‘They all of a sudden became new people’: Using reproductive justice to explore narratives of hormonal contraceptive experience in Sweden

Sofia Zettermark
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Abstract

This study explores how Swedish women narrate experiences of hormonal contraceptives through utilizing the frameworks of biomedicalization and reproductive justice, adding a social justice perspective previously lacking. Ten in-depth interviews were conducted with women who had experience of using hormonal contraception. Political narrative analysis illuminated how these women moved narratively both chronologically, from the teenage years to adulthood, and through social positioning, in their contraceptive stories. Two different, often conflicting, discourses of hormonal contraceptives emerged, which the women constantly negotiated. These can be described as (1) a biomedical interpretative prerogative, promoting hormonal methods as an easy fit for everyone, and negating the diverse lived experiences of women, and (2) a simplified critical media and online discourse, painting hormonal methods as an enemy to female health. From a reproductive justice standpoint, these stories illuminate that age is a relevant intersectional location, and even privileged women in a country known for its ‘gender equality agenda’ can experience subtle yet very real, reproductive coercion, when agency becomes constrained to choosing hormonal contraceptives within a dominant biomedical script. Even though critique of the mechanistic prescription of hormonal contraception is rather ubiquitous, the opposition in these narratives does not take the form of rejection of biomedical knowledge, rather the biomedical paradigm is internalized and incorporated into the embodied knowledge. This study shows that upstream factors such as gendered social injustices, reproductive norms, and a biomedical expansion are intricately interwoven with embodied experience of hormonal contraceptive use. It is important to acknowledge that distinct lived experiences of mood or personality change in women using hormonal contraceptives are contextual and dependent on intersectional location. I propose no simple panacea, but when a state-sanctioned biomedical prerogative puts all emphasis on individual reproductive planning behaviour, it obscures structural inequalities and narrows imaginable life trajectories.
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他们一下子变成了新人":利用生殖正义探讨瑞典人的荷尔蒙避孕经历
本研究利用生物医学化和生殖正义的框架,探讨了瑞典妇女如何讲述使用激素避孕药具的经历,增加了以往缺乏的社会正义视角。研究人员对有过使用激素避孕经历的妇女进行了十次深入访谈。政治叙事分析揭示了这些妇女在避孕故事中如何按时间顺序(从青少年时期到成年)和通过社会定位进行叙事。在这些妇女不断协商的过程中,出现了两种不同的、往往相互冲突的激素避孕论述。这两种话语可以描述为:(1) 生物医学的解释特权,将激素避孕法宣传为适合所有人的简单方法,否定了女性的不同生活经历;(2) 简化的批判性媒体和网络话语,将激素避孕法描绘成女性健康的敌人。从生殖正义的角度来看,这些故事揭示了年龄是一个相关的交叉位置,即使是在一个以 "性别平等议程 "而闻名的国家里,特权妇女也可能经历微妙但非常真实的生殖胁迫,当她们的代理权被限制在主流生物医学剧本中选择激素避孕药具时。尽管对激素避孕的机械处方的批判无处不在,但这些叙述中的反对意见并没有采取拒绝生物医学知识的形式,相反,生物医学范式被内化并融入了体现性知识中。本研究表明,上游因素,如性别化的社会不公正、生殖规范和生物医学的扩张,与使用激素避孕药的具体体验错综复杂地交织在一起。重要的是要承认,使用激素避孕药的妇女在情绪或性格变化方面的独特生活体验是有背景的,并取决于交叉位置。我没有提出简单的灵丹妙药,但当国家认可的生物医学特权将所有重点都放在个人生殖计划行为上时,就会掩盖结构性不平等,缩小可想象的生活轨迹。
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