-imposed population control, as a convenient form of birth control on a par with the pill and as a threat to women’s health. This book investigates the development, marketing, and use of the IUD since the 1960s. The book offers a biography of a multifaceted technological object through a feminist science studies lens, tracing the transformations of the scientific discourse around it over time and across different geographies. It describes how developers of the IUD adapted to different social interests in their research and how changing assumptions about race, class, and female sexuality often guided scientific inquiries. The IUD, the book argues, became a “politically versatile technology,” adaptable to both feminist and nonfeminist reproductive politics because of researchers’ attempts to maintain the device’s suitability for women in both the developing and the developed world. The book traces the evolution of scientists’ concerns—from contraceptive efficacy and product safety to the politics of abortion—and describes the most recent, hormone-releasing, menstruation-suppressing iteration of the IUD.Less
The intrauterine device (IUD) is used by 150 million women around the world. It is the second most prevalent method of female fertility control in the global South and the third most prevalent in the global North. Over its five decades of use, the IUD has been viewed both as a means for women’s reproductive autonomy and as coercive tool of state-imposed population control, as a convenient form of birth control on a par with the pill and as a threat to women’s health. This book investigates the development, marketing, and use of the IUD since the 1960s. The book offers a biography of a multifaceted technological object through a feminist science studies lens, tracing the transformations of the scientific discourse around it over time and across different geographies. It describes how developers of the IUD adapted to different social interests in their research and how changing assumptions about race, class, and female sexuality often guided scientific inquiries. The IUD, the book argues, became a “politically versatile technology,” adaptable to both feminist and nonfeminist reproductive politics because of researchers’ attempts to maintain the device’s suitability for women in both the developing and the developed world. The book traces the evolution of scientists’ concerns—from contraceptive efficacy and product safety to the politics of abortion—and describes the most recent, hormone-releasing, menstruation-suppressing iteration of the IUD.
Chikako Takeshita
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262016582
- eISBN:
- 9780262298452
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262016582.003.0121
- Subject:
- Biology, Bioethics
This chapter summarizes the key findings and considers how feminists might engage with the heterogeneity of meanings inherent in politically versatile technologies and builds a multidimensional ...
More
This chapter summarizes the key findings and considers how feminists might engage with the heterogeneity of meanings inherent in politically versatile technologies and builds a multidimensional movement that supports progressive agendas. It illustrates that constructing and obscuring differences among women, as well as concurrently appropriating and obliterating their agencies, were the two most important mechanisms that enabled diverse biopolitical agendas to become integral to intrauterine device (IUD). It suggests that the technoscientific body of an IUD user is an amalgamation of the heterogeneous constructions of bodies generated at various knowledge-power nexuses. This chapter believes that feminists must be willing to engage multiple agendas that empower diversely situated women.Less
This chapter summarizes the key findings and considers how feminists might engage with the heterogeneity of meanings inherent in politically versatile technologies and builds a multidimensional movement that supports progressive agendas. It illustrates that constructing and obscuring differences among women, as well as concurrently appropriating and obliterating their agencies, were the two most important mechanisms that enabled diverse biopolitical agendas to become integral to intrauterine device (IUD). It suggests that the technoscientific body of an IUD user is an amalgamation of the heterogeneous constructions of bodies generated at various knowledge-power nexuses. This chapter believes that feminists must be willing to engage multiple agendas that empower diversely situated women.
