While John Rock was involved in the development of the pill, calling him "the man behind the pill" is a bit disingenuous. Gregory Goodwin Pincus and Min Chueh Chang are the two that probably closer to that description.
It should also be noted that John Rock was a vocal proponent of birth control long before the pill. In 1931, he was the only Catholic physician to sign a petition asking Massachusetts to end its ban on birth control (including teaching about it).
However, it was in fact Pincus that suggested a 20-day regimen to Rock in their first collaborative study, specifically because withdrawal bleeding would reassure the women that they weren't pregnant.
When the pill was new, pregnancy tests weren't easily available at drug stores for cheap. The pill was approved as birth control in 1960 and it wasn't 1977 that at-home pregnancy tests were available in the United States. Having a period was an assurance that the pill was working.
Rock did a lot for the pill and was a huge force behind it. He did want the Catholic Church to see it as a variant of the rhythm method. However, the reason behind the withdrawal bleeding is more likely to be about the reassurance that one isn't pregnant. Given the lack of at-home pregnancy tests for the first 17 years of the pill's existence, withdrawal bleeding meant that you weren't pregnant.
Event today, many people think skipping periods is weird or unnatural without any religious overtone to it.
>specifically because withdrawal bleeding would reassure the women that they weren't pregnant.
It would also be an additional thing you'd have to prove was safe and effective. Menstruation is a natural process and it would have been reasonable to assume that it was necessary for long term reproductive health. Turns out that's not the case, but we only know that because of additional studies.
>From this point on, the specter of women's "forgetfulness" stubbornly attached itself to the discourse around birth control. A slew of ads targeted at physicians encouraged a paternalistic approach, depicting women as "scatter-brained, incompetent, and in need of guidance," Gossel writes.
I'm aware that the times were unjust to women but whenever you're marketing a product at a massive scale, like 51% of the population, you should be as simplistic and as helping as possible. Simply because you're dealing with all kinds of people, not just the smart ones.
So I just don't see the reason to paint a picture of a paternalistic conspiracy against women here. It's rather sensible marketing to a massive audience.
How come we've gone 60 years with these pills? There are women who have entire careers behind them in biology and medical science and we're still using these pills.
I remember in the early 2000's meeting some women who were using a staff instead. But at least one stopped because she felt she became too hormonal with the staff under her skin.
> So I just don't see the reason to paint a picture of a paternalistic conspiracy against women here. It's rather sensible marketing to a massive audience.
Yeah, but try turning it around.
"Easy. For you to explain… for him to use."
I doubt they would have used this language for a male product. Either way, it sounds terribly patronizing.
There's an ad on British TV at the moment showing a woman saying to a man that she got him a gym membership and patting him on the belly as she says so. It's incredibly patronising and I can't ever imagine the same ad with gender roles reversed being allowed on TV.
There are a fair few ads like this although they're now supposed to be banned. Unfortunately the enforcement of advertising rules in this country is more reactive than proactive and I doubt most people would feel strongly enough to complain.
How is that argument against what he said? He is talking about back then and you are talking about now.
But when we switched to speaking about contemporary ads, Uber has one where woman wonders "how come he is always on time and able to find any place in city"? So women are still in ads in position of stupid people.
Because he said he doubts someone would make an ad where someone talks down to a man. So I gave an example of exactly this happening right now on British TV. This is not me saying that portraying women as stupid is ok - far from it. Just that there are ads which are equally patronizing towards men too.
> Because he said he doubts someone would make an ad where someone talks down to a man.
Well actually I didn't say that and I didn't know that all replies on HN were required to be arguments against but it does make sense now that I think about it.
That slogan was actually marketing the pill towards men in 1964, not women.
So what you're actually comparing is how marketers appealed to men in 1964 vs how they would in 2019.
Sure I agree that like many things in the 60s that ad was patronizing, probably toward both genders.
What is probably most interesting about that comparison in my opinion is that a birth control ad targeting men in 2019 would probably appeal to their desire to protect themselves, not their partners...
How come we've gone 60 years with these pills? There are women who have entire careers behind them in biology and medical science and we're still using these pills.
There have been a bunch of refinements to the pill as well as alternative options in the years since, but ultimately I think it's about finding something that works. It's hard finding new drugs and there would be a high bar for a new kind of pill.
Progestogen-only pills were first used in 1968. Vaginal rings (like the NuvaRing), contraceptive patches, implants, depo-provera, spermicidal sponges, and diaphragms have all been tried (plus IUDs which slightly pre-dates the pill).
