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| Critics can't decide if feminists hate sex or are having too much of it | Critics can't decide if feminists hate sex or are having too much of it |
| (about 9 hours later) | |
| When it comes to sex, feminists get a bad (and confusing) rep. We're both man-haters and whores, unmarryable spinsters and family-destroyers. We purportedly want to outlaw pornography while encouraging adolescent girls to get on the pill. We're hideous hairy-legged lesbians, and we're using undergraduate Women's Studies programs to turn your daughter bisexual. We're promiscuous oversexed sluts, and we're angry femi-Nazis because we're not getting laid. | When it comes to sex, feminists get a bad (and confusing) rep. We're both man-haters and whores, unmarryable spinsters and family-destroyers. We purportedly want to outlaw pornography while encouraging adolescent girls to get on the pill. We're hideous hairy-legged lesbians, and we're using undergraduate Women's Studies programs to turn your daughter bisexual. We're promiscuous oversexed sluts, and we're angry femi-Nazis because we're not getting laid. |
| Critics can't decide if feminists hate sex or are having too much of it. | Critics can't decide if feminists hate sex or are having too much of it. |
| Feminists, at least for the past decade or so, have been relatively consistent when it comes to sexual activity: it should be consensual and shame-free, and all women and men should have access to sexual health information and contraceptive methods that work best for them. There are still debates about issues like porn and prostitution, but the basic framework of "consensual, shame-free, informed" sees little challenge within feminist circles. | Feminists, at least for the past decade or so, have been relatively consistent when it comes to sexual activity: it should be consensual and shame-free, and all women and men should have access to sexual health information and contraceptive methods that work best for them. There are still debates about issues like porn and prostitution, but the basic framework of "consensual, shame-free, informed" sees little challenge within feminist circles. |
| Disturbingly, a small number of "women's empowerment" writers want that to change. They're latching on to right-wing talking points about gender roles, female sexuality and even medicine while claiming the banner of feminism. | Disturbingly, a small number of "women's empowerment" writers want that to change. They're latching on to right-wing talking points about gender roles, female sexuality and even medicine while claiming the banner of feminism. |
| One is Holly Grigg-Spall, author of the book Sweetening the Pill: or How We Got Hooked on Hormonal Birth Control. The birth control pill, by which Grigg-Spall means all hormonal birth control, is, according to Grigg-Spall, part of a capitalist patriarchal model to keep women functioning as worker bees and sex objects. It's the same argument that pro-life activists have used for decades: The pill only makes women sexually available to men, the pill blocks a woman's natural femininity, true empowerment means going off the pill and using fertility awareness. | One is Holly Grigg-Spall, author of the book Sweetening the Pill: or How We Got Hooked on Hormonal Birth Control. The birth control pill, by which Grigg-Spall means all hormonal birth control, is, according to Grigg-Spall, part of a capitalist patriarchal model to keep women functioning as worker bees and sex objects. It's the same argument that pro-life activists have used for decades: The pill only makes women sexually available to men, the pill blocks a woman's natural femininity, true empowerment means going off the pill and using fertility awareness. |
| For all the finger-wagging about how hormonal birth control disempowers women, history tell a different story. What's clear is that the pill did usher in a gender revolution, and moved women's equality forward at an astounding pace. | For all the finger-wagging about how hormonal birth control disempowers women, history tell a different story. What's clear is that the pill did usher in a gender revolution, and moved women's equality forward at an astounding pace. |
| The Food and Drug Administration approved the first birth control pill in 1960. By 1965, it was the contraception method of choice for American women. Suddenly, sex didn't have to come along with anxiety and fear of pregnancy. Women could meet their very natural, very human desires for sex without having their education, careers and lives derailed by unintended pregnancy. The truth is that the average age of sexual initiation hasn't changed much over the past century; most people become sexually active by their late teens. With many women both fertile and sexually active into their 30s and 40s, life before the pill often meant choosing between sexual anxiety or no sex at all, and between a fully-realized career and motherhood. After the pill, women could increasingly have both. | The Food and Drug Administration approved the first birth control pill in 1960. By 1965, it was the contraception method of choice for American women. Suddenly, sex didn't have to come along with anxiety and fear of pregnancy. Women could meet their very natural, very human desires for sex without having their education, careers and lives derailed by unintended pregnancy. The truth is that the average age of sexual initiation hasn't changed much over the past century; most people become sexually active by their late teens. With many women both fertile and sexually active into their 30s and 40s, life before the pill often meant choosing between sexual anxiety or no sex at all, and between a fully-realized career and motherhood. After the pill, women could increasingly have both. |
