Sexual revolution: Point/Counterpoint
Has the sexual revolution been good for women?
The revolution, while good for women, is far from over
Mary Atwell
By Mary Welek Atwell
Atwell is chair of the Department of Criminal Justice at Radford University.
Has the sexual revolution been good for women? If “sexual revolution” means that gender roles have modified and traditional notions of how men and women were expected to behave have altered, then surely the answer is yes. Working from that definition, one might also argue that the sexual revolution has also been good for men. It has liberated them from a narrow notion of what it means to be masculine and expanded it to include shared involvement in child care and parenting.
To measure the consequences of greater gender equality, one might look back to the legislation of the 1960s and 1970s, e.g., the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prohibited discrimination based on sex in education and employment, and which may be reflected today in the law schools and medical schools that enroll a majority of women; Title IX, which opened the doors to greater participation in sports for girls and women; the Equal Pay Act and laws that prohibited lenders from refusing to extend credit to women. Two generations have enjoyed the advantages of these laws, and many women have benefited. Their families have benefited as well.
But the picture is not entirely rosy. Women as a group earn an average of 77 percent of men’s earnings. And as a recent article in The Atlantic argues, women still cannot have it all — if “it all” means the same careers men enjoy when women are mothers as well as members of the work force. The issue is not legislation prohibiting discrimination, nor is it simply a matter of attitudes. Many individuals and couples have come a very long way in sharing financial and parental responsibilities. Rather, the issue is systemic.
For many families, good child care is too expensive or not available. And even for those who may be able to afford a nanny or a preschool or after care, what happens when a child is sick or needs special attention? Can the woman who works at a minimum wage job or the high-powered lawyer who must count her billable hours take time to tend to the needs of a son or daughter? Can the father take the time? For all Americans’ devotion to families and family values, insufficient progress has been made to accommodate the reality that most parents of both sexes work outside the home. For example, there has been no effort to establish federal support or funding for child care since 1972. In a weak economy when employers are trying to wring the maximum productivity from each worker, there is little regard for employees’ family responsibilities. Yet attention to things like family leave policies, flexible work schedules, telecommuting and other practices that make it possible to be both an earner and a caregiver would ultimately make for more successful work places.
These are not women’s issues, they are human issues. The sexual revolution will not be complete until the workplace and broader public policy reflect the profound social changes begun five decades ago.
Sexual revolution made war on women
Tresa Clarke
Clarke is a retired registered nurse.
On my first date in 1964, I worried whether I should allow my date to kiss me at the door. I knew that sex was special and reserved for married couples. When this was violated and pregnancy resulted, either a “shotgun wedding” was arranged or the pregnancy was hidden until the child was placed for adoption. Were these really the “bad, old days?”
The separation of sex and babies made more possible by the Pill has wreaked havoc on our society and on women.
Sex separated from openness to life has resulted in the normalization of any and all sexual practices, family disintegration, soaring divorce and illegitimacy rates, an epidemic of STDs (the CDC reports some U.S. cities have a 40 percent herpes infection rate for sexually active youth), and 55 million abortions since 1973 (mostly as back-up birth control). The Pill itself often acts as an abortifacient and can cause serious side effects to the woman, including stroke and blood clots.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Mary Eberstad recently asked some good questions about whether women were happier after the sexual revolution:
Why do the pages of our tonier magazines brim with mournful titles like “The Case for Settling” and “The End of Men”? Why do websites run by and for women focus so much on men who won’t grow up, and ooze such despair about relations between the sexes?
Why do so many accomplished women simply give up these days and decide to have children on their own, sometimes using anonymous sperm donors, thus creating the world’s first purposely fatherless children? What of the fact, widely reported recently, that 26 percent of American women are on some kind of mental health medication for anxiety, depression and related problems?
Portrayed as a boon to women, the Pill seems more beneficial to irresponsible boys, like Hugh Hefner, who made women into “bunnies” to be used by “playboys.” Fewer men seem willing to marry, and childbirth is often postponed until achieving pregnancy is unlikely.
This can result in the exploitation of poorer, younger women (who sell their eggs after being subjected to dangerous levels of artificial hormones) or impoverished third-world women (who agree to rent their wombs and serve as surrogates).
