Contraceptives tecnologies and femininity: the pill as a gender <i>script</i>

Abstract

This paper analyzes the historical, scientific, and social contexts that guided the development and commercialization of the contraceptive pill. The essay sheds light on the power structures that shaped the construction of this technology and the discourses that it promotes about the female body. The contraceptive pill is conceptualized as a gender script, that is, a technology that crystallizes specific gender representations, values, and practices. This constructivist approach allows us to reveal the social and cultural structures that sustain this gender script and, in this way, helps us question the notion of the contraceptive pill as an intrinsically emancipatory technology.