Male Sterilisation and Contraceptive Practices

Discover the third session of the 2025–2026 seminar series "Crossed Perspectives on Early Childhood" – "Male Sterilisation and Contraceptive Practices: Between the Archetype of the Male and New Masculinities (1920–2020)".

The seminar approaches early childhood as a social, historical, and cultural construct. Knowledge and theories relating to conception, birth, and child development are analysed in terms of the child’s interactions with their surroundings and according to gender norms. The seminar also explores the boundaries of this age category and its temporality, taking into account medical, international, anthropological, and historical standards.

While the history of eugenics has revealed the extent of forced sterilisation worldwide in the 20th century, voluntary vasectomy has largely remained invisible. Yet, for over a century, some men have chosen to undergo sterilisation—sometimes challenging stereotypes of masculinity, sometimes reinforcing them. Since the late 1970s, male contraceptive practices have also prompted collective reflection on the links between masculinity, virility, and fertility. Examining the social conditions of men’s sterilisation and contraceptive choices shifts attention away from issues often associated exclusively with women and highlights practices that remain largely overlooked.

• Elodie Serna: PhD in Contemporary History from the University of Lille/University of Geneva
• Discussant: Michel Christian: Historian