All of the above practices objectivize and treat women’s bodies as commodities to be bought and sold. Add sex-selection abortion, which disproportionately impacts baby girls, and the sexual revolution itself is exposed as the real war on women.
Women have made great strides in the workplace since I was a young woman, but the sexual revolution has exacted a tremendous price. Proponents are consoled by their claim that women have control over their bodies. But have they? Really?
July 8, 2012 - 8:01 AM
I think you’re going to have a hard time getting some type of meaningful conversation going on this subject. The two ladies couldn’t even agree on what the sexual revolution means. Ms. Atwell focused on the economic aspects while Ms. Clarke focused on birth control.
When the terms ‘sexual-revolution’ means such a difference between these two ladies, they’re going to simply talk past each other.
You might get further if you asked them to explain their understanding of the term first and take it from there.
Or maybe you should focus on particular aspects. Ask Ms. Clarke if she thinks women shouldn’t be paid as much as men for the same work. Or ask Ms. Atwell what she thinks about allowing single women to have sex before marriage.
Scott, I had much the same thoughts. I think even applying the word ‘revolution’ is incorrect. A revolution is general a conscious uprising, with some goal in mind – overthrow a government, for instance. I don’t believe there was any discrete set of objectives for the Sexual Revolution, it just kind of devolved that women wanted to behave as boorishly as men, leaving NO ONE to advocated for civilized behavior.
As far as equal pay for equal work is concerned, no one objects to that, and I think it is an issue connected – perhaps – only peripherally.
If no one “objects” to equal pay for women, why is it still not a reality for many, many women? Why are we often paid less than a man in the same position still?
I think that the so called “sexual revolution” has indeed punished as many women as it has helped but thanks to our economic, voting, and work place power, we have overcome a lot of that punitive attitude and overall, triumphed.
For anyone to lay the blame for out of wedlock pregnancies on women is pretty short-sighted and frankly ignorant. It is my experience that women are far more moral, responsible and capable of raising children than men (in totally general terms), and the idea that women being empowered makes a man run from his own responsibilities is a pretty sad indictment, even if true.
Sandi, I don’t have a ready answer for the disparity in pay – it is still a wrong that needs to be righted, even acknowledging that there are other factors to be considered. But I consider that a separate issue from the Sexual Revolution.
And, assuming you’re addressing me, I have to object to the notion that I’ve laid blame for out of wedlock pregnancies on women. I agree that women are generally more responsible, capable, etc. when it comes to raising kids, and they always have been. It has been their unfortunate biological lot to be stuck with the consequences of less than perfect behavior.
My point is that the Sexual Revolution removed the burden even further from the male side of the blame by making the behavior that leads to out of wedlock pregnancies acceptable, removing consequences. The resultant explosion in out of wedlock pregnancies – out of wedlock births, abortions, venereal disease, an explosion of single parent (overwhelmingly female) households – is a direct consequence of that ‘mainstreaming’ of that behavior, and direct consequence of the Sexual Revolution.
I think a truly liberating movement would be to force accountability on the male side of the equation – you knock a girl up, kid, you pay, even if it means you have to drop out of school, get a job, whatever (my Dad’s birds and bees talk: “Son, keep your pecker in your pants” with only a minimal amount of elaboration and plenty of “or elses”). Force accountability, don’t remove consequences.
After reading just the first paragraph of Tresa Clarke’s PointCounterpoint piece, I felt compelled to write a response. I too was a teenager during the 60’s. I remember clearly all the taboos and shame that surrounded sex. I remember also, several young women who were not what some would call “loose”, who thinking that they were in love, did get pregnant, went to unwed mothers homes and lived with shame for years. Maybe they are still feeling that shame because they let their passion take control and made a mistake when they had adult bodies but not adult maturity.
I never knew personally anyone who had an abortion, but I have read numerous articles about women who fearing the pejorative attitudes of society got abortions from sources whose practices were less than sanitary. Some of these resulted in death, many in serious infections, and for some sterility.
If these women had been on the “pill”, these traumas very likely would have been avoided. Unfortunately, for many women there was a stigma attached to using birth control. Using it meant that you were planning on having sex and that implied that you were not a “lady”, that you were a tramp. The truth was that they were simply experiencing normal sexual desires and emotions. But these women were not informed because discussing sex and what was happening to them was rare or incomplete.
