Emancipation
May. 14th, 2010 11:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
leynosApparently, Raquel Welch recently wrote a rather negative opinion piece in the Telegraph about the oral contraceptive, which is 50 years old this week. I'll leave it to a a couple of readers of the Guardian to explain what the pill actually meant (and means) for women:
"It was worth it! Reproductive choice, the power to say no in a relationship, the right to choose. An end to the shame and lifelong burden of an unwanted pregnancy, including poverty, secret adoptions, abortions, unnecessary early deaths. I will never forget my mother, born in 1925, tell of her anguish every month of her married life waiting to find out it she had made it through another 28 days unscathed. She had four children that she did not want. For those who want children, the possibility of timing them. The family of choice, not necessity."
The fantasy of moral decline is just that. One cannot deny human nature. What the pill brought about was a measure of equality that has been missing for the duration of history.
"There was always promiscuity - but it was the men who had all the fun. Now women, for the first time in human history, get to call the shots."
"It was worth it! Reproductive choice, the power to say no in a relationship, the right to choose. An end to the shame and lifelong burden of an unwanted pregnancy, including poverty, secret adoptions, abortions, unnecessary early deaths. I will never forget my mother, born in 1925, tell of her anguish every month of her married life waiting to find out it she had made it through another 28 days unscathed. She had four children that she did not want. For those who want children, the possibility of timing them. The family of choice, not necessity."
The fantasy of moral decline is just that. One cannot deny human nature. What the pill brought about was a measure of equality that has been missing for the duration of history.
"There was always promiscuity - but it was the men who had all the fun. Now women, for the first time in human history, get to call the shots."
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no subject
Date: 2010-05-15 10:37 am (UTC)I think it's easy to forget, 50 years on, just what life was like before the pill. Le sigh. At least we had half a century before the rose-tinted glasses came out... 8^P
no subject
Date: 2010-05-15 11:15 am (UTC)Also - as my mum was quick to point out - it was only available to married women in the 50s and 60s.