Dalkon shield IUD survivors: A case study of contraceptive tragedy and an emerging social protest movement, 1986-1989
Abstract
This study describes and analyzes the embryonic stages of a social protest movement organized by women who were former users of a birth control method called the Dalkon Shield intrauterine device (IUD). The members of the Dalkon Shield Information Network, a grassroots group organized by women, are the subjects of this case study. The study is rooted in critical pedagogy and utilizes an endogenous ethnographic research design. The researcher is both participant (Dalkon Shield survivor) and observer and the analysis is drawn from multiple data sources, including the co-collaboration of other leaders in the group. The pedagogical model employed by this group, based on Paolo Freire's work, is outlined as a curriculum design for empowerment. The research documents the critical junctures during the movement's early phase, including the origins of the movement, the process of developing a collective consciousness, the decision points that informed the group's action agenda, and the complex web of social relations that shaped the group's evolution. The analysis focuses on the style of relational politics these women adopted as their primary strategy for interrupting the corporate and legal institutions' public discourse, which had submerged the victims in a culture of silence for nearly two decades.
Subject Area
Educational sociology|Womens studies|Public health
Recommended Citation
Hicks, Karen M, "Dalkon shield IUD survivors: A case study of contraceptive tragedy and an emerging social protest movement, 1986-1989" (1990). Dissertations available from ProQuest. AAI9026576.
https://repository.upenn.edu/dissertations/AAI9026576