Some negative behaviors did result from the ease of taking the pill. There was also an increase in the divorce rate. But I’m not sure that this was necessarily a bad thing. When many women were controlled by their husbands due to the power of their income, there were many marriages that were full of resentment and sometimes hate that continued for many years because the women did not feel that they were capable of surviving financially on their own. Children were growing up in households filled with animosity.
Do you really want to go back to a time when men were considered the superior sex and opportunities for women were limited because they happened to be born a female? Yes, I definitely think that in many ways these were the “bad old days”.
I find it fascinating that Tresa Clarke views women’s increased choices and options as things that “objectivize and treat women’s bodies as commodities to be bought and sold” when historically (and to this day in many parts of the world), marriage has been an economic arrangement between men, with women bought and sold for a dowry and with no choice in the matter. That applied to the education they had, who they married, where they lived, and how many children they bore.
I will take my own ability to make flawed choices over being considered little more than a breeding mare, thank you.
The sexual revolution is really just the evolution of how women are treated and the struggles that we face, originally it was the fight for our right to vote and then it moved to other issues, including the fight against or for The Pill and the fight for equal pay and against job discrimination. There are many different scenarios to getting pregnant out of wedlock or not wanting to have a child.
So we agree then? The Sexual Revolution was on the whole a good thing for women?
Of course the sexual revolution has been good for women. How can there be any grounds for an argument against it? Women shouldn’t have access to birth control, sex education, etc.? The sexual revolution has just been one step forward in the long cultural clash of the genders, and women who believe that advances in birth control technology and the acquisition of greater rights for women are typically just dominated into submission by the in-home patriarchy of their husbands’ ideals. Birth control had led to a healthier and more open sexual environment in the world today, not abortion and promiscuity.
I think that its difficult to address these article together, as they have completely different definitions of what the sexual revolution was. However, I have a few problems with the second argument. First, I don’t feel as though the author has considered people in situations vastly different from her own. Second, I take issue with her final paragraph. She asks if women have really taken control of their bodies. I think that they have in that they are no longer constricted by social pressures. However, women are continuing to fight to defend our rights to our bodies by fighting in legislature, to have freedom to do as we want. I wonder, then, why she is arguing that the sexual revolution hasn’t been good to women?
These seem to be two different viewpoints on the definition of the “Sexual Revolution”- one that is based on the economic role of women and the other on the moral role of women concerning their sexuality. Can we even view them as direct point-counterpoint arguments?
Personally, I agree with a few points from both arguments. I am equally shocked by the persistent lowered status of women in the workplace, even after women have made such great progress for equality.
I also agree that the growth of images in the media of the disparity between the sexes is not a positive thing in our culture, and the thought of all of the abortions fills me with dread.
But which is more important? These opinions are of completely different realms of thought.
So I think we ought to debate these points by their respective topics rather than pitting them against each other.
Professor Atwell wisely reframes the terms of the debate, defining “sexual revolution” in its full historical sense, rather than in narrowly defined terms that suggest more control over women’s sexuality would be advance women’s struggle to attain full equality in society.
Shadrack
“Proponents are consoled by their claim that women have control over their bodies. But have they? Really?”
Yes! Yes, they have so much more control over their bodies thanks to the pill and safe sex and controlled pregnancy. Clarke argues against these things despite the power they obviously give to women over their bodies. With these technologies women are able to be just as free from the responsibility of pregnancy as men are.
13 – control over their own bodies – the pill and safe sex and controlled pregnancy, etc. – is one thing. These were societal problems that needed to be addressed (and actually WERE being addressed, albeit more slowly, through other movements).
Unfortunately, it seemed to bring with it license to exacerbate the very ills that were being addressed. Unconstrained by, well, much of anything, many women (I don’t want to paint with a broad brush, here) found their behavior unrestrained, as unrestrained as their male counterparts, a condition that lead directly to more unwanted pregnancy, more broken homes, more venereal disease, and, I would posit, more substance abuse and emotional distress.
George Gilder wrote that women are the civilizing force in society, the one thing that keeps us guys from living like animals in our own filth and decadence. That role seems to have diminished, and I don’t think it’s good for either of the sexes.
I think a true revolution would have had instead, or at least in addition to, a set of consequences on the male population.
