Managing masculinities. Doctors, men, and men’s partners facing male infertility in France and French-speaking Switzerland (c. 1890–1970)

ABSTRACT

This article explores the involvement of doctors, men, and men’s partners in the clinical setting of male infertility in France and French-speaking Switzerland from the 1890s to the 1970s. Drawing from medical literature, press articles, media archives, and patient records, this paper questions the gendered construction of medical and patient work. It argues that in medical encounters, doctors, men, and men’s partners did not only engage with infertility but also with patients’ masculinities. The association between fertility and masculinity meant that men, but also doctors, were sometimes reluctant to explore the male factor of reproduction. Therefore, physicians elaborated specific strategies – such as referring to traits stereotypically associated with masculinity, attenuating fertility diagnoses or delegating information to men’s partners – to either include or dismiss men from the clinical setting, and to avoid harming their feelings of masculinity. In the meantime, women were made responsible for men’s reproductive health, reproducing a gendered division of reproductive work. This paper highlights partners’ work, such as consulting first, persuading their partners to undergo fertility exams, and mediating the relationship with physicians.

KEYWORDS:

• Male infertility
• medical work
• masculinities
• history of medicine
• gender
• men’s health

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Hélène Malmanche for informing me of this special issue, Marlyse Debergh for her suggestions, and Nicolas Taba for his language editing. Thanks to the editors and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Camille Bajeux is a PhD researcher at the Institute for Gender Studies in the University of Geneva (Switzerland). Her academic interests include the history of masculinities, gender, and medicine in the twentieth century. In her doctoral dissertation, she explores the history (or lack) of andrology as a specialty and the medical knowledge and practices of male sexual and reproductive health in France and French-speaking Switzerland.

Notes

1 The term ‘infertility’ was introduced in the second half of the twentieth century. Prior to this, authors used ‘sterility’ or ‘infecundity’. I use the term ‘infertility’ in general and the term ‘sterility’ when commenting historical sources.

2 Switzerland is a diverse country, with four official languages: German, French, Italian and Romansh.

3 For an analysis of these sources, see C. Bajeux (forth.). L’impuissance au cabinet du Docteur Bourguignon (1924–1953). Histoire, médecine et santé.

4 All quotes are translated by me.

5 The epididymis is a convoluted duct behind the testis along which sperm passes. Venereal infections of the epididymis were perceived as a major factor of male sterility (Gérard, 1888; Funck-Brentano & Plauchu, 1912; Brisebois, 1927; Dalsace, 1932). Public debates about the connection between venereal disease and male and female infertility proliferated in the late nineteenth century (Cahen & Minard, 2019).

6 Urologist Henri Bayle and histologist Charles Gouygou presented men’s motivations to have their semen tested: some wanted to test their fertility before marriage, other doubted their paternity, and some because they worked in hazardous environments for spermatogenesis (1953).

7 The real name was made anonymous.

8 Clinics that allotted a timeslot for men dedicated less time for male infertility than they did female infertility. For instance, the infertility clinic of Hôpital Broca (Paris) dedicated three slots per week for women and only one for men in the years 1946–1947 (AN, AJ/16/8344).