Posted on 09/29/2010 8:33:41 AM PDT by marshmallow
FAR from bringing equality, contraception has redistributed power away from women, says George Pell.
THIS year is the 50th anniversary of the contraceptive pill, a development that has changed Western life enormously, in some ways most people do not understand.
While majority opinion regards the pill as a significant social benefit for giving women greater control of their fertility, the consensus is not overwhelming, especially among women.
A May CBS News poll of 591 adult Americans found that 59 per cent of men and 54 per cent of women believed the pill had made women's lives better.
In an article in the ecumenical journal First Things that month, North American economist Timothy Reichert approached the topic with "straight-forward microeconomic reasoning", concluding that contraception had triggered a redistribution of wealth and power from women and children to men.
Applying the insights of the market, he points out that relative scarcity or abundance affects behaviour in important ways and that significant technological changes, such as the pill, have broad social effects. His basic thesis is that the pill has divided what was once a single mating market into two markets.
This first is a market for sexual relationships, which most young men and women frequent early in their adult life. The second is a market for marital or partnership relationships, where most participate later on.
Because the pill means that participation in the sex market need not result in pregnancy, the costs of having premarital and extra-marital sex have been lowered.
The old single mating market was populated by roughly the same number of men and women, but this is no longer the case in the two new markets.
Because most women want to have children, they enter the marriage market earlier than men, often by their early 30s. Men are under no.........
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.com.au ...
I think you have it backwards, the pill has proven to be useless in female hands, but make one for men, and illegitimacy will instantly disappear.
Females will want to regain sexual control, so they will deal with the only tool left to them, get a ring before giving up sex.
Good to see, I assume, you support legalization of prostitution. After all, if we're going to play power games, it's not conservative to use the power of government to prevent women from choosing their own destinies, setting prices in the market, and taking advantage of the inflated value, as well as to prevent men from exercising the freedom to make their own choices and purchases.
Otherwise, of course, you have the government artificially propping up a monopoly, interfering with personal freedom and the market...things abhorrent to any conservative!
>>Good to see, I assume, you support legalization of prostitution.<<
The legalization of prostitution has NOTHING to do with the way I instruct my daughters to remain in control of their own destinies by not having premarital sex.
Nice straw man though.
You have me baffled with this sex talk and young girls, you aren’t aware that an easy girl is a weak girl, that she has relinquished much of her feminine power with males?
First date girls are in a weaker place than modest girls, in the control of their own status and place.
Even those of us that always liked to find weak girls understood that, it is why we look for a different type when we get serious.
Yeah, the invention of the vasectomy sure stopped girls from being fools for guys who have silver tongues, flashy clothes, and fast cars--and give them attention, right?
Sorry, but a male pill won't convert girls to abstinence any more than the teenage discovery of fellatio has swept things away!
Something similar was in First Things a few months back.
The infertile couple does not set out intending to be unable to conceive.
Not so the pilltaker, pride marcher, or adult DVD collector.
Why use the rhythm method if the couple does not "set out intending to be unable to conceive"?!
misdirection like this
See below.
when you might have been pushing
See below. Your arguments fit those things that I said. They were based on your arguments, not you, so it's not presented ad hominem.
The reality is that the pill removed the meaning and responsibility of heterosexual intercourse and made it into a purely recreational activity.
This is a false statement.
Perhaps there is no meaning and responsibility in heterosexual intercourse for you, but don't assume that is how it is for everyone. I am responding to your claims, and what flows naturally from them.
Marriage and the family, and therefore all of traditional civil society, are based on sexual intercourse being an essential part of life and not a tangential, pleasant diversion.
They are not mutually exclusive. Nutrition gained from food is essential for us to flourish. Do you curse the empty calories of cotton candy, or perhaps even better, the tangential, pleasant diversion of a DIET food! AIEEE!
If you picture humanity as mere animals who procreate only because their hormones force them to, then okay, The Pill has blocked humanity's progress. But I think that people who want procreation will be able to figure out how to do it just fine, and those who want recreation, emotional bonding, etc., even without procreation, can do that without taking away from procreative sex.
Agreed.
A woman should be able to choose her own destiny; prostitution is only one option.
The vasectomy was/is unheard of in the dating scene, so that was silly to bring it up.
Get a simple, effective pill that single guys can take, and that guarantees that they can’t impregnate girls, then it will be Katy bar the door.
Once men can do whatever they want without a pregnancy care in the world, no money concerns, no need for fake names, no risk from any female on the planet, just free unlimited sex with no marriage, no child support, no responsibilities, no lawyers, no courts, then men will be in total, 100% control of their own lives, and of human sex, how long do you think that females will go along with that?
Why are you ragging on her in such a foul way, bugging her with prostitution talk directed at her daughters?
I understand your point, but I do believe that what I stated would be the prevailing view among women and girls. Besides which, there’s a too high % of men who do enjoy getting women pregnant as a sign of potentcy.
My point as a man is that it is rare to find girls that use the pill effectively and I also disagree with the claim that a lot of men want to get pinned by pregnant dates.
Pregnancy is a tool of females, not males. I’m aware of the ghetto image, but even if it is true (which I doubt), it sure isn’t true of America in general.
Men do not want casual sex to result in being owned by a female, that is why we use fake names, go to their apartments, and conceal our identity.
Well, I don’t know your age, but the women of my age group would be loathe to get pregnant, seeing it as a one way ticket to poverty and stress. I never said that men want to get “pinned” either, but there is a mentality among some that impregnating a girl proves their virility, which is more apparent among some groups than others. No man is “owned” by a female-what they pay for (when they do pay)is ostensibly, support to the CHILD-The end result of usually “casual sex”. While no man has a say in whetehr or not the child is even born, they can practice self-control, the use of condoms or vasectomy. It’s not all a one way street, believe it or not.
Just give men a simple, effective pill and you turn the male/female world upside down.
Women would quickly learn a way to regain their power and that would involve withholding sex for rings.
Tell me which generation you are, and we can look up the illegitimacy rate for the females of your age group, also the abortion rate.
>>A woman should be able to choose her own destiny; prostitution is only one option.<<
How often do you visit them?
The pill shifted the power to young women. They can get all the “benefits” of marriage, while controlling the risks.
Men who want to be cads and women who want to be predators win.
That message is not just for girls. I told my son the same thing: don't take a chance on having a baby out of wedlock, especially before you finish your education. The girl can take you to court for support, but still manipulate or withhold visitation, live with or marry another guy who will interfere, move to another state and take the child, etc etc. Sexual continence is best, and not just for girls.
Geez, I pray there there are more parents teaching your message to their sons. Thank you!
Agree 100%. For too long there has been a strange dichotomy in the American family: we raise our daughters to guard their virtue, but we encourage our sons to be rakes. (An encouragement that they hardly need, given the biology involved.) This is a recipe for failure, and failure is what we have.
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