Review by Louise LC Turtle Studying a diagram of the vulva on a train is less discrete than scrolling her Instagram page, @gynaegeek, but this is what I found myself doing. I was drawn in by the familiar female voice that reads like a Dolly Alderton column. Sipping my turmeric latte – it’s her favourite […]
Latest articles
Medical devices and the legacy of the Dalkon Shield: The struggle for evidence-based contraception
Evidence from Natsal-3 published in BMJ Sexual and Reproductive Health showed that women need contraception from doctors, but men largely get it from the shops. For many of us, this kind of disparity tends to set off our sexism alarms. In some ways the results are a natural consequence of biological differences. Men tend to […]
Sexuality, Reproduction, and The Etymology of Abuse
By an Anonymous Historian I love looking up archaic uses of words and uncovering their etymologies. Researching the origins of the word ‘abuse’, I was struck by how the meaning of abuse has journeyed alongside sexuality and reproduction for centuries. ab – uti The Vulgar Latin abuti meant use up or consume as well as […]
Bad Tweets: Reflections on @BMJ_SRH’s mentions
Sexual and reproductive health provokes the kind of righteous anger that Twitter thrives on. By trying to provide a beacon of nuance and open-mindedness we’re running against the grain, but I don’t always get that right so I have to take responsibility for some of the bad tweets posted on Twitter over the last month. […]
Barriers, Facilitators and Improvements to Abortion Care
by Jodie Smith In 2017 we celebrated 50 years since abortion was legalised in Great Britain under the 1967 Abortion Act, putting an end to the unsafe back-street abortions that were causing high frequencies of maternal death and severe morbidity. In these 50 years, there have been numerous clinical developments in abortion care, including the […]
Perforation Following IUD Insertion
by John Reynolds-Wright and Rebecca Heller We all know perforation is a recognised risk of IUD insertion. However, that doesn’t make it any less upsetting for either the clinician or the patient. It is often not recognised at the time it occurs and can go unnoticed for weeks, if not months. This can be […]
The Emotional Journey of My Decision to Undergo Risk-Reducing Surgery
By Clarissa Foster, Author of ‘Understanding BRCA’ After learning that I carried a harmful BRCA2 gene mutation, I needed to make the decision on how I would manage my increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer. For a very brief moment, I considered the possibility of doing nothing at all – after all, I […]
Coercive and Controlling Behaviour in The Taming of the Shrew
The RSC’s new gender-flipped production of The Taming of the Shrew highlights the often overlooked coercive and controlling behaviour in the script. Gender Rewriting male characters as female can be done without changing much at all, as in the production of Timon of Athens at the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) earlier this year, where the […]
Inclusive Language in Sexual and Reproductive Health
The terminological preferences of many people living with HIV were articulated by Dilmitis and colleagues in the Journal of the International AIDS Society. The authors called for a vocabulary where “terms are clear, not clouded by ambiguity, … do not perpetuate or play into stereotypes, and do not hurt or marginalize the very people they […]
#DecolonisingContraception – The Importance of Preventing Unethical Practice in SRH and Learning from History
By Annabel Sowemimo Many times a week when I grab hold of a ‘Sims’ speculum (used in gynecology theatres across the world) I feel a shudder as I think of the legacy of J.Marion Sims, often nicknamed “the father of Gynaecology”. We can thank the many nameless Black American and poor women that Sims operated […]