The Pill, the Condom, and the American Dream

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/08/the-pill-the-condom-and-the-american-dream/498206/?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits&single_page=true

by prostoalex • 10 years ago

40 67 10 years ago

theatlantic.com

DominikR4• 10 years ago

A more likely cause for these results is that there has been an effort in the last decades to dumb down education at every level.

Not necessarily in order to lower the average level of education but to battle perceived unfairness or racism within education.

The underlying assumption is that if you find that some minority or group is not represented equally in any area of education then it is a sign that there must be institutionalized racism involved.

This process is still ongoing to this day, currently everyone is focusing on STEM fields and asking the question: Why do so few women choose to enter these fields?

You can bet that the quality of education you are going to get in 20 years in these fields will be worse in order to attract women to fields that they are generally less interested in. (if Mathematics is the reason for that then they will simply remove it or reduce it significantly)

Edit: It is by the way more likely that changes in the education system (of which there have been plenty) cause different results in education than attributing it to something like contraception.

jsmith02954• 10 years ago

Not sure why people feel a need to downvote things they don't agree with, but I think this might somewhat be on the right track. It seems weird to attribute this change to something outside of the education system when there have been plenty of changes within it.

lucozade2• 10 years ago

Not sure why people feel a need to downvote things they don't agree with

That could be the reason. Or it could be that this article is referring to an increase in pre-school readiness in poor children. It makes clear that there was no drop in readiness of rich children over the same period. Therefore the chances of this effect being due to some form of educational dumbing down doesn't make much sense.

Now the authors of the article it's based on believe that the effect is likely due to improvements in parental education pre-school and that that may be, at least partially, due to government campaigns. I that sense it is conceivable (excuse the pun) to attribute it to the education system but not in the way the GP is suggesting.

Noseshine• 10 years ago

I did not vote in this particular case, but the downvotes probably are related to the complete lack of evidence included among the many claims? For an example using your own post, you write "plenty of changes". What changes? Links? You may or may not be right. Even if you are, most readers are just that, readers, not experts in the specific field. So one should include link to supporting evidence no matter how obvious it seems to oneself.

wtbob• 10 years ago

So rather than the lower classes being raised up, the upper classes have been dragged down? That makes a lot of sense, and accords with what I've seen first-hand.

Matachines• 10 years ago

fwiw my alma mater removed the math requirement for CS to make it "more accessible" to people

DominikR4• 10 years ago

I'm in Austria so I don't know every detail about the US educational system, but I can give you some examples of what is going on here.

To get a spot as a student in most universities you have to take a test first and only the best are selected.

What they found was that there were comparatively fewer women passing the test for medical schools. So they removed many questions that were about logic or knowledge and replaced them with pictures of faces where the student has to read the emotion. (for example: is the person angry or happy?)

The reasoning is that physicians need to be empathic towards their patients. It worked and now there are more female than male students passing this test.

If I was female I would be deeply insulted by this. They literally believe that women are too stupid for logic related tasks so lets have them answer questions where they have to read emotions from faces.

marchenko• 10 years ago

the article specifically addressed this objection and rejected it.

DominikR4• 10 years ago

Sorry to ask, but where exactly was this addressed?

slau2• 10 years ago

This might be slightly off-topic, but maybe some here will find it interesting.

My girlfriend and I have stopped using hormone-based contraceptives, for nearly 2 years now, I believe. The main reason is that the hormone-stuff had really messed up my girlfriend, and at some point, we were actually starting to get worried about not having the opportunity of having kids.

When we met, she had an IUD (with hormonal stuff), which was uncomfortable to me, so she switched to an implant. The next nearly two years were fairly difficult because she would have extremely irregular periods (for up to two months at a time, in one case), and it messed with our relationship in more ways than one.

At our request, her gynæcologist removed the implant, and she switched to the pill. This helped stabilise things, but it was still messed up. In the end, we decided to stop any hormone-based contraceptive, and decided to use condoms. Yes, it's annoying, and everything you want, but it's still a lot better than whatever we had before.

