Women's medicine
Sex, family planning and British female doctors in transnational perspective, 1920–70
By Caroline Rusterholz

Book Information
- Format: eBook
- ISBN: 978-1-5261-5655-6
- Publisher: Manchester University Press
- Published Date: February 2021
- BIC Category: MEDICAL / History, HISTORY / Women, HISTORY / Modern / 20th Century, Humanities / British & Irish history, Humanities / 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000, Society & social sciences / Gender studies: women, Medicine / History of medicine, History of Medicine, HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain / 20th Century, HISTORY / Europe / France
- Series: Social Histories of Medicine
Description
Women's medicine highlights British female doctors' key contribution to the production and circulation of scientific knowledge around contraception, family planning and sexual disorders between 1920-70. It argues that women doctors were pivotal in developing a holistic approach to family planning and transmitting it across borders, playing a more prominent role in shaping scientific and medical knowledge than previously acknowledged. Illuminating women doctors' agency in the male-dominated field of medicine, this book reveals their practical engagement with birth control and later family planning clinics in Britain, their participation in the development of the international movement and their influence on French doctors. Drawing on a wide range of archived and published medical materials, Rusterholz sheds light on the strategies British female doctors used and the alliances they made to put forward their medical agenda and position themselves as experts and leaders.
Awards
2020
Henry-E.-Sigerist-Prize for the History of Medicine and Science
Contents
Introduction
1 Giving birth control medical credentials in Britain, 1920-70
2 Sexual disorders and infertility, expanding the work of the clinics
3 Medicalizing birth control at the international conferences (1920-37), a British-French comparison
4 Building a transnational movement for family planning 1927-70
5 Testing IUDs, a transnational journey of expertise
Conclusion
References
Index
Author
Caroline Rusterholz is a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow in the Faculty of History at the University of Cambridge