Today is not only Mother's Day - it is also the 50th anniversary of "The Pill," the oral contraceptive birth control.
Like it or not, the arrival of the birth control pill was a momentous occasion in human civilization and has an enormous social impact:
The thought of out-of-wedlock pregnancy struck terror in women in midcentury America, said Claudia Goldin, a professor of economics at Harvard University who has studied the pill's effect on professional women. The proper course of courtship was to go steady, become lavaliered, pinned, then engaged.
"They were a set of steps that led almost irrevocably to marriage, and they were set down at an early age," she said. "The pill allowed us to get rid of all of those steps." [...]
The pill also has been credited — or blamed — for overturning sexual mores, but there is less evidence that it caused or evenly greatly contributed to the sexual revolution, May said. The nation, she noted, experienced sharp changes in sexual behavior in the 1920s, during World War II, and during the 1960s and '70s.
Other predictions swirling around at the time of its debut did not come true, May said. The pill did not curb worldwide population growth, create happier sex lives for married couples or reduce rates of divorce.
As in, it's okay to disapprove of the invention of birth control?!
I didn't know that they gave PhDs in 50s television. Did she do her dissertation on The Donna Reed Show?
Her PhD was finished by the time I was 7 years old, but if the pill hadn't held off my birth and then my brother's birth, she said that it never would have happened.
The pill is a good way to control when you get pregnant. Can't say it's been great for girls and women as a lifestyle choice, though.
Pretty much means, now, that girls start having sex at an incredibly young age and have sex with an outrageous number of men by the time they decide to settle down.
Can't see how having more lovers than you can count on one hand (or two) is a good thing.
In any day and age.
I think the pill will have had (a lot of) influence, but also a lot in other areas than strictly the pregnancy control- Lots of females I know use the pill as a way to control, manage and time their period and the moodswings and bellyhurts that accompany that. They still not go all-out in sexual activity, but they use it to just have easier lives as it comes to being able to participate in activities that otherwise would be hindered by their monthly inconveniences. So in that respect I do see that the pill can be great as a lifestyle choice.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/health/27well.html
Also, what's wrong with having lots of sexual partners? You're not instantly given a sexually transmitted infection or an unwanted pregnancy after you've had a certain number of partners. As long as people practice safe sex, it doesn't matter how many partners someone has had.
The more the better!