Family planning and reproductive agency in France: demography, gender, and race, 1950s–1970s

Bracke, M. A. (2022) Family planning and reproductive agency in France: demography, gender, and race, 1950s–1970s. French Historical Studies, 45(4), pp. 683-710. (doi: 10.1215/00161071-9933021)

Abstract

The article analyzes debates on family planning, demography, and gender roles to explore the emergence of new notions of the reproductive subject in France between the 1950s and the 1970s. Drawing on papers of French and international family planning organizations, it argues that while the expansion of family planning ideology across France allowed for the discursive and practical construction of an autonomous reproductive subject, such a subject was framed by a hierarchization according to race, culture, and social class. Specifically, the analysis focuses on interventions in immigrant groups and on the French family planning movement's contribution to programs in Francophone Africa before and after decolonization. The article aims to contribute to an understanding of family planning as a transnational movement embedded in the globalization of demographic debate and the drive to normalize the nuclear family, and to an understanding of sexual change in Europe as shaped by global processes.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Bracke, Professor Maud
• Authors: Bracke, M. A.
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Humanities > History
• Journal Name: French Historical Studies
• Publisher: Duke University Press
• ISSN: 0016-1071
• ISSN (Online): 1527-5493
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2022 Society for French Historical Studies
• First Published: First published in French Historical Studies 45(4):683-710
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher

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