The reason I'm telling this, is that I don't really understand the taboo around it. It's a normal part of a normal relationship---there's no point in pretending we're farting rainbows all the time. I'm also fairly annoyed at the fact that women have to put up with this, whereas us men get the sweet end of the deal. We don't have to pay a luxury tax for something which really is essential for most women, we don't have to worry about whether something works or not, or whether getting laid is worth having trouble at that level for the next 6 months. Note that I'm saying "oh poor women, you have to deal with periods," I'm only discussing the technical/monetary aspects of this.

I understand that there's very little interest by most men to have a male contraceptive, but I for one would love to have one. Not necessarily hormone-based, and preferably not something that requires having that part of my body be approached by a scalpel. I seem to remember reading an article some time ago explaining why there was no male contraceptive available to those who wanted it. If I remember correctly, according to the labs/vendors, there was simply no market for it. The products existed, but either they're making too much money out of the female variants, or the male variants simply wouldn't sell.

In any case, the situation is messed up.

tomp2• 10 years ago

I understand that there's very little interest by most men to have a male contraceptive

What makes you think that? I believe the opposite, many men would be extremely glad not to have to rely on trusting another person to not make a baby, or having an additional fallback in case the condom breaks.

toolz• 10 years ago

I'm not sure where you got the idea men don't want contraceptives in the form of a pill, but every sexually active guy I know would love to have more security against unwanted pregnancy that had no negative effects on pleasure

di4na• 10 years ago

I have a lot of family working in obgyn or genetic. The main problems of the products so far for male contraception is that they are not easily reversible.

And there is not yet a really succesful idea for a reversible treatment.

Tbh, there would be a market. If the side effects are not too bad, and if it is reversible. Female contraception works because the side effect of not taking it are worse than the one of taking it.

For male contraception, the side effect of not taking it are low. This is a sad thing about human, but i sadly don't see it change in the coming years :(

tomp2• 10 years ago

but i sadly don't see it change in the coming years

What do you think about RISUG/Vasalgel? Reversible, cheap, safe (so far), effective (so far). The only issue is that it lasts a really long time, so there's not much profit in it, resulting in little-to-no incentive to actually bring it to the market.

chillydawg• 10 years ago

The fundamental issue for male contraceptives is that men have a far lower incentive to follow the rules and take them properly. If a woman gets pregnant, that's a very serious life event with serious consequences and potentially choices to be made. If a man gets a woman pregnant (possibly anonymously), there's much lower cost and stress. Thus, no sane woman would ever trust a man who said "I'm on the pill, don't worry".

jsmith02954• 10 years ago

I think the idea of child support would be more than enough to keep me taking them properly. Obviously that is much less serious of a consequence, but I think it's plenty to get someone to simply take a pill.

cauterized• 10 years ago

It may not make sense in stranger encounters or even early in a relationship, but it absolutely does later in an established relationship.

Besides, with a stranger or early in a relationship you should be using a condom anyway, even if your partner insists they're clean. Because STDs. Never mind pregnancy.

aianus• 10 years ago

If a man gets a woman pregnant (possibly anonymously), there's much lower cost and stress.

It's exactly the other way around.

If I get a woman pregnant by accident and she wants it and I don't, I lose $1000+ a month for the next 18 years.

If it's the other way around, she can get an abortion and be back to normal in a couple of months. Not that this is easy on her, but it's easier than earning $200k...

geebee• 10 years ago

I've had this discussion with people, and your opinion is a common one. What can I say? I am personally bewildered that people think that men don't face really serious consequences.

For what it's worth, I do agree with you that no sane woman would ever trust a man who said "I'm on the pill, don't worry." The difference is that I think it's a bad idea for anyone to rely on these assurances.

MustardTiger8• 10 years ago

I don't get why people with reasonable intelligence don't just use fertility awareness. It is free, it has no side effects, and any time you decide you want to have kids you can use the same method to increase your chances. I get that dumb people often think you can always get pregnant. But people capable of passing high school biology should grasp the concept of ovulation.

jsmith02954• 10 years ago

That's got to be the least convenient option

mcherm• 10 years ago

Because people of reasonable intelligence also realize that ovulation has occasional hiccups in timing, that on rare occasions sperm can live a surprisingly long time, and that as a result"fertility awareness" (on its own) is a less reliable means of contraception than most other options.

ceejayoz4• 10 years ago

But people capable of passing high school biology should grasp the concept of ovulation.

