The Hypermedicatication of Women’s Bodies: The Specific Case of the Anticonceptive Pill.

Although women's health in Spain has been studied from different disciplines in recent decades, the gender perspective and the incursion from Sociology in this debate has not been as broad as in other countries. Studies on women’s health in Spain have mainly focused on sexual and mental health, but not always with gender perspective and the preeminence of medicine and phychology in these studies remains.

In order to study the controversy around the use of the contraceptive pill in Spain since a Sociological approach, I will start with the theory of Actor-Network and the Cartography of Controversy, and I will take into in account different contributions of Sociology of health and of Feminism in the debate. The contraceptive pill is the second most used contraceptive method in Spain. Beyond the debate on its efficacy, this method is questioned, among other several reasons, by its side effects or the lack of an equivalent male hormonal contraceptive. I will outline the social debate generated around the pill, delimiting the hottest sports of the debate about its consumption. I will focus the study on the position of the users of the pill under 30 years of age and on the relationship established between them and the health specialists. I will use a qualitative methodology with semi-structured interviews (SSI) with experts in the field (3 SSI) and users and ex-users of the pill (5 SSI).

The results show the existence of a big controversy around the contraceptive pill and the positions diverse between different actors. There are three points that are especially controversial in relation to the pill: contraception as a female responsibility, the non-contraceptive purposes of the pill, and the side effects of the same (among which the risk of thrombosis stands out). The relationship between users and specialists was sometimes conflictive.