Women’s Health Milestones

We’ve come a long way, baby, as this timeline of Canadian women’s health milestones demonstrates.

1800s Physician-induced orgasm is considered a valid treatment for hysteria because the condition is believed to be triggered by sexual deprivation. Eventually, a physician invents the vibrator so that women can “treat” themselves at home.

1882 Legislation is passed to make it illegal to sell or advertise birth control in Canada.

1901 A Canadian woman can expect to give birth to 4.6 children over her lifetime. Having babies is fairly risky business, however: one out of every 200 women dies during pregnancy or childbirth.

1921 Kimberly-Clark introduces Kotex, the world’s first commercially successful disposable sanitary pad. A similar product manufactured 30 years earlier by Johnson and Johnson had proven to be a dismal failure as a result of a lack of advertising. Kotex almost ends up being a flop, too, until retailers discover the secret to selling the product to the ultra-shy consumer. Sales only take off when women are given an alternative to dealing with a sales clerk: grabbing a box of pads, depositing money in a box designated for the purpose, and then exiting stage left.

1926 Readers of Safe Counsel—the bestselling “marriage manual” of the day—are warned that you can get too much of a good thing: “Sexual excess weakens the vitality, lessens the resistance, and paves the way for many dread diseases,” authors B.G. Jeffris and J.L. Nichols caution.

1930 A.R. Kaufman founds Canada’s first birth control clinic in 1930. Fortunately for Kaufman and his clients, the police turn a blind eye to his activities.

1930 Scientists discover to their amazement that ovulation occurs in the middle of the menstrual cycle, not during menstruation, as had previously been believed.

1931 The first tampon hits the market sans applicator. Five years later, an American businesswoman purchases the rights to an applicator tampon called the Tampax tampon from a U.S. doctor for $32,000 U.S. Sales of the product are sluggish initially as pharmacists are too embarrassed to stock the product and churchmen denounce it.

1942 The Canadian Mother and Child advises mothers-to-be to switch from regular corsets to maternity corsets for the duration of their pregnancy.

1950 Condoms are now available in Canadian drugstores, but they’re kept in drawers under the counter. If you want them, you have to ask for them. And since it’s illegal to sell condoms for contraceptive purposes, you have to fudge your reason for needing them. The product label states that they are to be “sold in drugstores only for the prevention of contagious diseases.”

1951 A group of scientists led by Stanford University chemist Carl Djerassi extracts norethindrone from Mexican yams—the first step towards creating a pill to manage infertility and menstrual disorders. Over time, they discover that norethindrone combined with another similar steroid can prevent ovulation, creating a revolutionary new form of birth control—the Pill.

1953 Alfred C. Kinsey writes a landmark report on female sexuality that leaves North American men feeling hot and bothered. Suddenly, his and hers orgasms are in vogue.

1953 British physician Katharina Dalton coins the term “premenstrual syndrome” to describe the physical and emotional complaints that many women experience in the days leading up to their period.