People capable of passing high school biology should also grasp the concept of a) "whoops!" and b) sex being enjoyable enough to risk even if ovulation is possible.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2012/11/lets-ta...

According to the Guttmacher institute, the typical use failure rate of NFP is around 25%. Of course, Catholics have taken issue with this number, insisting that it is way too high. So I looked around and another number sometimes used for NFP’s typical use failure rate was 12%. One Catholic writer suggested that it was 2% to 5. Note that even that last number shows that the typical use failure rate for NFP is higher than IUDs and implants.

pjc50• 10 years ago

People who think that periods are reliably periodic are in for a surprise with this.

Broken_Hippo4• 10 years ago

Besides the questionable effectiveness, the fact is that periods aren't nearly as regular as this stuff would like folks to believe, and this is completely inappropriate for women with highly irregular periods.

Hormones cloud all sorts of otherwise reasonable judgement as well - I'm guessing if you pay attention, you'll notice it in yourself as well.

In addition, this can be dangerous for those that shouldn't get pregnant for health reasons, yet can't get sterilized (there are many doctors that won't sterilize childless people, nor folks that are young - and it is often not a covered procedure).

Folks that have reasonable intelligence, pass high school biology, and have a reasonable understanding of health should understand these down sides. A bit of understanding of risks and statistics would probably lead the person to assume it is a lesser risk to use another form of contraception or two.

emp_zealoth2• 10 years ago

Vast majority of women have no issues with contraception, other it takes just a little bit of setup. Often one product will cause some discomfort while another one will work with no issues whatsoever. Meanwhile I will not have sex if i have to use a condom, period. They are too unreliable to keep my sanity.

themartorana• 10 years ago

All contraception is very effective if used properly. Condoms have a generally 82% effectiveness [0] when improper use is figured in (98% if used perfectly).

But hey, the pill is also only 91% effective when improper use is taken into account. [1] So, really, relying on any birth control you don't control is crazy.

So your excuse for not using a condom isn't mathematically sound. Using it as the sole method is perhaps risky, but you control it. As a second-layer check against potential (unintentional) improper used contraception on the part of your partner, it still severely decreases your risk.

[0] https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control/condom...

[1] https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control/birth-...

Broken_Hippo4• 10 years ago

I'm female and have bad reactions to hormone-based contraception. I've not tried shots, implants, or IUD's because of my severe reaction to the pill. I've tried twice: Once I was incapable of feeling happy even though I logically knew I would normally be so - I only felt either very sad or very angry. The second attempt and I didn't want to leave the house. Stopping birth control and giving a bit of time for it to leave my system stopped the symptoms.

The other caveats: I don't want children, and married a like-minded individual. In addition, I have a higher than normal risk of death during pregnancy (didn't know until a few years back though, and I'm in my late 30's). I'm happy this happened to me instead of someone that has always wanted children.

But back to the point: I'd have been the one insisting a man take contraceptive if it were available. I think my spouse would have taken this in any relationship he's been in before we met as well. It actually makes me somewhat angry that this isn't a viable option by now.

I've read there is no market, among other things - like in this list http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/active/mens-health/11693171/F.... But I also tend to view some of this as ridiculous - surely, if they can market some of the crap we are currently buying, they can market this as well.

InternetUser2• 10 years ago

As a serious question: In percentage terms, what's the enjoyment difference for you in using a condom vs. not using one? I ask this as a guy who's been using condoms for the past 14 years.

fra• 10 years ago

Have you looked into copper-based IUD? No hormones, yet very effective. We've been relying on one for 3 years, and would highly recommend it.

slau2• 10 years ago

As I said, her initial IUD was very uncomfortable (painful) to me during intercourse, so it's not something we're extremely keen about. I realise that things have probably changed since then, and the discomfort might have been an indication of other issues with her IUD (such as bad placement, considering that as far as I know, no other friend has ever "felt" an IUD, other than potentially the strings).

