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The Gendered Nature of Contraception in France: Neo-Malthusianism, 1900-1920
- Journal of Interdisciplinary History
- The MIT Press
- Volume 34, Number 2, Autumn 2003
- pp. 235-262
- Article
- Additional Information
As the first nation to undergo the fertility transition, France also experienced a demographic "crisis" concerning its drop in population. Contemporary reactions to the Neo-Malthusian effort to provide female contraceptives, and particularly to the feminist rhetoric of birth-control advocate Nelly Roussel, however, suggest that what was most threatening about female contraception was not the prospect of further depopulation but the idea of making motherhood a choice, thereby "de-naturalizing" women's bodies and threatening civilization itself.