THE ARRIVAL OF THE PILL IN 1961 LED TO A REVOLUTION IN THE LIVES OF WOMEN. BUT HOW DO WE FEEL ABOUT IT NOW AND WHAT DOES ITS FUTURE HOLD?
Perhaps it was telling that, in the lead-up to this particular revolution, there were no banners. There was no marching on the streets, no strewn placards and no real protest. It didn’t sound like fury or fear or chanting; rather, it was the simple rattle of tablets being popped out of their cases and gently into mouths. When the pill launched in the UK in 1961 (before being made more widely available to single women in 1967), revolution looked more like this: a queue of people one morning outside a local pharmacy, quietly transforming their worlds.
There was, of course, some resistance – male religious and medical figures argued that it would drag down moral values. But there was no stopping the force of it: for women, now armed with reliable, safe contraception, it was truly liberating. And by 1967, 12.5 million women worldwide were already taking it. The knock-on effects were vast: improvements to health, career progression and the simple notion of having more autonomy over our own lives is a legacy that still stands today. Indeed, the pill is often hailed as the biggest single contributor towards gender equality to date.
Having just celebrated its 60th birthday, the pill is still the most commonly used contraceptive in the UK, with an estimated 28% of girls and women aged 15 to 49 currently taking it as their main form of contraception. Data obtained by The Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act showed that, in 2017-18, more than 3.1 million women in England alone took the combined or mini-pill daily – that’s more than nine in 10 women who receive contraception from their GP or pharmacies.
However, in the decades since the 1960s, its reputation has faltered. No longer a symbol of freedom, the pill is now often perceived as little more than a daily chore or, worse, an enemy armed with side effects – headaches, mood swings, loss of libido… the list goes on. As a result, we’ve seen rhythm-method-based fertility trackers and devices begin to dominate the rising femtech market. We’re also beginning to question why, during an age of rapid medical discovery (and one in which trials for male contraceptives were stopped for having similar side effects to those we face), there are still so many problems with the pill. Don’t we deserve better? What do the next 60 years hold for it? I set about meeting those at the forefront and discovered it’s not quite as simple as it seems…
SIDE EFFECTS AND SETBACKS
Like many women now in their thirties, I was first prescribed the pill as a teenager in the early 2000s. Back then, it was a rite of passage, the connotation be
