Still Mad about the Pill
February 23rd, 2012 © by Susan SwartzI think I get it. It’s a 50 year old grudge. They’re still mad about the Pill. The birth control pill turned the power game upside down more than 50 years ago and some people are still honked off about it. Reliable woman-controlled contraception changed many things. The Pill became forever linked to the sexual revolution, women’s liberation, cultural change, even consumer activism. All the things some people wish they could reverse.
As the Republican presidential campaign continues its jaw-dropping mission to control women’s bodies it’s clear that one way the hard right would take this country back is to drag women back a half century.
If you weren’t around to remember, ask your mother or grandmother what it was like after the Pill put women in charge of their bodies. They didn’t have to leave birth control up to the man who promised, “Trust me, I’ll take care of it.”
Not anymore. Women took control. Discreetly. Your man didn’t need to know, or your mother, or the church.
A woman in charge of her future could plan her life, develop a career, start up a rock band, finish med school. She could decide when or whether to have children. She could enjoy sex. For another pre-Pill reminder, watch Mad Men.
In her book When Everything Changed, The History of American women from 1960 to the present, Gail Collins quotes the Economist magazine as crediting the Pill for being one invention that historians a thousand years from now will say defined the Twentieth Century.
In 2010 we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Pill, confident that reliable birth control was taken care of. Today’s young women could feel assured that reproductive choices were “like the air and water, simply there when you need them,” writes Gloria Feldt in her book No Excuses, about women and power.
But apparently some weren’t celebrating, but brooding, waiting for their chance to pounce and show women who’s boss.
Our current attackers are not all crusty old guys, the fools who think sexist jokes are funny. Some are young enough to be Phyllis Schlafly’s grandsons. But their message is the same – that women, the poor dears, are simply incapable of knowing what’s best for their bodies.
The feverish Rick Santorum would get rid of abortion, birth control, prenatal testing and amniocentesis. Who knows what he’ll go after next. Virginia legislators pushed by the governor tried to force women to have an intrusive vaginal ultrasound prior to an abortion. Against her will. Whether she wants it or not. Non-consensual penetration of the vagina or, at worst - in the case of Virginia – state rape. At best, politicians wanting to play doctor.
Former Congresswoman Pat Schroeder said “If you had told me when I was in law school birth control would be a debate in 2012 I would have thought you were nuts.”
Fortunately women started talking back. In Virginia they organized a silent protest, staring down state legislators going to vote against women. And Gov. Vaginal Ultrasound backed off. Activists in Ohio labeled their anti-women Republicans “masters of the Uterus.” Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney demanded “Where are the women?” and led a walkout to protest a male-only panel dealing with contraception.
What’s seldom mentioned is that the Pill not only prevents an unwanted pregnancy but helps protect against uterine and ovarian cancer. It’s used to control endometriosis. It lessens migraines. And in its early years it turned women into their own health advocates. Concerned about the side affects from the heavy estrogen dose women pressured manufacturers to adjust the dosage. And they did. And women realized they had power as consumers.
Well, all of this has just been too much for too long for some people, mostly men, I’m sorry to say. Powerful women are obviously a menace to society and must be stopped.
That is our challenge then, for modern women and men to resist these 19th century throwbacks. If we don’t, we will leave a legacy for our grandchildren that will cause more pain and suffering than any whopping national debt.
Tags: anti-coice, birth_control, birth_control_pill, Carolyn_Maloney, Gail_Collins, Gloria_Feldt, Juicy_Tomatoes, Pat_Schroeder, Phyllis_Schlafly, Republicans, Rick_Santorum, Susan_Swartz, women
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February 23rd, 2012 at 8:14 pm
Thank you, Susan, for expressing my anger about this situation. Who could have possibly ever thought that we would have to discuss this in 2012! The sight of this all male Congressional pannel made my blood boil! The PD had a great letter to the editor. A woman suggested that maybe we should require Catholic men who want a prescription for viagra to submit an affidavit that they are married and are not engaged in any extramarital affairs. Please, Obama, trounce these hypocrites in November!
February 24th, 2012 at 4:19 am
I’d been out of the country while this current ‘conversation’ was germinating, returned to it in full swing and was, AM, appalled that old white men (of seemingly, yes, our generation!!), and men in (Roman and Evangelical) skirts, are trying once again to decide for, and rule women. I’d been frustrated by not having a ‘distribution list’ in my e-mail of many women with whom I could mount a vigorous challenge. Then, the women in Virginia took to the barricades and I sighed at least a small sigh of relief. To think that ‘in this day and age’ the subject of birth control would be raised – deny any woman access to birth control??? – is so unspeakable it’s impossible to believe it’s being spoken about! Is it at all possible that one of the Republican presidential candidates who doesn’t understand the concept of the separation of church and state, might be a serious electable candidate?? Horrors!
February 24th, 2012 at 10:16 am
Great column(s), Soozie. The Pill, the Tongue and The Book.
Things have gotten so goofy out there I’ve decided to come
back as an earthworm.
February 24th, 2012 at 1:13 pm
You’re so right. A Salon.com writer was on NPR detailing what the Virginia law would mean…even to the point that if a woman opted out of seeing the foetus as it was being photographed, that would be noted in her records. So punitive. I like the argument using no consent rather than rape because, though it might feel like a rape, it isn’t one. I’ve had the procedure for entirely legit reasons and it does feel strange and invasive but it’s not rape, not even close.
February 28th, 2012 at 11:36 am
Around and around we go in the same old struggles. I half expect the issue of votes for women to return and wonder where our contemporary Lysistrata is.
March 2nd, 2012 at 12:43 pm
Dear Susan:
I read your editorial in the Windsor Times today. It reminded me of so much of what I’ve seen in papers and on tv over the last several weeks, namely, that people on the right want to do away with contraceptives and women’s health access in general. It is often framed as a power issue as you have done.
The thing that baffles me though, is that Santorum, the catholic bishops, and most others on the right have not objected to the existence of contraceptives or the use thereof. What they are objecting to is the new requirement that they must now pay for others to have and use contraceptives. It is not a question of members of the right removing access that women have had up til now. It is a question of expanding access by making it free to the user (ie paid for by someone who is not the user).
You have argued, in my view disingenuously, against a strawman. The strawman being that the right doesn’t want you to have contraception.
The right would say, “have all the contraception you want as long as you pay for it”.
Why have you framed it the way you have? Do you really not see the difference?
Regards,
Jeff Meyer
March 4th, 2012 at 10:10 am
thanks for your comments and I appreciate your point of view but this is how I see it. health care insurance is a shared thing. My husband and I pay into health insurance for procedures we may never see. but will help underwrite someone else’s cancer procedure, heart surgery, etc. Also, contraception devices do many things beyond prevent pregnancy. They help a woman and man plan their family, helps guard against some female cancers. But if you don’t want to use it don’t. Just as health insurance covers immunizations for children and if you don’t want to immunize your kids, don’t.
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