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“autonomous girls…who like men would be free to take sex, education, work and even marriage when and how they like” - Gloria Steinem (speaking of The Pill) Gloria Steinem and Dorothy Pitman Hughes, circa 1970 (Source: Sophia Smith Online Collection) |
The Pill gave American women the freedom in planning their future. Women no longer needed to sacrifice education or career for children. The Pill liberated women from economic dependence on men.
“The Modern woman is at last free as a man is free, to dispose of her own body, to earn her living, to pursue the improvement of her mind, to try a successful career.” -Clara Boothe Luce, US Congresswoman “…the Pill became the ‘moral property’ of millions of women…Women made it a tool for autonomy, freedom, and higher aspirations…The Pill did not so much change women’s lives as enable them to make changes they longed for. Their sex was more free, their educational plans more achievable, their wage-earning more stable, their domestic labor reduced”.
-Linda Gordon, women’s historian |
Loretta McLaughlin, Joan McCracken
“The Pill enabled me to pursue an education and career in the law at a time when no one in my family was favorable to my ambitions…The Pill gave me an alternative to being a housewife/office drudge with a bunch of children hanging on my skirt. Thank God for the Pill!” -S.T. |
"The only real anxiety anyone expressed about the pill in the midsixties was that it might make women more independent and consequently make men feel more insecure”
- Sam Blum, Redbook With the Pill, it became harder for colleges and employers to deny women due to possible pregnancy. In 1975, birth rate dropped 1.77 children. Women graduating from college doubled in 1970, representing 61% total. Women were the fastest growing part of labor force. In 1975, 70% of mothers were employed versus 20% in 1950. Because of women's economic opportunities, gender roles became less apparent. Men and women took more equivalent roles in upbringing children. |