Reply
Tue 6 Jan, 2004 09:43 am
Purposefully watched the rebroadcast of the PBS program on birth control. I knew that there are more men active in the anti-abortion movement than there are women, but was surprised by the program's statement that when the pill was introduced, that men fought its introduction.
Let's put this in perspective. This was in 1960. After the lauch of Playboy when movie stars like Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield flaunted a kind of rough and ready sexuality. True, the standard of living was actually more amenable to large families than it is today: even men in fairly low level jobs could afford to buy houses and support four, five or six kids on a blue collar salary.
The pill was marketed as a way of regulating periods, as if women were machines on regulated schedules! Ironically, there was once knowledge of abortifacient herbs that women used to regulate their periods! Such knowledge was lost during the so-called enlightenment.
Coz they think that women will cheat on them?
Cuz if our hormornes are scheduled then we can become normal people almost like them and..gasp!..get the vote or some such thing?
The 60's...hard to tell.
Cuz many men wanted control over their women, and one way was keeping them "barefoot and pregnant". There are also cultures that perceive lots of children as indications of a man's virility.
You're all dead on right -- I would believe those reasons rather than a religious commitment. Even those devoutly Catholic who professed that the pill was evil have ulterior motives IMHO. Southern Babtists especially included.
I graduated from Marygrove College -- obviously, a Catholic women's college -- in 1969. My "sister class" graduated in 1967. Not everyone in the class of '67 was sexually active, even the engaged girls, but all planned to take the pill. These women wanted a few years to work, travel, buy a home and enjoy being a couple before becoming mothers. Sensible.
During my freshman year of college, I dated my high school valedictorian, then a student at the University of Detroit. Since I wasn't sleeping with him and since I regarded him, by that time, as someone I grew up, i.e., no one I could feel romantic about, I felt free to date other men as well. By the beginning of sophomore year, I was dating and falling in love with a senior at the University of Michigan and the valedictorian had earned a debate scholarship to Notre Dame, so our dates faded into letters, which dried up as my relationship with the pre-med from Michigan deepened. Unfortunately, my parents disliked the pre-med and broke us up during my junior year, plunging me into year long mourning. The mourning ended, and I began dating again, this time, with sex as part of dating. At the end of senior year, Notre Dame called me during spring break. He now smoked cigarettes but was obviously lacking in sexual experience. Over drinks at a local bar, he started telling me that he wanted to have three children and that he would "probably come home from work and play with my children but wouldn't bother with my wife very much." Inwardly, I thought, "How charming! I bet that line gets lots of girls!" He asked me what I wanted and I repeated pretty much the program my sister class has: that I wanted to be married and to have a career; that I would work for a minimum of five years, preferably ten, and that during that time, my husband and I would travel, I would go to grad school and would write. "I don't understand why a couple wouldn't want a child right away! What would they do?" was his reply. I laughed. He asked me why I was laughing and I suggested he gain some experience. He's now a lawyer in Beverly Hills. I wonder what his life has been like.
Phoenix32890 wrote:Cuz many men wanted control over their women, and one way was keeping them "barefoot and pregnant". There are also cultures that perceive lots of children as indications of a man's virility.
Birth control marked the beginning of a womans true liberation and independence.
THe label used for praCTioners of THE RyTHem MeTHod is "ParenTs"
Stumble It!
Tweet This
Bookmark on Delicious
Share on Facebook
Share on MySpace