During the two World Wars sexuality was fundamental to how both conflicts were planned, conducted, and experienced. The sexual body was an ever-present target of military policy as a potential polluter of the race, a danger to colonial order, sexual mores, or gender hierarchy; it was an object of intervention and mutilation, even annihilation. Nonetheless, war also offered opportunities for new, hitherto illicit sexual encounters. Individuals experienced sexuality in two opposing ways: as a source of immense suffering but also of erotic excitement and love. Changes in sexual attitudes, regulation, and practices must be understood through the filters of gender, class, race, sexual orientation, religion, and regional variations. Between 1918 and the `sexual revolution” of the 1960s a profound shift in sexual mores and attitudes took place in all bellicose nations. The millions of deaths on the battlefields, the suffering at home, the unprecedented mass movement within and between countries had sufficiently ruptured the social fabric to unleash a wide-spread liberalisation of sexuality. The steeply declining birthrate was the most dramatic expression of changing ideals. Yet, liberalisation was at best ambivalent as many traditional attitudes and regulations resurfaced and women and queer people struggled to fit back into a state-sanctioned `normal” life.

This chapter focuses on women’s sexual and reproductive health across their lifecourse. It begins with an overview of how sexual and reproductive health has been defined historically and today. Next, it describes the leading causes of morbidity and mortality related to sexual and reproductive health globally and then turns to some specific health outcomes that primarily or exclusively impact girls and younger women, and women during their childbearing ages, as well as peri- and post-menopausal women. The chapter highlights some of the ways gender adversely impacts girls’ and women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights as well as how gendered opportunities limit women’s access to sexual and reproductive health care and services. The chapter concludes with a summary and recommendations for future research and programs.