Clarke’s definition of sexual revolution is referring to the definition of sex as intercourse and not the gender. Her inflammatory writing style did more to discredit her argument than to convince me of her knowledge of birth control and what it means for women. I had issues with some of the scientific facts which she presented. Seeing as Clarke is a retired registered nurse I should hope that she understands that the pill is not an abortifacient but nearly a device to prevent conception in the first place.
Atwell phrased a more eloquent and educated argument, defining sexual revolution as the process towards gender equality. I find both definitions of sexual revolution to be valid, because I believe defining the term is a matter of opinion. I tend to agree with Atwell’s argument more simply because it was well written and supported with valid facts.
Neither of these entries truly grasp what the sexual revolution is about. It appears that the writers are talking about completely different subjects. While one is talking about child care, which has nothing to do with the goal of equality of the revolution, the other talks about birth control. Birth control is a universal issue that does not apply to women alone. People can choose to use or not to use birth control. It is not forced upon them. Also, the basis of the second article makes it sound like the sexual revolution is based off of reproduction. It doesn’t even begin to touch how far we have come in the mind of the author. Both authors picked specific points in the sexual revolution instead of looking at it from a broad point of view.
The Sexual Revolution has been good for women in many different ways that improved circumstances for women overall. Article #1 was fairly well written with factual support with historical dates. As a short article, it was confined and i would have liked if the article was more elaborated. i do agree with many points including “The sexual revolution will not be complete until the workplace and broader public policy reflect the profound social changes begun five decades ago.”
Article #2 relies more on assumptions on socities rather than actual facts as she jumps around from issue to issue. The title asserted a more negative impression on her views.
The articles were difficult to compare because the same issues were not discussed and rarely had a common ground to argue. Atwell is chair of the Department of Criminal Justice at Radford and Clarke is a retired nurse. Their viewpoints may or may not be biased concerning their background and personal experiences.
I would just like to post a response to Clarke’s argument. While I do believe the sexual revolution was definitely supplemented by the introduction of the Pill, I do not think it was caused by use of the Pill. There is no concrete evidence to suggest that the Pill was what sparked what Clarke calls “normalization of any and all sexual practices, family disintegration, soaring divorce and illegitimacy rates, [and] an epidemic of STDs”. There were many other contributing factors. As she moves on, her argument becomes a slippery slope. Her assertions are not backed by reliable evidence.
I would like to ask what single motherhood and sperm donors directly have to do with 26 percent of American women having mental health problems. She paints no correlation between the two except for asking leading, rhetorical questions in succession. Clarke is convinced the Pill has caused the exacerbation of every problem relating to females and sex in society (abortion, STDs, etc), when it actually serves to prevent these problems. We have the protection to cut down on STDs, unwanted pregnancies, and subsequently, abortion, so arguing that all these services offered to women “objectivize and treat women’s bodies as commodities to be bought and sold” is actually wrong. They enable women to exercise more control over their bodies and if she doesn’t agree with allowing women that right, she should rethink her argument. I don’t believe her aim was to argue against the rights of women, but the logicality of her argument negated her position.
Women have come a long way. Women have gained rights. Women have demanded respect and earned it. I do not think that we should limit the definition of “Sexual Revolution” to what women now do with their bodies. Men and women are both contributing to any changes that are occurring surrounding sex and pregnancy. But now this way, women can control what they are doing with their bodies. The claims made in the second argument are made without proof and are major oversimplifications. The Sexual Revolution has brought women out of the home and into the workforce. While equal rights in the work force have yet to be gained, I consider this a substantial feat when considering where women were in 1919, without a vote. Families, women, and society have all gained from legislations concerning rights for women. However, the revolution is far from over. We must keep fighting for equal pay and an end to objectification of women.
Atwell’s overall argument was well received by me personally because it inhabited a balanced array of perspectives. It started off by providing a definition, which she in no way asserted but rather suggested and therefore based her argument on such definition. Atwell also highlighted the gains of women but also identified that their struggle was not over, she realized the perspectives of both women and men on this issue and in that way provided a more well-rounded argument. In this way, as a reader, I was able to clearly identify Atwell’s position without feeling a pressure to harbor the same opinions. Unfortunately, I could not make the same evaluation of Clarke’s piece which came across as pugnacious and affronting to readers whom did not share her same viewpoint. Furthermore, Clarke’s argument seemed solely focused on the issue of birth control and had limited bounds beyond that topic – taking the definition of ‘sexual revolution’ to a more literal stance.
