Mum life

and THEN when women dropped out, they started using incarcerated women as their guinea pigs, and then despite the fact that some scientists who participated in the original trials were like “uh i don’t think this is actually good, it’s making a lot of these women sick,” the pharmaceutical industry & fda were like  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and approved it for the general population anyways, without really warning women about the potential for all these negative side effects

and THEN researchers basically ceased to do any type of research on side effects like depression and decreased libido for 50 years, despite the fact that women were still complaining about them, and because there was no “hard evidence” of these side effects, a lot of doctors basically just assumed women were exaggerating or making it up. and that continued until the first major study of depression in women who take hormonal contraceptives was released just. this. year.

the puerto rico pill trials

the racist & sexist history of keeping side effects of birth controls secret

“it’s not in your head” striking new study links birth control to depression

the side effects of male birth control stopping drug trials reveals a disturbing sexism

male birth control shot prevents pregnancy, researchers call for further study to reduce risk of depression, other side effects

oh, and fun fact: even after this new study was released, a lot of the scientific community is still being like “but can we PROVE these women aren’t just depressed because they’re LOVESICK?”