The Pill has entered pop
culture in many forms, including comedy. Click on George Carlin's photo to
hear his standup about the Pill.
| The Social Impact of the Pill |
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The Pill has entered pop
culture in many forms, including comedy. Click on George Carlin's photo to
hear his standup about the Pill.
|
|
The overwhelming use of the Pill has guaranteed it a place
in American history. In 1990, only 30 years after the FDA approved it,
eighty percent of women born after 1945 had used the Pill at some point
in their lives.1 Furthermore, in the 1970s
and 1980s, more women used the Pill than any other reversible form of birth
control.2 The praise for the Pill was heard shortly after its invention by such notable sources as Time Magazine, which called the Pill “a miraculous little tablet".3 Gloria Steinem switched from a diaphragm to the Pill in the early sixties and wrote a rave review of the Pill in Esquire.4 This high flying praise did not stop then and was not limited to the United States. In 1999, the US version of the British magazine Economist listed the Pill among the greatest scientific and technological advances of the twentieth century and stated that it defined the century.5 The Pill provided a relatively safe (and increasingly safer after reductions in dosage) contraceptive option for women that was under their control. In addition, the Pill has a failure rate of around two percent6 which is much lower than that of a diaphragm which can be up two twenty-one percent7 or the condom which can be up to 12 percent.8 Many argue that this combination of control and reliability allowed women to change their attitude towards sex and especially towards pre-marital sex. It is for this reason that the pill is tied with the sexual revolution that took place in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. Use of the Pill as the only form of contraception (not in cojunction with a condom) began to fade in the 1980s because of the spread of AIDS. The Pill provides no protection against STDs and therefore barrier methods, such as the condom, began to be used in the place of, or in conjunction with, the Pill. Nevertheless, the Pill had widespread use and it had a major impact on the lives of American women. The Pill made family planning common practice, allowed women to have sex spontaneously and even opened up new job opportunities. According to PBS, “The Pill did more for the equality of women than any other single factor in the 20th century.” It is this kind of sentiment that shows the importance of the Pill and the impact that it has had on American society. |