However, overall, both articles do provide personal perspectives on a controversial topic and achieve the purpose of furthering dialogue on an issue with much history and even more potential.
Personally, I agree with Atwell’s argument rather than Clarke’s, whose inflammatory and often assertions not only lack evidence, but are devoid of nuance, something the former contributor’s response has plenty of. Whereas Atwell presents how far the sexual revolution and gender equality has come since the 1960s, in addition to how far it still needs to go, what Clarke has shared with us here is a deeply cynical, almost nihilistic screed that fails to find any subtleties in an issue that very much lives in the grey area. Clarke’s paragraphs are often clipped, short (and therefore completely lacking any kind of evidence) and too frequently confalte unrelated issues, claiming their intrinsic relevance to each other (c.f., her sixth paragraph, which attributes womens’ ostensibly burgeoning mental health issues with the choice to raise children on their own, sans a father figure in the child’s life). Sometimes she even dares to try and spin a random, completely subjective opinion into fact, as seen in her non-factual assertion that the majority of abortions are concieved of as “back-up birth control.”
Both writers have some good points but my overall conclusion is that while the movement has made strides there is still more to be done to grow to evolve and change. I agree with Atwell about family men and women in the work force need to have the availability to be able to take off from work to care for sick children. Family values need to be part of an agreement with the work force for women and men.
Clarke’s last statement questioning whether or not women have full control over themselves and their bodies, I believe they do. We may be viewed through the media as objects, but at the end of the day we have rights and control over ourselves. Women have a voice to speak out and choose whether or not the world can take control over them. Women fought for us to have a voice, so why don’t we use it?
14- all of your points assume that women ARE civilizing force in society, that they are meant to lift all people out of the mud, into civilization. Is there really any reason to assume that women are these pure, angelic people that they are so often portrayed as? The only role that women have is the one that they choose for themselves, and that does not necessarily mean that they are meant to be the civilizing force in society.
Also, there have always been and there will always be things such as unwanted pregnancies, broken homes, etc. I have never seen any evidence leading me to believe that more of that is going on now than in the past because of the “Sexual Revolution”.
For those who question Ms. Clarke’s assertions, I recommend the essays of Mary Eberstadt, some of which are gathered in her “Adam and Eve After the Pill.” (For those concerned with persistent pay disparities between men and women, Thomas Sowell’s “The Vision of the Anointed” is a good place to start.)
Causes are difficult to assign, but can there be any question that in the US the proportion of mothers who have never been married is has risen for the past 4 decades? And interestingly, abortion seems to track the use of contraception, both rising together.
And the social cost of children of mothers who have never been married is also very high. Coulter writes that if one “corrects” for such households, the juvenile crime rate is the same between minority and majority demographics. That is, the higher rate in minority communities tracks the higher rate of households with children but which have never had a husband in residence.
Ms. Atwell points out that good child care is expensive and rare and suggests that the absence of a federal program supporting such child care indicates that we have not come to terms with the “reality” of the married household with two jobs. Is she saying that a social change is a step forward when it needs something rare and expensive, something which seems to require tax-payer support?
23 – yes, I accept that women are the civilizing force in society primarily because I know that men are not (as a man, I have some experience with that). I know that without women (perpetuation of the species aside) men WOULD do nothing but fight amongst themselves, and live in filth and decadence. Syllogisticly, since we humans have risen to a level of civilized behavior (for the most part), and since I know men are incapable of that…the credit must go to women, and this in spite of the men.
(Obviously, on individual levels, there are exceptions; but they are just that: exceptions.)
And yes, there have always been unplanned pregnancies, venereal disease, single-mother homes, etc., but their incidence has risen since the Sexual Revolution:
From the generally modern liberal Brookings Institute (http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/1996/08/childrenfamilies-akerlof)
Since 1970, out-of-wedlock birth rates have soared. In 1965, 24 percent of black infants and 3.1 percent of white infants were born to single mothers. By 1990 the rates had risen to 64 percent for black infants, 18 percent for whites. Every year about one million more children are born into fatherless families. If we have learned any policy lesson well over the past 25 years, it is that for children living in single-parent homes, the odds of living in poverty are great. The policy implications of the increase in out-of-wedlock births are staggering.
