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Any of you who have been reading me for awhile knows that I'm a firm believer in better living through science and therefore the whole current (and recurrent) debate in the U.S. political scene about birth control is on the face of it a non-starter for me. I've been saying for years that it's the 20th (21st!) century, get with the program already!
Turns out I've been naively optimistic. Sara Robinson's article Why Patriarchal Men Are Utterly Petrified of Birth Control -- And Why We'll Still Be Fighting About it 100 Years From Now is a sobering reminder of how slowly the wheels of progress turn.
Given that it's been available my entire life, it's easy for me to forget that the existence of safe, effective birth control has created huge changes in the roles of women, of family, of sex, and in the power dynamic between men and women. We're only 50 years into this huge change so while I think resistance is ridiculous, I shouldn't be surprised that conservatives are still trying desperately to put this genie back in the bottle and will be for [sigh] hundreds of years to come.
I like to marvel at how far people have come in just my lifetime, and it's dispiriting to be reminded how much further there is to go.
Turns out I've been naively optimistic. Sara Robinson's article Why Patriarchal Men Are Utterly Petrified of Birth Control -- And Why We'll Still Be Fighting About it 100 Years From Now is a sobering reminder of how slowly the wheels of progress turn.
Given that it's been available my entire life, it's easy for me to forget that the existence of safe, effective birth control has created huge changes in the roles of women, of family, of sex, and in the power dynamic between men and women. We're only 50 years into this huge change so while I think resistance is ridiculous, I shouldn't be surprised that conservatives are still trying desperately to put this genie back in the bottle and will be for [sigh] hundreds of years to come.
I like to marvel at how far people have come in just my lifetime, and it's dispiriting to be reminded how much further there is to go.
