The Gendered Nature of Contraception in France: Neo-Malthusianism, 1900–1920

Abstract

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.