title: Young Australian women explain their contraceptive choices.
abstract: New developments in female contraceptives allow women increased options for preventing pregnancy, while men's options for reversible contraception have not advanced beyond the condom. There has been little discursive exploration of how neoliberal and postfeminist discourses shape women's accounts of choosing whether or not to use contraception. Our thematic discourse analysis of 760 free-text responses to a question about contraceptive choice considers the social and political climate that promotes the self-governed woman who freely chooses contraception. We examine the ways in which women formulated and defended their accounts of choice, focusing on the theme of free contraceptive choice that constructed women's choices as unconstrained by material, social and political forces. We identify two discursive strategies that underpinned this theme: a woman's body, a woman's choice and planning parenthood, and explore the ways in which choice was understood as a gendered entitlement and how contraceptive choices were shaped (and constrained) by women's plans for parenthood. We discuss the implications of these discursive strategies, and neoliberal and postfeminist discourses, in terms of the disallowance of any contextual, social and structural factors, including the absence of men in the 'contraceptive economy'.
authors.affiliation: a School of Medicine , University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research , Queensland , Australia.
authors.forename: Britta
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wigginton
authors.affiliation: b School of Psychology , University of Queensland , Queensland , Australia.
authors.forename: Claire
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Moran
authors.affiliation: c Research Centre for Gender, Health and Ageing, Faculty of Health and Medicine , University of Newcastle , Callaghan , Australia.
authors.forename: Melissa L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Harris
authors.affiliation: c Research Centre for Gender, Health and Ageing, Faculty of Health and Medicine , University of Newcastle , Callaghan , Australia.
authors.forename: Deborah
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Loxton
authors.affiliation: a School of Medicine , University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research , Queensland , Australia.|d Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, Faculty of Health Sciences , La Trobe University , Victoria , Australia.
authors.forename: Jayne
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lucke
mesh_terms: D001315:Australia; D002755:Choice Behavior; D003267:Contraception / Q000379:methods* / Q000523:psychology; D005193:Family Planning Services; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014930:Women / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Australia; Choice; contraception; gender; parenthood