Reviews
The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution by Jonathan Eig
anitaofplaybooktag's review against another edition
4.0
This book tells a moderately interesting story in a strong narrative voice.
Eig tells us of four people - - a feminist (Margaret Sanger), a millionaire, a researcher, and a Catholic doctor who have the goal of developing a pill that prevents pregnancy. Pincus, the researcher, is to me, the most interesting. He is a man who fails and fails (at multiple things) and yet never gives up his very pioneering spirit and ultimately achieves his goals. I found his story inspirational.
McCormick, a wealthy widow, also fascinated me. She was determined to do something amazing with her money, and she does. She is a person who truly empowered the creation of the pill. She was generous, curious, scientifically minded, but she also didn't put constraints on how her money was used and was willing to give more at every turn. I think more than anyone else, we owe her for the development of the pill.
One of the most intriguing parts to this tale is the fact that the development of the pill all took place during a period when birth control was not even legal. I have to confess that I didn't even birth control was illegal for as long as it was. Frightening really. Glad I was born in the 60's!
Eig has written a good read, but I notice his other two books are about baseball. Of which I am a big fan. So I'm inclined to try those out. This topic really isn't for everyone, but if you have an interest in feminism, I'd definitely recommend it as a great way to absorb some of the history of that movement.
Eig tells us of four people - - a feminist (Margaret Sanger), a millionaire, a researcher, and a Catholic doctor who have the goal of developing a pill that prevents pregnancy. Pincus, the researcher, is to me, the most interesting. He is a man who fails and fails (at multiple things) and yet never gives up his very pioneering spirit and ultimately achieves his goals. I found his story inspirational.
McCormick, a wealthy widow, also fascinated me. She was determined to do something amazing with her money, and she does. She is a person who truly empowered the creation of the pill. She was generous, curious, scientifically minded, but she also didn't put constraints on how her money was used and was willing to give more at every turn. I think more than anyone else, we owe her for the development of the pill.
One of the most intriguing parts to this tale is the fact that the development of the pill all took place during a period when birth control was not even legal. I have to confess that I didn't even birth control was illegal for as long as it was. Frightening really. Glad I was born in the 60's!
Eig has written a good read, but I notice his other two books are about baseball. Of which I am a big fan. So I'm inclined to try those out. This topic really isn't for everyone, but if you have an interest in feminism, I'd definitely recommend it as a great way to absorb some of the history of that movement.
nerdy_reader_9571's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
medium-paced
3.25
I keep going back and forth about whether I would ever actually recommend this book to anyone because the author, Jonathan Eig, does include some of the more jarring pieces of the pill’s history like the fact that the pill was tested on a disturbingly low amount of women because many test subjects dropped out of the study due to the pill’s side effects or the fact that the study’s lead scientists forced the pill both on patients in hospitals who didn’t have the right to refuse the treatment or be fully informed of the new medication that they were taking and on prison inmates in Puerto Rican jails. However, despite including these darker details the author makes a point to state that these methods were standard for the time period in which the study took place and uses terms like “recruited” and “enrolled” to describe individuals who were forced to take the experimental pill. While this book provides a large amount of information about the formation of the first birth control pill and doesn’t hide many of the darker details of the pill’s history, Eig has framed this book around four people—two scientists and two of their financial backers—who are cast as heroes who liberated women by providing them with an easy-to-take method of contraception that doesn’t require their partner’s participation or knowledge, despite those heroes’ close associations with the eugenics movement (recast in this book as a “social movement” that is often mentioned but not explored or defined), their motivations for pursuing this method of birth control, and their level of comfort with forced experimentation. What this book which is marketed and set up as a story of women’s liberation is lacking is the perspective of women. I noticed throughout the book that there are almost no perspectives provided from any of the women who were part of the experimentation process or from women whose lives had been impacted by the formation of the birth control pill. Instead, throughout the book the author shoehorns the perspective of Hugh Hefner of all people into this story to gain Hefner’s valuable perspective on the impact that the pill had on his business. While I learned a lot about the history of the pill from this book, there has to be a better story out there about the pill’s formation that actually considers the women who were involved in the formation of the pill as test subjects and considers the women who were impacted by the release of the pill.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pregnancy, Medical trauma, Ableism, Abortion, Infertility, and Mental illness
Moderate: Alcohol, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Racism
sjhastoomanybooks's review against another edition
5.0
This book was just awesome. It takes you behind the scenes of what life was like for women prior to the invention of the Pill. And how by the time it was approved, the climate was ripe for the change it brought. It demonstrates just how liberating it was for women, effectively divorcing a woman from her babymaking capabilities.
Plus, as a pharma nerd, it was awesome to see the science behind the science, how the formulation was created, how different FDA approvals were back then and what drug marketing looked like. Also appreciated the little tidbit about how the famous packaging of the Dialpak came to be, and how essentially for the first time, a drug's packaging was instrumental to its adherence.
Two enthusiastic thumbs up!
Plus, as a pharma nerd, it was awesome to see the science behind the science, how the formulation was created, how different FDA approvals were back then and what drug marketing looked like. Also appreciated the little tidbit about how the famous packaging of the Dialpak came to be, and how essentially for the first time, a drug's packaging was instrumental to its adherence.
Two enthusiastic thumbs up!
danakm's review against another edition
3.0
Listened to audio-book. Was frustrated by the extraneous details
mollyfischfriedman's review against another edition
5.0
The Birth of the Pill was incredibly well-written, and it was a great retelling of the cultural, social, and political history behind birth control. While some people may know about Margaret Sanger, birth control, and the Comstock Act, this book goes well beyond that history, and I learned an incredible amount through this book.
thomcat's review against another edition
4.0
Very thorough history of the decade covering the development of the birth control pill and the four principals involved. People and processes are examined in detail, and the social impact (especially with the Catholic Church) is also a major topic. My favorite part was the FDA examiner who, despite personal and religious objections, did his job and eventually approved the Pill. "When it came to his job at the FDA, his faith and personal opinions were irrelevant."
This book has been favorably compared to [b:The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks|6493208|The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks|Rebecca Skloot|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327878144s/6493208.jpg|6684634]. For me, this book goes into more depth but ends up with less of a narrative. Where Rebecca Skloot found and interviewed both family members and patients, Jonathan Eig sticks to historical documents.
That said, my summary is pretty much the same. A great history, thought provoking in process and consequences. Recommended.
This book has been favorably compared to [b:The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks|6493208|The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks|Rebecca Skloot|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327878144s/6493208.jpg|6684634]. For me, this book goes into more depth but ends up with less of a narrative. Where Rebecca Skloot found and interviewed both family members and patients, Jonathan Eig sticks to historical documents.
That said, my summary is pretty much the same. A great history, thought provoking in process and consequences. Recommended.