Category: sexual health

Was the pill all that revolutionary?

tekanji

My dad loves, and I mean loves, to talk about how the pill is what enabled women to become equal. He talks about it as if it’s the end-all-be-all of contraceptive and that something like women having a pill that they can take to prevent pregnancy was the deciding moment in the struggle for equality. Now, I think he presents it this way mostly because my family tends to talk in hyperbole, but I do think that it’s a reflection of the common way of thinking of the pill as freedom for women.

Now, obviously the pill has done some great things for some women. I’m not disputing that. But I would like to highlight a post by BetaCandy, How the pill revolutionized sex… for men, where she questions the conventional wisdom that the pill was some miraculous discovery for women everywhere:

We already had the solution to women’s freedom to have sex without worries about pregnancy: condoms. So why did we need a pill to market the concept that women could now have sex as they pleased?

Because men didn’t like condoms, and this “sexual freedom” women were being granted took place within a framework of having to sexually appeal to men and their preferences. I realize there were other apparent advantages to the pill: it was more convenient, it didn’t interrupt the moment, and for a lot of women it made periods more manageable (which sounds trivial to those who’ve never experienced grossly difficult or irregular periods, but trust me: it seems like a godsend at the time). But it wasn’t marketed as “convenient”; it was marketed as “freedom”, when condoms already provided that very freedom, plus STD protection, without side effects.

And I think that’s something that’s important to think about because so many things that are packaged in our society as “freedom” for women really translate into some freedom for women, but much more freedom for men. I feel like the rhetoric of the pill as revolutionary is symptomatic of the way women’s needs and wants are subsumed by greater narratives that, ultimately, cater more towards the needs of others rather than the needs of ourselves.

You Make Me Feel So Young

jfpbookworm
[Crossposted to my Vox blog.]

Just when I was starting to feel like I was getting old, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services comes through and treats me like a kid again:

Now the government is targeting unmarried adults up to age 29 as part of its abstinence-only programs, which include millions of dollars in federal money that will be available to the states under revised federal grant guidelines for 2007.

Up to 29? Heck, even if we don’t take the usual tactic here of focusing on the endpoint, the average age of the cohort they’re including is 24. Most unmarried 24-year-olds are going to be either in the workforce or higher education – presumably at that point they’ve merited a little autonomy?

For twenty-somethings, it’s not really an abstinence only program any more, because as far as I’m aware there’s no centralized, government-funded source of sex education for us. There is not as yet any law against turning on my TV and watching Sue Johansson on cable, or going to the library and checking out books on the subject, or going online and (unless I’m on Buffalo’s heavily filtered municipal wireless, where I can’t read half my usual blogs because they’re afraid someone’s going to lure a kid into an unmarked van with promises of Pandagon posts) reading about any imaginable variation.

In addition, many of the abstinence arguments for teenagers simply don’t apply in the same way. Telling a 15-year-old that he or she should wait to have sex is very different from telling a 25-year-old to wait. The message to the kid is more “wait until you’re older” than “wait until you’re married,” although the assumption is that they will follow the approved life script and marry in their late teens or twenties. For the adult, it’s all about marriage – nobody has a problem with his or her married peers being sexually active – and an adult has a better idea of the likelihood of their getting married at some point than a teenager does.

So I suspect “abstinence only” isn’t really aimed at gutting sex ed like it is for the kids; it’s about funding a propaganda campaign.

But Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families at the Department of Health and Human Services, said the revision is aimed at 19- to 29-year-olds because more unmarried women in that age group are having children.

Wait, I thought that women were supposed to have children in their twenties. Isn’t that what the panic about career women who wait until later in life to have kids is about? Oh, right, we’re talking about unmarried women here. (I suspect we’re also talking about women of color here when we mention “identifying groups” at risk.)

“The message is ‘It’s better to wait until you’re married to bear or father children,’ ” Horn said. “The only 100% effective way of getting there is abstinence.”

This is flatly untrue. Given that (as of now) abortion and contraception are both legal, for folks with access to them (which sadly isn’t universal), that’s pretty much a 100% effective way of not bearing children you don’t want. Ironically, the statement is a lot more true for men, given that they have to abide by their partner’s decision. So why does “abstinence only” ignore contraception for does every form of abstinence only treat men’s behavior as an afterthought?

Furthermore, I’m not sure how my marrying someone would make either them or me a better parent. The only thing I can think of is that they could get the benefit of my health insurance. It’s not going to make us better off financially or make me want children.

I think this shows what the “abstinence only” movement is really about: it’s less about helping people than social control. (I suppose that when enough arguments get leveled at the pregnancy rationale, they’ll switch over to STDs as the reason.) Abstinence-only education, the ire over gay marriage, it all boils down to the idea that we should all be good little Christians and adhere to the script; if we’re not good little Christians, we should at least have the decency to hide it.

More at Pandagon.

Glamour: The new lies about women's health (No, really?)

tekanji

In a move that is surprisingly good, Glamour has published an extensive and well written article that covers the governmental assault on women’s health. From the FDA to government funded abstinence only ed, the article is a long read, but well worth it.

An excerpt:

“Abstinence is a laudable goal,” says Deborah Arrindell, vice president of health policy for the nonpartisan American Social Health Association, an STD-awareness group. “But it is not how young women live their lives—the reality is that most women have premarital sex. Our government is focusing not on women’s health but on a moral agenda.” Consider this a wake-up call.

[From The new lies about women’s health by Brian Alexander]

Now I just want to know why the editors thought that a naked woman’s backside was the most appropriate picture they could think of for a health related article. I mean, maybe it’s just me, but when I think “assault on women’s health” I just don’t think “woman butt.”

Via Ragnell.

New Contraceptive May Save Lives

tekanji

A new form of contraceptive (microbicides) is under development, one that looks like it might be able to strike a serious blow against the epidemic of STDs, HIV in particular.

It comes in the form of cream, gel, or capsule and has the power to save over 2.5 million lives over a period of three years, as estimated by the Rockefeller Foundation. […]

With 14 different versions in the works and 5 already proven safe enough for scientists to begin testing, microbicides are expected to hit the market at some date in the next 3 years.

Perhaps the most significant benefit is the product’s ability to empower women. Rather than negotiating the use of a condom, women would be able to apply the cream with disregard to the sentiment of their partner.

Over at feministing, Jen asks one question that the article fails to address:

I wonder…the article referenced doesn’t touch on whether it would be usable for gay men. I’d presume that lube would be helpful for anal sex, and a lot of gay men I know would rather not use a condom if they didn’t have to (a lot of straight men too, for that matter), so this could potentially have a huge impact on the gay male community and the impact of AIDS on them. Is this only a vag-friendly cream, or could it be used elsewhere?

Hopefully when this medication gets closer to a possible release date, issues such as these will be addressed. Even if it’s vaginal only, however, if proven safe to use, this medication could save a lot of lives. Of course, with the Christian Right all up in arms in the United States about the potentially life-saving HPV vaccines, because, you know, the women “may see it as a license to engage in premarital sex” (says Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council), I expect microbicides will also come under fire eventually. I just hope that, when the time comes, that neither medications will be denied simply because some religious nutbags think that premarital sex is a greater “risk” than saving the lives of women and men.

Via feministing