Anita Magowska

Leczenie kobiecego ciała jako fakt polityczny i kulturowy w XX wieku
2006-04-01

Woman's body treatment as a political and cultural fact in 20th century. This paper presents the scientific, social, and political context of the history of estrogen as a gynecological medicine and as a component of contraceptives. At first, sex hormones arose interest as "dynamogenic substances", next, they were used as gynecological therapeutics. When the bioactivity of estrogen had been well-known, it was used as a component of the first contraceptive, in 1960, after biased clinical trials, registered as Enovid in the U.S. and as Enavid in the U.K. Follow shortly, at one hand, the role of estrogen as a medicine and a contraceptive was known, at the second, some adverse effects of sex hormones were revealed. Estrogen's therapy and estrogen's contraception became popular thanks to demographic policy in developed countries, feminist movement, and a view that hormonal contraception is the lesser of two evils than abortion, which first time was legalized in 1920 in the Soviet Union.