TY - CHAP
T1 - Social class and sexual stigma
T2 - local interpretations of emergency contraception in Egypt
AU - Wynn, L. L.
AU - Hafez, Hosam Moustafa Abdel
AU - Ragab, Ahmed
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - Emergency contraceptive pills (ECPs) contain the same hormones found in daily oral contraceptive pills and are taken after sex to prevent pregnancy. While oral contraceptive pills are widely available and accepted in Egyptian society, a stigma lurks around ECPs, which are portrayed as a cover-up for and enabler of immoral sexuality. DKT Egypt, the NGO that produces the only brand of ECP sold in Cairo, has contributed to this image by marketing the drug predominantly to upper-class, bilingual Egyptian women who are widely seen to be the most sexually permissive women in Egypt. This chapter is based on two years of ethnographic research and archival examination of religious jurisprudence interpretations of reproductive health technologies in Egypt, conducted by an American anthropologist, an Egyptian physician, and an Egyptian professor of public health. In examining why emergency contraception is so little-known and little-used in Egypt, Wynn, Moustafa and Ragab argue that social expectations surrounding this reproductive health technology interact with anxieties over changing sexual norms in Egypt and fear of a conservative backlash to influence the marketing of emergency contraception.
AB - Emergency contraceptive pills (ECPs) contain the same hormones found in daily oral contraceptive pills and are taken after sex to prevent pregnancy. While oral contraceptive pills are widely available and accepted in Egyptian society, a stigma lurks around ECPs, which are portrayed as a cover-up for and enabler of immoral sexuality. DKT Egypt, the NGO that produces the only brand of ECP sold in Cairo, has contributed to this image by marketing the drug predominantly to upper-class, bilingual Egyptian women who are widely seen to be the most sexually permissive women in Egypt. This chapter is based on two years of ethnographic research and archival examination of religious jurisprudence interpretations of reproductive health technologies in Egypt, conducted by an American anthropologist, an Egyptian physician, and an Egyptian professor of public health. In examining why emergency contraception is so little-known and little-used in Egypt, Wynn, Moustafa and Ragab argue that social expectations surrounding this reproductive health technology interact with anxieties over changing sexual norms in Egypt and fear of a conservative backlash to influence the marketing of emergency contraception.
KW - Emergency Contraception
KW - Family Planning Program
KW - Oral Contraceptive Pill
KW - Reproductive Health
KW - Unintended Pregnancy
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85145188623&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-94-007-6722-5_5
DO - 10.1007/978-94-007-6722-5_5
M3 - Chapter
SN - 9789400767225
T3 - Springer Series on Demographic Methods and Population Analysis
SP - 85
EP - 102
BT - Critical issues in reproductive health
A2 - Kulczycki, Andrzej
PB - Springer, Springer Nature
CY - Dordrecht
ER -