Why haven't we had progress in all sorts of areas? Chemotherapy was developed before the pill and it's still widely used despite its side-effects. It doesn't mean that people aren't working hard on new cancer treatments. Discovering new ways of treating the human body is hard.
>Chemotherapy was developed before the pill and it's still widely used despite its side-effects.
Chemo consists of thousands of different drugs prescribed in different circumstances, and new ones are being discovered all the time. It has bad side effects because none of the drugs are very "good" when compared with for example first-generation antibiotics which would save your life without even short term side effects.
>So I just don't see the reason to paint a picture of a paternalistic conspiracy against women here. It's rather sensible marketing to a massive audience.
It is kind of striking that the pill is the only medication that comes this way. Not because it's paternalistic against women, but because it's such an obviously effective tool against forgetting your pills. I transfer my pills to a calendar container because I'd forget otherwise. So does seemingly every old person in the country. It's a bit of a wonder why the pharmaceutical industry hasn't innovated.
> I remember in the early 2000's meeting some women who were using a staff instead. But at least one stopped because she felt she became too hormonal with the staff under her skin.
Huh interesting I thought the reason was more precautionary principle like they thought that disrupting the cycle entirely would cause other problems. That or being left in as a general health indicator given that disruption is itself occasionally a hint that something is wrong.
I have no personal experience in that department to know how tolerable that would be for a generally fringe 'benefit'.
Something else not mentioned is that the pill gives you regular periods. Polycystic ovaries can cause erratic periods, so some women might like it because it gives them a period regularly.
I’ve had a partner with that problem and she greatly benefited from the pill. A few times we had problems procuring it (for one reason or the other, cannot remember), and she was in huge pain for weeks.
I thought this was know for quite some time? I remember women taking about skipping the placebos back in the 2000s, and there were even adverts for FDA approved pills that limited the placebos to only four times a year.
> The invention of the pill was one of the most significant advancements in the fight for reproductive agency; it allowed us, as a society, to dramatically reconceptualize sexuality and gender relations.
Taken a step further the invention of the in vitro breeding chamber finally frees the genders from each other. Now men or women can decide when they want a child and on what terms. The course that society is headed on these days is in essence to destroy the concept of gender... and it is so far succeeding on this mission.
> Now men or women can decide when they want a child and on what terms
Women currently have much more choice which gives them an unfair advantage. If a woman becomes pregnant by accident then she can abort or not abort without the man having any say in it. So if you make the argument that it's her body and the man shouldn't have a say (which is fine, I agree), then at the very least the man should have the equal option of "financial abortion" so that he has the same after-the-fact choice to not have a child that he didn't plan on having.
It is best for society when children grow up with parents who both wanted them.
> Women currently have much more choice which gives them an unfair advantage.
Men are free to choose to abstain from PIV intercourse, get vasectomies, or wear condoms, depending on their level of risk acceptance. They can also choose to have sex only when they are on the same page as their partner about what to do in the case of unplanned pregnancy. This requires a pre-coital conversation, and the acceptance that one party may change their mind.
> at the very least the man should have the equal option of "financial abortion"
No. Child support or co-parenting is not a punishment for the father, it is support for a child that exists. Also, men do not have to carry a pregnancy and go through childbirth and any resulting complications, and breastfeeding (if chosen). Let's accept that biology makes this situation unequal and not try to equalize it.
> It is best for society when children grow up with parents who both wanted them.
Possibly/probably. But growing up with two parents who both wanted a child is not the case for many existing people. Let's focus on managing the reality and making sure children grow up with the support of both parents when possible, and not focus on trying to do mental gymnastics to force the idea that any potential consequences of sex should not fall on men.
Support to a child does not go away just because a child has one parent or no parents. Demanding that the payment be done by an unwilling parent rather than society has everything to do with our cultural views. If we truly saw this as the child rights to get support then it should not matter who is paying the bill. The mother, the father, or the government.
Parenthood should be built on consent by both the mother and the father. Biology dictate that women should have the finally decision if she wants to have an abortion, but there is nothing biological to the fact that women have the exclusive right to declare in legal document who will fathering the child. That is just law, which can be changed and rewritten in any form depending on cultural values.
You didn't even try to understand the viewpoint of men objectively here.
You are telling men that they should be choosing to abstain from PIV intercourse, get invasive surgery or wear condoms which can all fail anyway which destroys your point anyway, but even if it didnt then a woman has to do none of these things and she still gets a choice of whether she wants to become a parent or not. Always. A man needs this choice too or it is not fair.