| While "having it all" is quite obviously not yet a reality for the vast majority of women, most of us are a heck of a lot better off than we were in 1950. We live longer, our kids are healthier, we're better educated, our kids die less often, we're more likely to survive childbirth, we marry later, we have our own bank accounts and own our own homes. The inability to effectively control one's own fertility may not preclude all of that for every individual woman, but across society it makes gender equality impossible. | While "having it all" is quite obviously not yet a reality for the vast majority of women, most of us are a heck of a lot better off than we were in 1950. We live longer, our kids are healthier, we're better educated, our kids die less often, we're more likely to survive childbirth, we marry later, we have our own bank accounts and own our own homes. The inability to effectively control one's own fertility may not preclude all of that for every individual woman, but across society it makes gender equality impossible. |
| Which is exactly why social conservatives who think that a woman's role is at home with kids oppose birth control and abortion rights. What's surprising is to see feminists go along with them. | Which is exactly why social conservatives who think that a woman's role is at home with kids oppose birth control and abortion rights. What's surprising is to see feminists go along with them. |
| Anti-abortion and anti-contraception activists often brand themselves as the "true" feminists, claiming, for example, that "women deserve better" than abortion. But their arguments are almost universally premised on the idea that women simply don't know what's good for them. We might think we want birth control or abortion access or the right to control the number and spacing of our children, but what's really empowering is to embrace our natural femininity and have as many babies as God gives. That women have spent all of human history trying to avoid just that doesn't seem to register. Feminists, you'd think, would understand that better than anyone. Which is why arguments like those in Sweetening the Pill are so disappointing. | Anti-abortion and anti-contraception activists often brand themselves as the "true" feminists, claiming, for example, that "women deserve better" than abortion. But their arguments are almost universally premised on the idea that women simply don't know what's good for them. We might think we want birth control or abortion access or the right to control the number and spacing of our children, but what's really empowering is to embrace our natural femininity and have as many babies as God gives. That women have spent all of human history trying to avoid just that doesn't seem to register. Feminists, you'd think, would understand that better than anyone. Which is why arguments like those in Sweetening the Pill are so disappointing. |
| Hormonal birth control doesn't work for everyone, but neither does any medication or treatment. No, birth control isn't "natural," and it does interfere with what your body would otherwise naturally do. But so does nearly every other kind of medicine. Ovarian cysts are "natural;" that the pill helps to prevent them is not. Heart attacks are natural; open-heart surgery is not. Cancer is natural; chemotherapy is not. I'm a fan of avoiding putting unnecessary or harmful chemicals into your body. But I'm also a fan of science and of staying alive, healthy and happy. "Unnatural" is not a synonym for "bad". | Hormonal birth control doesn't work for everyone, but neither does any medication or treatment. No, birth control isn't "natural," and it does interfere with what your body would otherwise naturally do. But so does nearly every other kind of medicine. Ovarian cysts are "natural;" that the pill helps to prevent them is not. Heart attacks are natural; open-heart surgery is not. Cancer is natural; chemotherapy is not. I'm a fan of avoiding putting unnecessary or harmful chemicals into your body. But I'm also a fan of science and of staying alive, healthy and happy. "Unnatural" is not a synonym for "bad". |
| Similarly, that something didn't work for you doesn't mean that it's useless for everyone. I experienced some unpleasant side effects from hormonal birth control, went off of it and never looked back. Another good friend of mine had to go off the pill for a few months and was miserable without it. Another swears by her NuvaRing. Another won't shut up about her Mirena. With 3.5 billion women in the world, it should come as no surprise that some things work for some of us and not others. Of those 3.5 billion, some 222 million would like to control their fertility but lack access to birth control. | Similarly, that something didn't work for you doesn't mean that it's useless for everyone. I experienced some unpleasant side effects from hormonal birth control, went off of it and never looked back. Another good friend of mine had to go off the pill for a few months and was miserable without it. Another swears by her NuvaRing. Another won't shut up about her Mirena. With 3.5 billion women in the world, it should come as no surprise that some things work for some of us and not others. Of those 3.5 billion, some 222 million would like to control their fertility but lack access to birth control. |
