In the early twentieth century, birth control advocate Margaret Sanger published eight issues of a feminist magazine called The Woman Rebel. During this time, discussion of sex education, birth control, and abortion were illegal. The magazine featured literary pieces on topics like women’s rights, love and marriage, women in the workplace, reproductive and sexual education, and contraception. The Woman Rebel was one of the first magazines that discussed issues that working class American women faced. Through the magazine, Sanger sought to convince female readers to reject their oppression and become what she called women rebels. The Woman Rebel generated attention and controversy around the birth control and feminist movements in the United States during the twentieth century, advancing those movements and creating a community of women with the common intent to rebel against apparent injustice.

In 1970, Shulamith Firestone, a self-described radical feminist and writer, published The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution, hereafter The Dialectic of Sex. In the book, she argues for the replacement of natural reproduction with artificial reproduction in order to provide women liberation from their reproductive biology. Firestone envisions a day when scientific technology will enable children to be conceived and grown completely outside of a woman’s uterus, what scientists call ectogenesis. At the time of publication, the technology to enable ectogenesis did not exist, although forms of assisted reproduction, such as in vitro fertilization and intrauterine insemination, were starting to be developed. The Dialectic of Sex was one of the first feminist publications supporting ectogenesis, and, as of 2025, it continues to stimulate thinking among many researchers and ethicists who study the implications of new reproductive technologies for women.