What's a Guy To Do?: Contraceptive Responsibility, Confronting Masculinity, and the History of Vasectomy in Canada.
Despite the growing popularity of vasectomy in recent years, historians have largely ignored the history of the procedure. The current article provides a preliminary examination of voluntary male sterilization in Canada and, in so doing, challenges the gendered paradigm scholars have often applied to the history of contraception. State-sponsored Medicare and late decriminalization of contraception are discussed as factors that slowed widespread adoption of vasectomy in Canada while evolving surgical techniques are highlighted for their role in increasing acceptability of the procedure. The article explores how evolving definitions of hegemonic masculinity have both hindered and encouraged acceptance of vasectomy over time.
Department of History, University of Guelph.
Sarah
S
Shropshire
D002170:Canada; D003267:Contraception; D003268:Contraception Behavior; D003270:Contraceptive Agents; D005193:Family Planning Services; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D057228:Masculinity; D013245:Sterilization, Reproductive; D014659:Vasectomy
D003270:Contraceptive Agents
Vasectomie; Vasectomy; birth control; contrôle des naissances; histoire de la chirurgie; history of surgery; masculinity; masculinité