| Women in many nations today exist in a strange time. We're technically on equal legal footing and we've come so far so quickly that it's easy to declare feminist victories achieved. But we still lag – we make less money, there are far fewer of us in positions of power, we do more domestic work, our most fundamental rights to our own bodies are still hotly debated, traditionally female careers are especially under-paid and traditional female interests under-valued. We're supposed to be nurturing child-bearers and also successful professionals, but working mothers find themselves facing wide discrimination. Girls tend to do better in school than boys, not because we're inherently smarter, but at least in part because girls are taught from a young age to follow the rules, be polite and defer to authority figures. Female workers who succeed are perceived as difficult, aggressive and tough to work with, while successful men see the opposite. Sexualized images of women pervade media and advertising, but we shame women who are unapologetically sexual (and even teenage girls who wear pajamas and take selfies). | Women in many nations today exist in a strange time. We're technically on equal legal footing and we've come so far so quickly that it's easy to declare feminist victories achieved. But we still lag – we make less money, there are far fewer of us in positions of power, we do more domestic work, our most fundamental rights to our own bodies are still hotly debated, traditionally female careers are especially under-paid and traditional female interests under-valued. We're supposed to be nurturing child-bearers and also successful professionals, but working mothers find themselves facing wide discrimination. Girls tend to do better in school than boys, not because we're inherently smarter, but at least in part because girls are taught from a young age to follow the rules, be polite and defer to authority figures. Female workers who succeed are perceived as difficult, aggressive and tough to work with, while successful men see the opposite. Sexualized images of women pervade media and advertising, but we shame women who are unapologetically sexual (and even teenage girls who wear pajamas and take selfies). |
| There's no easy way to be a woman today. Adopt the life of a traditional wife and mother and you're taking a very real risk by making yourself financially vulnerable, not to mention potentially bored and resentful; you'll also find yourself routinely condescended to and assumed to be an uninteresting childlike twit. Try to be a having-it-all supermom and you're stressed out, exhausted and frustrated with the systematic barriers to equality, not to mention regularly pilloried for being insufficiently dedicated to your children. Skip or delay the kids and you're a selfish narcissist flitting through life with no real purpose. | There's no easy way to be a woman today. Adopt the life of a traditional wife and mother and you're taking a very real risk by making yourself financially vulnerable, not to mention potentially bored and resentful; you'll also find yourself routinely condescended to and assumed to be an uninteresting childlike twit. Try to be a having-it-all supermom and you're stressed out, exhausted and frustrated with the systematic barriers to equality, not to mention regularly pilloried for being insufficiently dedicated to your children. Skip or delay the kids and you're a selfish narcissist flitting through life with no real purpose. |
| There's something sweet and simple and safe about being able to say, in such a confusing culture, "The best way to Be A True Woman is to embrace fertility and let it define you." Or, "We live in a sex-saturated culture, so it's best for women to give up sex." | There's something sweet and simple and safe about being able to say, in such a confusing culture, "The best way to Be A True Woman is to embrace fertility and let it define you." Or, "We live in a sex-saturated culture, so it's best for women to give up sex." |
| It's easier to point to one simplistic solution than to assess the diversity of problems women face, and to recognize that "womanhood" is not a singular experience. That's part of why right-wing anti-feminist narratives resonate so widely: wasn't life just so much simpler for June Cleaver? | It's easier to point to one simplistic solution than to assess the diversity of problems women face, and to recognize that "womanhood" is not a singular experience. That's part of why right-wing anti-feminist narratives resonate so widely: wasn't life just so much simpler for June Cleaver? |
| Perhaps it was. But for a lot of women it wasn't particularly satisfying. Scaring women away from highly effective forms of birth control with inaccurate claims isn't radical or brave. Doing the tougher work of opening up an even wider variety of real options for women and not assuming you know what's best for every single individual? That's significantly more humbling, and it might actually be what women need. | Perhaps it was. But for a lot of women it wasn't particularly satisfying. Scaring women away from highly effective forms of birth control with inaccurate claims isn't radical or brave. Doing the tougher work of opening up an even wider variety of real options for women and not assuming you know what's best for every single individual? That's significantly more humbling, and it might actually be what women need. |
| • The subheading was amended on 18 September 2013 to better reflect the article. | |
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