From a Fall 2008 Journal of Physicians and Surgeons article (http://www.jpands.org/vol13no3/malhotra.pdf):
For most people, the “Sexual Revolution” is a thing of the past—a term used in association with the “swinging” 1960s and 1970s. But the relaxation of sexual inhibitions that began in the 1960s continues. Risky behavior that became the norm at that time is still with us—along with the consequences.
Risky sexual behavior in adolescents is common—about half of persons aged 15 to 19 have tried vaginal sex, more than half have tried oral sex, and about 11%have tried anal sex. Early sexual debut is correlated with the number of lifetime sexual partners. About 40% of persons aged 15 to 19 have had multiple sexual partners. This proportion increases with age—about 75% of persons aged 20
to 24 have had multiple sexual partners. In those aged 20 to 24, about 90% have had vaginal sex, more than 80% have tried oral sex, and about 30% have tried anal intercourse.
In the past few years, more and more adolescents are engaging in oral and anal sex. Many young people think these are safe because they do not cause pregnancy. However, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and many other sexually
transmitted infections (STIs) such as herpes, chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis are easily transmitted during oral or anal sex. The risk of acquiring an STI during anal sex is high because of lower bowel lacerations and trauma during anal intercourse. These cuts and tears in the analmucosa create conditions that foster infection.
…
More than 750,000 teen pregnancies occur each year; most are non-marital. This means that about one in 10 teenage women get pregnant in a year—or about one in five sexually active teenage women. One out of three girls becomes pregnant at least once before reaching age 20. Teen parents are more likely to drop out of school, continue to have nonmarital pregnancies, change jobs more frequently, be on welfare, and have mental and physical health problems.
…
Early sexual activity and multiple partners are also associated with pain and suffering from broken relationships, a sense of betrayal and abandonment, confusion about romantic feelings, altered self-esteem, depression, and impaired ability to form healthy long-term relationships.
That’s not progress, no matter how one defines the word.
I am always amazed at the idea that the disparity in pay is due to some discrimination on the part of companies, even as the same person says that women take time off when they have babies or stay home for a time to raise their children for a few years. While I think this is completely unrelated to the sexual revolution (with the exception that use of the Pill has been one way women have stayed longer in the workforce or returned earlier than in the years leading up to its widespread use), I feel it’s necessary to point out that any person who takes years off from their profession would have a difficult time attaining the same salary as their peers who did not take that time off. To ignore this basic fact is to be more supportive of a victim mentality than of meaningful statistics. If my husband had been the one to stay home with our children instead of me, then decided to go back to work after 5-7 years of being a homemaker/stay-at-home dad, he should not expect to make the same salary as someone who had stayed in the same profession for those 5-7 years and continued to sharpen and hone his skills. I truly wish women would stop complaining about this non-issue of paycheck disparity; it’s wallowing in a false victimhood.
As to the idea of the sexual revolution as a whole being good for women, I hardly think we’re faring better now than we were 50-60 years ago. Back then, society frowned on sex outside of marriage with an innate understanding that to risk bringing children into the world (because, let’s face it, sex is how babies are made). Today, not only is there no discouragement from sex outside marriage, but it’s literally encouraged everywhere you go. If a couple stays chaste, people ask in wonder why they aren’t living together before they get married (as if human beings are things you try out to see if you like them, then toss aside). If a woman doesn’t want to be on artificial contraceptives, she’s seen as a bit of an odd duck. It’s near impossible to find clothing that’s modest even for our little girls. (Who on earth thought it a good idea to make short-shorts that say “JUICY” across the rear end or padded push-up bras for ten year olds?) Everywhere I look, I see women being more objectified, more used than ever. Pornography is epidemic, STDs are rampant, women lower themselves to taking stripper classes at the gym to entice their men, babies (if born at all) are born at shocking rates out of wedlock (at a rate of 30+% overall and roughly 75% for blacks!). Women are expected to be having sex with every man they date; just look at the cover of just about any women’s magazine. Even girls are being told in teen magazines how to be sexier.
Pardon me if I don’t see these are benefits for my young daughters. Looking at the world they’re growing up in and the way our culture treats women, I don’t see the sexual revolution as anything but harmful to them. And I’ll do everything I can to be counter-cultural and protect them from it.
