When Women Used Lysol as Birth Control

[KansDem]

Of course, women who couldn’t afford or gain access to medically administered birth control had to come up with their own strategies for staying baby free. Douching was cheap, accessible, and widely advertised as a feminine hygiene product; however, as Andrea Tone writes in the book Devices and Desires: A History of Contraceptives in America, it was also the most common form of birth control from 1940 until 1960—when the oral contraceptive pill arrived on the market.

The most popular brand of douche was Lysol—an antiseptic soap whose pre-1953 formula contained cresol, a phenol compound reported in some cases to cause inflammation, burning, and even death. By 1911 doctors had recorded 193 Lysol poisonings and five deaths from uterine irrigation. Despite reports to the contrary, Lysol was aggressively marketed to women as safe and gentle. Once cresol was replaced with ortho-hydroxydiphenyl in the formula, Lysol was pushed as a germicide good for cleaning toilet bowls and treating ringworm, and Lehn & Fink's, the company that made the disinfectant, continued to market it as safeguard for women's "dainty feminine allure."

Douching may have been cheaper than condoms or diaphragms and available over the counter in most drugstores, but it didn’t work. In a 1933 study, Tone writes, nearly half of the 507 women who used douching as a birth control method ended up pregnant.

But if false advertising with highly suspect results weren't bad enough, the ads promoted a level of misogyny and female insecurity both laughable and frightening by today's standards. Images of wives locked out their homes or trapped by cobwebs are surrounded by text asserting a woman should "question herself" if her husband's interest seemed to have faded. If her husband is treating her badly, the message was, "she was really the one to blame."

--more--

Mother Jones

Check out the ads.

[monmouth]

1. Great article and I loved the comments. Thanks for posting..n/t

[Cleita]

2. Unfortunately, I remember those days first hand.

Also, other methods passed down by word of mouth was douching with Coca Cola and I kid you not, using plastic wrap and a rubber band as a makeshift condom.

[BumRushDaShow]

3. They showed this on season 1 of Boardwalk Empire

where season 1 starts on New Years of 1920 (start of Prohibition and Women's Suffrage).

[KansDem]

6. Thanks for the reference!

I don't have cable but I watched a couple of the trailers on YouTube. Will see if the public library has any DVDs.

Ran across this disturbing video:

(warning: graphic)

[HopeHoops]

4. Yeah, and vinegar douches were also recommended for the same purpose - didn't work.

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. Thank you for this history lesson! I never knew they used Lysol like that!

[ismnotwasm]

7. K&R