Feeling Feminist

I'm feeling my feminist's oats this morning. No, it's not something I ate . . . more like one of those things that when it's actually quiet and no one is demanding my time, I can start a thought at the beginning and carry it through to the end.

I've been reading one of my daughter's college textbooks, Sex In The Heartland, by Beth Bailey. It discusses the sexual revolution focusing on the small town of Lawrence, Kansas (University of Kansas is located in this town).

In the book a number of issues are discussed, but one in particular (Parientals) caught my attention. Parientals were a set of rules set up by most universities in the 50s that sought to legislate, regulate, mandate (pick your verb) sexual morality. They achieved this purpose by controlling a woman's rights. What time she had to be back in the dorm, sign-in, sign-out procedures, where she could meet a man, even down to appropriate dress code and public displays of affection. While we are past much of this . . .

Here's where my feminist side kicked in.

Why are the old and newly developed, much improved birth controls measures all a woman's responsibility? Why is the female the one who is altering her body in order to keep from getting pregnant? Why are the chemicals going into the female body? Why do the problems with weight gain, the side-effects (both short and long-term), the shots, the patches, and even the requirement to remember to take that little pill belong to the female of the species?

Are guys not part of this process?

Here's my answer: Corporate 'pharmaceutical' America still belongs to the man. As long as men still run the all-mighty buck then the responsibility will sit firmly on the shoulders of women.

Please don't demean all this to my being a male-basher. I'm ecstatically happily married for a long time, and I totally adore my son on the verge of his manhood, but even women content with their lives should look at the big picture.

However, here's the part they (male-dominated corporate America) haven't considered . . . if women have the responsibility for when they get pregnant, then in essence, women control the fate of the population and therefore, the fate of the world. Something to think about, ladies.