Ms. Atwell seems focused on economics…remember that the Obama Depression got us here and his horrible government spending policies have kept us here much longer than needed.
I agree with Ms. Clark, the “sexual revolution” has made sex objects out of women and given us a false sense of promiscuity without consequences.
It has been a bad thing for women in our society. It has giving us soaring rates of STD’s and teen pregnancy, unlimited abortion on demand and fatherless children. Society has paid a dear price for this and will continue to do so.
The sexual revolution has never been just about women in the work force and the desire for men to be more nurturing to their children. In fact, it was pushed in large part because the federal government needed more funding for its ever expanding role and knew that riots would break out if families were taxed 60% on a single income. Big drug companies knew that birth control would make billions, so they pushed up the propaganda machine while to this day withholding the risks and side effects from women and their partners. NARAL lied about abortion statistics to convince our society that it was okay for a woman to murder her unborn child in the name of sexual liberation. Sex should have no consequences, even though in nature pregnancy is always possible. It’s a choice, even though the real choice is to choose not to have sex with a man whom you do not wish to conceive a child with. One of the great gifts to women is her fertility, ability to be a mom, to carry on humanity. It is one of the many things that, gasp, makes her different from a man. True not all women can be a biological mother, but women are unique in their ability to nurture and take care of other people, whether it be a child, friends, co-workers, students, the poor, the list goes on and on.
The sexual revolution has left in its wake: high divorce rates, fatherlessness, poverty, juvenile crime, skyrocketing abortion rates, objectification of women (and men), promiscuity, STDs, exhausted women and men, and fueled an ever increasingly more materialistic society.
The sexual revolution has convinced women that casual sex is the way to get a man and means “equality” with men. Women further objectify themselves by using birth control and other options that make sex seem like it has no consequences and when that fails there is always abortion as a back up plan. It has allowed men to freely use women under the guise of freedom for women. At this point, women have been duped by the very men they wish to emulate. As unpopular as it is, men and women are different. These differences are a good thing. Women desire relationships and permanence while men tend to wander. If both sexes just want to have casual sex all of the time our society would be in tatters and lack structure, in fact some areas of are society are living in severe poverty, violence, disease, etc. because men are not made accountable for the children they father.
Society has also put impractical requirements on women. Women are told, “You can have it all! The high powered job, work long hours, and have a family.” I am sure some women can do this, but most of us cannot work 60-80 hours per week and give everything to our families. Children are suffering. People in our society do not want to be honest with themselves. They do not want to say that children and, gasp, husbands suffer when the mother and wife is gone all of the time. This is furthered by the propaganda that women who leave the workforce to stay home with their children are lazy and anti-feminist, which is categorically false.
It truly breaks my heart what women are doing to themselves in the name of sexual liberation. I have never met a happy woman who thinks casual sex will get her a man. How many women who work long hours, secretly yearn to stay home with their children? They grow up at light speed. How many husbands are lonely and hurt (something that is so unpopular and met with hatred)? How many husbands no longer know what their role is in the family? Why is it okay to deify women and vilify men? Most of us dearly love our husbands because they are male. I do not want my husband to be a woman, I want him to be a man.
Yes, women’s suffrage, equality in the work place and public debate, and more involved husbands are a good thing, but, as tends to be humanity’s modus operandi, we have gone way too far. It is time for women to embrace who they truly are and that is the sex who desires a permanent relationship with a devoted man, not casual affairs or multiple partners. The sex that has been given the greatest gift of childbearing or ability to nurture others, even though it is struggle at times. Sure women can work and many greatly enjoy their careers, but it is time for women to embrace their family first and career second. It is time to be honest with ourselves, sexual liberation we have been spoon fed is not all that it is cracked up to be.
Welcome to all these new screen names! Hope you all will join us more often for discussions. We need more bloggers to chime in and discuss things. I have enjoyed reading the responses.
I think the first order of business should be to come up with a singular definition of the sexual revolution. Without such, no argument can be made, whether for or against it.
Assuming that the definition is the push for women’s economic equality, i think that the revolution has done much, and still has much to do for all women. Without the foundations of change, the change will be hollow, but in refusing to further the change, it shall not come about at all.
