Description
Book SynopsisUnravels the social and cultural work involved in developing contraceptives for men and explains how technologies that conflict with hegemonic masculinity have a hard time coming into existence. This work also documents how the World Health Organization took the lead in investigating male contraceptives by coordinating worldwide research network.
Trade Review“
The Male Pill is a superb book on a very important and deeply interesting topic that has been amazingly understudied. It will be the canonic volume in male reproduction studies for several decades. There is nothing else that even begins to do what Nelly Oudshoorn accomplishes here.”—Adele E. Clarke, author of
Disciplining Reproduction: Modernity, American Life Sciences, and the Problems of Sex“While many reviews have been written about the technical aspects of male reproductive research, this book explores the complex, associated social factors. It deserves to be read by all involved in the field and by all those who ask ‘Why have women had so many contraceptive options for so long while men have so few?’”—Geoffrey M. H. Waites, former manager of the Male Task Force of the World Health Organization’s Human Reproduction Programme
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Part I. Overcoming Resistance: Constructing Alternative Sociotechnical Networks
1. Designing Technology and Masculinity 3
2. How Man Came to Be Included in the Contraceptive Research Agenda 19
3. Creating a Worldwide Laboratory for Synthesizing Hormonal Contraceptive Compounds 52
4. The Inaccessible Man: The Quest for Male Trial Participants and Test Locations 69
5. The Co-construction of Technologies and Risks 86
Part II. Configuring the User: Articulating and Performing Masculinities
6. The Politics of Language: Changing Family Planning Discourse to Include Men 113
7. Making Room for Men: Configuring Men as Clients of Family Planning Clinics 140
8. "The First Man on the Pill": Disciplining Men as Reliable Test Subjects 171
9. On Masculinities, Technologies, and Pain: The Testing of Male Contraceptives in the Clinic and Media 191
10. Articulating Acceptability 209
11. Technologies of Trust 225
Notes 243
Bibliography 269
Index 293