> Child support or co-parenting is not a punishment for the father
The millions of unwilling fathers who have to pay massive amounts of money would violently disagree with that statement. How can you even make such a statement without the alarm bells going off in your head? Just put yourself into their position, you didn't want a child, you still don't want one but now you have to pay money into it. It takes some breathtaking mental gymnastics on your part to shoehorn your ideological beliefs (fatherhood = never bad) into this objectively bad situation that has no equivalent for women.
I suspect you are fighting an ideological battle here, trying to convince everyone and maybe most of all yourself that fatherhood must never be seen as negative when reality just disagrees with you.
> men do not have to carry a pregnancy and go through childbirth and any resulting complications, and breastfeeding
Neither do women, they have the right to an abortion. Again, this just shows that you didn't even attempt to understand what my point was.
> Let's accept that biology makes this situation unequal and not try to equalize it.
Absolutely not, what kind of cruel joke is this? We see an obvious discrepancy with a very fair solution for both sides and you say no. One is inclined to think that there is a profit motive behind this for you if you are arguing like this.
> Let's focus on managing the reality and making sure children grow up with the support of both parents when possible
aka. forcing men into parenthood and an 18 year long huge financial burden against their will, not to mention the emotional burden.
> mental gymnastics to force the idea that any potential consequences of sex should not fall on men
Again: Women do not have to face these potential consequences of sex, so why should men?
Isn't it funny, you say we have to accept these biological differences but only if men suffer for it.
What about the biological reality that the baby is 50% the father's so why should the woman not have to accept this biological reality and be forced to ask the father for permission if she wants to abort it?
But no, of course not. Equality is only something good if it's in favor of women and bad for men. Did I get that right? I think I did even if you deny it.
I'm going to very quickly bottom line this: Women have the right to refuse motherhood whether they abstain from sex or not, men do not have it. This has to be fixed, whether you personally like it when men suffer or not.
When someone contribution to child raising is money and nothing else, that someone is still better off then their partner.
The impact on livestyle, socializing or ability to he part of society, hobby options, career options, free time or regular fun, possible achievements etc etc is quite large for the other partner.
That's not how it works. We're so used to the status quo that most of us don't see what is going on. I'll try, but distancing yourself from that will be hard:
Suppose it was a car, not a kid. The woman gets the car. The man pays for repairs, fuel, oil changes, and so on. He is not better off.
Normally in law, if you take something away from a person, you'll have to pay restitution. You pay damages of some sort. You have caused a loss, and so you must pay. The fact that the loss is human is not terribly special in our law: people are frequently ordered to pay compensation for wrongful death.
Normal fathers are in deep agony over the loss of their children. These fathers are often driven to suicide. The mothers frequently train the children to dislike their fathers, completely breaking the relationship.
So if the mother gets the child, logically she should pay damages to compensate the father for his loss.
Actually, the employed women are the ones who divorce more. Unemployed women divorce less. Female employment affect primary divorces in unhappy marriages - in happy marriages it does not affect divorce. Women do pay for their portion of costs after divorce.
And of course, child is not about your needs. Funny how you don't count work in child-raising at all into expenses - the times when you have to go from work sooner daily (meaning forget about projecting passionate programmer image), the part where you are not free to do what you wish in the evenings, the part where you deal with school and what not.
For you it is all about money and parents own needs. Plenty of fathers do the above work tho, including divorced ones. Universally, they don't see the child as possession the way you talk about them.
Yes, women are on average happier after divorce and men are less happy (but have it easier to find new partner). I don't know about mothers who frequently train the children to dislike fathers, it does happen occasionally just like father who is not willing to take time away to spend it with child. However, I could see how the child that is treated as a possession by father would come to resent that.
Say what? How does my 4th paragraph mean I think "it is all about money and parents own needs"?
The man is suffering. Just as if his child had been wrongfully killed, we can't fix things with money but that is normally how our law would work. It's the best we can do for the loser.
Flipping things around from our legal norm, as is done with children, is simply pouring salt into his wounds.
If child-raising is such work and annoyance (your 2nd paragraph), then let the other parent (father normally) have the kid. Oh, but giving up that sweet child support money... it sounds like you are the one for whom "it is all about money and parents own needs".
Edit: Oops, I posted studies linked to mate choice and not issues later in life as you requested. Arguably, choosing the wrong mate could be considered an issue in the long term, but I assume you referred specifically to medical ones.
