The sexual revolution started out with Feminism in 1957 Betty Freidan had conducted a poll and discovered that many women portrayed to live as a happy suburban housewives. They were actually living a miserable life. Women had lost ground during the year of World War II.
“The feminine Mystique” was created with the saying that many had a vision that women were and should be content in a world of bedroom, kitchens, sex, babies, and home, which made many women feel their homes were a prison.Freidan’s view of the middle class women was “a comfortable concentration camp”. The Feminism Mystique written by Freidan became an immediate bestseller for many women. Freidan had believed that women should not be conformed to the Feminine Mystique that had been created and that they should participate in if not enjoy the act of sex. The importance of the book was that it created a new way of thinking in regards to the domestic and sexual role of women in society.
In 1966 Freidan and other women activists founded the NOW (National Organization for Women), it first had started out to end discrimination in the workplaces for women on the basis of sex, It went on to legalize abortion and to receive assistance for child care centers to receive support from the state and federal governments. In the 1960’s the sexual revolution had seen to be centered in and around university campuses and amongst the students. The sexual revolution in America was a dramatic shift in traditional values related to sex and sexuality.Sex had become more socially acceptable outside the strict boundaries of heterosexual marriages. In a ten year period from 1965 to 1975 sexual intercourse for women prior to marriage had showed an increase, as well as out-of-wedlock births, sexually transmitted diseases, and teen pregnancy. Since the 1960’s marriages had declined and divorces had doubled.
Information also shows that more and more people mainly women, felt an increase in sexual liberation. There were the battles of the homosexuality that were labeled as predatory deviants that were said to be dangerous to the rest of society.The main focus was on teachers because they had believed that teachers who were homosexuals did untold damage when around vulnerable young people; as young people were considered to be easy prey in the recruitment of homosexuality. The teachers were also accused of attempting to unnaturally reproduce the homosexual population. It was stated by stereotypes and societal prejudices that male homosexuals were more dangerous then women homosexuals.
With it being stated that the ‘Gay Revolution’ not having such an impact during the decade.It is still of importance to consider the big part that the gay liberation crowd had to play in the overarching sexual revolution. In the age of the sexual revolution and urban chaos many acts of defiance occurred as homosexuals found creative ways to resist heteronormative social codes. Needless to say there was still the core of the problem of the sexual revolution that women, just like men enjoyed sex and had sexual needs just like men. Feminists asserted and had stated that single women had the same sexual desires and should have the same sexual freedoms as everyone else in society.Feminists felt that the sexual revolution was about female sexual empowerment.
Social conservatives felt the sexual revolution was an invitation for promiscuity and an attack on the foundation of American Society (The Family). Feminist and Social conservatives quickly clashed over morality of the Sexual Revolution and the pill was drawn into the debate. The pill became a convenient scapegoat for the sexual revolution among social conservatives. Many had argued that the pill was, in fact, responsible of the sexual revolution.
Conservatives had feared most that that the pill allowed women to separate sex from procreation. The theory of the pill from the social conservative’s point of view was that it allowed women on the pill to control their fertility which single and married women could have sex at anytime, anyplace and with anyone without the risk of pregnancy. In 1912 a woman named Margaret Higgins Sanger had repeatedly caused scandal and the risk of imprisonment by defying the Comstock Law of 1873, which outlawed giving information on contraception and devices.Margaret felt that women needed to have more “equal footing” in society they needed to be able to decide when a pregnancy would be most convenient for themselves as well as having access to birth control would allow women to be able to fully enjoy sexual relations, without being burdened by the fears of becoming pregnant. Sanger worked with poor women who were suffering from frequent childbirth and self induced abortions, which led her to speaking out fro the need of women to become more knowledgeable of birth control.While on duty as a nurse one day Margaret had met a lady named Sadie Sachs who had become very ill due to a self induced abortion.
When being called to another incident of self induced abortion and finding Sachs dead. Margaret had hit her point to help desperate women, such as Sachs to before they were driven to pursue dangerous and illegal abortions, which was not an uncommon during that time period. Margaret’s dream was to find a “Magic Pill” as easy to take a s a aspirin for contraceptive purposes. In 1914 Sanger launched the Women Rebel a eight page monthly newsletter promoting contraception, with the slogan “No Gods and No Masters”.She was indicted and jumped bail and fled to England. In 1915 she visited a Dutch birth control clinic where she became convinced that a diaphragm was actually a better birth control device then that of suppositories and douches.
In 1916 after a few publications on menstruation and birth control she opened a family planning and birth control clinic that she served 30 days in prison for. That didn’t stop Margaret in 1921 she founded the American Birth Control League known as the ABCL, under the auspices of the ABCL she established the Clinical Research Bureau (CRB).Sanger found a loophole in the system where she learned that physicians were exempt from the law that prohibited the distribution of contraception information to women when prescribed for medical reasons. With the help of wealthy supporters Margaret opened the first legal birth control clinic in the United States. In 1928 Margaret resigned as President of the ABCL and took full control of the CRB, renaming it the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau. A couple of years later she became President of the Birth Control International Information Center.
From 1952 to 1959 she served as president for the largest private international family planning organization called International Planned Parenthood Federation. In the early 1960’s Sanger promoted the use of the newly available birth control pill. In 1960 approved by the Food and Drug administration the pill was available, a drug that blocks ovulation by releasing synthetic hormones into a women’s body and a drug that would arguably have a greater impact on American culture than any others in the nations history.It initially was only available to married women that didn’t last very long. The widespread of access to the pill gave women a greater sense of sexual freedom than any other previous birth control contraception.
It also contributed to many sexual transmitted diseases with in the 1960’s being that there were only four of them and now there being at least twenty-four STD’s. Lyndon Johnson was the first acting President to endorse the birth control, a huge important factor in the changes of American sexual attitudes in the 1960’s.The pill was distributed by doctors as a form of population control to counter the fear of over population which President Johnson’s goal to eliminate poverty. The pill became an extremely controversial subject for Americans. Americans struggled with thoughts of sexual morality and control of the population due to a pill.
The strongest voice against the pill was and still remains to be are the Catholic Churches, which aren’t the first to admit that they do practice a withdrawal method as their form of birth control. Despite the controversies in our society regarding the pill.American women found it tremendously liberating. It allowed women to pursue their careers and it fueled the women’s movement and encouraged more open attitudes about sex.
As for today in the year of 2010 the pill can be looked at in many different ways. A from of birth control of course but also as a form of medication that helps many women maintain a actual menstruation that can be lighter and less painful. We will always have a difference of opinions where the Pill is concerned but that also leads us to why we live a country that gives us The Freedom of Speech.