As to the second definition of the Sexual Revolution, I believe that there is more to it than the definition entails, but as a part of the revolution, i feel that it has also been very beneficial. Women should have the right to their own bodies, and the right to do with them what they please. What is needed to prevent sexual responsibility is not the banning of forms of birth control, but better education on the topic, and more easily obtainable methods of birth control.
I guess I have a hard time seeing as positive or progressive (or particularly revolutionary for that matter) any movement that results in women treating themselves as shabbily as men do.
Some people’s knee jerk response is to attack the person or group that questions their social or political stand on a particular issue, in this case, that license in the area of sexual behavior has been good for women. How does one break through the close-mindedness in evidence in this post and get people to look at the evidence before assaulting the messenger.
In the name of progress the past 50 years has been disastrous for women and young girls. Our country has effectively regressed in our treatment and valuing of women, back to pre-Christian pagan times.
The evidence is available, tons of it, for anyone that has an inquiring mind.
#31 Hoo, speak for yourself, dude. I personally treat myself very well, and my progressive, feminist, liberated wife treats herself very well. Same is true for my feminist, liberated sisters, mothers, and cousins. And we’re raising our daughter to treat herself well. Enjoy the afternoon!
What with numerous, supposedly objective, consumer & auto testing publications stating that the top line Hyundais are equal to Mercedes (and other) cars costing twice as much…..why do so many people continue to buy the Mercedes?
Given this obvious inequity, should the government require people to buy Hyundais? (Or just Chevy Volts, but I digress).
If so, what would be the manifest results, other than increasing the price of such Hyundais, thus decreasing their sales in particular, and of all (other) cars in aggregate?
#33 Not a dissenter in the bunch, imagine that. Just like history class?
33 – you misunderstand me, EW…to clarify: I guess I have a hard time seeing as positive or progressive (or particularly revolutionary for that matter) any movement that results in women treating themselves as shabbily as men treat women.
Obviously, EW, there are exceptions, such as myself and, I am sure, you…but if we were the rule and the not the exception, this whole discussion would be moot.
#36, thanks for the clarification! I disagree with your sentiment, as I don’t believe that was and continues to be the over-arching impact of the Sexual Revolution for women (treating themselves “shabbily”). However, I do sincerely appreciate your clarification. Peace.
37 – Maybe it would be better to say that as a result of the Sexual Revolution, women allow men to treat them shabbily, as nothing more than sexual playthings, to be used and pushed aside. Men always did this – always with a wink a nod and “boys will be boys” attitude – but in the past there were societal and moral restraints on the women.
That was an unfair dynamic, made more so by the fact that women were left with the results – unplanned pregnancies, etc. – but loosening restraints was not the solution. Putting more culpability and responsibility on the the side of the men would have been much more liberating for women, much more respectful, and would bring none of the baggage that loosening mores did. In fact, I can’t think of a single downside of promoting respect for women and forcing responsibility on men.
The unfortunate explosions of single-parent families (overwhelmingly women), out-of-wedlock pregnancies, abortions, venereal disease, pornography, emotional distress and other related societal ills can be placed directly at the feet of of Sexual Revolution. This is/was a different phenomenon, as I have said, from Women’s Liberation and Women’s Equality movements (though there are overlaps).
#38, again, I greatly appreciate you elaborations, but respectfully take exception to many of the things you put forward. I see exactly the opposite as a result of the Sexual Resolution, women are now socially empowered to reject men’s objectification of them. Men have always been morally culpable and responsible for their treatment of women, but because of the social construction of power, they could easily choose to ignore their culpability and responsibility.
The unfortunate explosions of single-parent families (overwhelmingly women), out-of-wedlock pregnancies, abortions, venereal disease, pornography, emotional distress and other related societal ills are not results of the Sexual Revolution, but rather of a shift of cultural norms and the overall degradation of moral standards that I, personally and through my studies of such, do not attribute to the SR.
Again, I greatly appreciate your open and honest dialog about this issue. Peace
In the book “The Bitter Pill”, Dr. Ellen Grant reviewed some of the early studies done on the Birth Control Pill. She discovered that there is no contraceptive pill for males because one group of males had some minimal shrinkage of the testicles. However, three women died in one study group, so they simply adjusted the dosage for women. Testicle shrinkage, of course, is quite unacceptable for men. So, are women stupid? Will women do things to their bodies that no man would ever think of trying?