The evolutionary selection aspect is curious. Is "natural" always "better"? Facial masculinity is correlated with higher testosterone production in response to competition [1]. Higher testosterone levels are also correlated with aggression and violence [2]. Could birth control steer evolution towards a less aggressive, less violent society? Is that a bad thing? You argue that choosing the "wrong" mate could be an issue -- is a less-violent partner the "wrong" choice?
They give another reason that seems reasonable because the religious acceptance hope, that it would freak people out to stop having periods. That seems like a reasonable thing too. I know no one wants to have a period, but keeping close to natural behavior could make people accept it more easily.
Two women I know suffer from Uterine Fibroids [1] and their doctors both have said in so many words "the uterus is good for two things, growing babies and growing tumors".
Both of these women took hormonal birth controls for most of their lives, and learned only after being diagnosed with fibroids that hormonal birth control promotes the growth of fibroids (and cancer).
They're both pissed, and have both been advised to have hysterectomies.
Through this lens, I get the impression that giving the uterus a break and letting things shed regularly is probably not a bad idea.
The article you link to literally says the cause is not known and does not mention any links to birth control...
> The exact cause of uterine fibroids is unclear. However, fibroids run in families and appear to be partly determined by hormone levels. Risk factors include obesity and eating red meat.
This is not something I've spent much time looking into. When my friends mentioned their health problems to me, which happened roughly all at the same time as I was visiting family and friends in another state, I was motivated enough to read up on what the heck fibroids are (I had never heard of them) and at least do some plausibility checks on what they were saying the doctors told them.
What I came up with in my cursory reading is hormonal birth control increases levels of the very hormones complementary to the growth of a fetus which also happens to help other things like fibroids/polyps/tumors whatever in the area to grow.
I don't know that one can make the claim that the hormonal birth controls cause fibroids or cancer, as in increases the probability of these things developing. The trouble is once something like this is present, the birth control hormones make them grow larger and faster.
After a quick google search just now I found [1], which states:
"To help prevent more growth of the fibroid, your doctor may recommend that you stop taking birth control pills or hormone replacement therapy. But in some cases, your doctor may prescribe birth control pills to help control the bleeding and anemia from fibroids, even though the hormones may cause fibroids to grow."
I think there's a lot of mixed information out there and probably a lot of suppression from the industry going on, because of course there's a lot of money to be made in prescribing hormonal birth controls.
If I had a teen-aged daughter, given what I've come to understand about hormonal birth control, I'd consider a copper IUD.
> I think there's a lot of mixed information out there and probably a lot of suppression from the industry going on, because of course there's a lot of money to be made in prescribing hormonal birth controls.
This is of course your choice, which, as a grown adult you are forced to make sometimes.
But it seems there is no scientific data showing this way or the other way.
It just seems very ill-advised in general to claim that birth-control are somehow causing fibroid then.
You write that "there is a lof of mixed information", but by backing unsubstantiated claims you are adding to the mix and confusion, - not clearing it up.
> a lot of money to be made in prescribing hormonal birth controls
There is also a lot of money to be made on traffic from spreading confusion and publishing controversing articles, as well as ultimately "alternative" "natural medicine" remedies, which people will naturaly will be drawn towards if they would be made believe that normal ones are dangerous. Just simple possibility of financial gain of some parties is just not a good analysis tool, it's just too circumstantial and rarely brings any real information.
I hope of course that the science will catch up soon and we can figure this out definitevely.
(did not downvote).
It should also be noted that John Rock was a vocal proponent of birth control long before the pill. In 1931, he was the only Catholic physician to sign a petition asking Massachusetts to end its ban on birth control (including teaching about it).
However, it was in fact Pincus that suggested a 20-day regimen to Rock in their first collaborative study, specifically because withdrawal bleeding would reassure the women that they weren't pregnant.
When the pill was new, pregnancy tests weren't easily available at drug stores for cheap. The pill was approved as birth control in 1960 and it wasn't 1977 that at-home pregnancy tests were available in the United States. Having a period was an assurance that the pill was working.
Rock did a lot for the pill and was a huge force behind it. He did want the Catholic Church to see it as a variant of the rhythm method. However, the reason behind the withdrawal bleeding is more likely to be about the reassurance that one isn't pregnant. Given the lack of at-home pregnancy tests for the first 17 years of the pill's existence, withdrawal bleeding meant that you weren't pregnant.
Event today, many people think skipping periods is weird or unnatural without any religious overtone to it.