Not an Accident: The Work of Thalidomide in Twentieth-Century Canadian Women's History

Abstract: In the late 1950s and early 1960s, thousands of women gave birth to children with impairments after consuming thalidomide during their pregnancies. The scandal has been discussed from legal, medical, and scientific perspectives, yet the position of women in the tragedy remains relatively underaddressed. The scandal is often described as a tragic accident that will not be repeated due to changes in pharmaceutical testing and regulation. I argue that the thalidomide tragedy was not an accident but was the result of competing social, economic, and cultural conditions and priorities within which mid-twentieth-century women were situated. I also consider the work that thalidomide accomplished in women's history by positing that the drug contributed to constructions of the unstable pregnant woman in need of expert medicalized intervention, in alignment with narratives that served contemporaneous public interests. I further consider how the effects of that work linger in social locations relevant to women.