The other thing is that we're getting to a place in our life where we're thinking about kids on a more serious note, so a long-term contraceptive doesn't seem as appealing any more.

I do keep the copper IUD on the shortlist of long-term contraceptives, if required. Thanks.

dpeck• 10 years ago

Friend of mine did a lot of research on contraception, doing her culmination project for her degree on it, looking into the history and current.

The women in her family also had a history of complications with hormonal approaches and after all her research she settled on the copper IUD for her. Said it hurt like hell for a few weeks and made periods rougher than usual for the next 6 months but she was happy to trade (relatively) temporary physical difficulties for emotional/mental ones. Obviously different for everyone but worth looking into all the different options.

Mz2• 10 years ago

FWIW, when the pill began causing me migraines and I advised my husband that I would be going off of them once my current prescription was gone, thus we had x months to find another solution, he volunteered to get a vasectomy. We already had two kids and he was done. He wanted no more.

He observed this choice seemed more common in the military.

From what I have read, it is generally easier for a man to get a vasectomy than for a woman to get a sterlization procedure. They are less picky about age and parental status. Women under age 25 and/or with fewer than two kids tend to run up against barriers. I did a college paper some years ago in one of my law classes. I don't know if the laws have changed, but, at one time, this was not just due to sexism or societal bias. It was encoded into law that women under age 25 or with fewer than two kids needed a compelling medical reason to get sterilized. I have known women with serious medical conditions who had trouble getting the procedure approved. It is galling.

cmurf• 10 years ago

In the very recent past: Boner pills paid for by insurance. Contraceptive pills paid out of pocket. Forward to 2016 and it's largely the reverse. Finally some sanity.

shanacarp3• 10 years ago

Why no copper iud?

No hormones

yummyfajitas4• 10 years ago

An alternate theory of how this effect is occurring.

Imagine there are two classes of human - high quality and low quality, and this quality is hereditary (likely genetic). Low quality humans have a lot of unplanned births and their children are also not very good at school.

The bottom 20% of humans will always consist of low quality humans, plus a chunk of the remainder high quality humans (assuming low quality humans make up < 20%).

Previously low quality humans had a lot of children - say 15% of children were low quality children. Now if low quality humans have performance 1, and high quality humans have performance 2, then the performance of the bottom 20% would be (15% x 1 + 5% x 2) / 20% = 1.25.

Now suppose condoms reduce the number of children had by low quality humans. Then the number of low quality children is reduced to 10% - so the performance of the bottom 20% of people would be (10% x 1 + 10% x 2) / 20% = 1.5. That's a 20% improvement even though no group has improved their quality at all.

This effect is rather more plausible, given what we know about intelligence/adult outcomes being hereditary, and given what we know about the uselessness of "enrichment activities" (e.g. google how ineffective Head Start or early childhood education is).

Such an effect would also have a significant eugenic [1] effect, i.e. massively positive long term effects as well.

[1] The word "eugenic" is overloaded, and means both the opposite of dysgenic and also human intervention into genetics to improve them.

jsmith02954• 10 years ago

Isnt this based on proportionality though? If anything you would expect that bottom 20% to be less likely to use birth control effectively and become a larger share of the population over time, especially as the remaining 80% preferred to have fewer children in general.

But that's mostly a guess on my part, I don't have data on hand to validate any of that.

yummyfajitas4• 10 years ago

Right, the article postulates that the bottom folks have become more likely to use birth control, so I'm only discussing a relative effect.

But yes, considering how our high-IQ elites don't reproduce, it's probably just a reduced dysgenic effect rather than a eugenic one.

ceejayoz4• 10 years ago

Your use of "theory" here is the reason the general public thinks "theory" means "wild unsubstantiated guess" when it comes to stuff like climate change and evolution.

yummyfajitas4• 10 years ago

Why do you put "theory" in quotes? I've given a recipe for producing testable predictions, aka a "theory".

For example, if I'm right, then an appropriately weighted average of contemporary children's performance (weighted so that low quality children make up the same proportion as before) will show no change.

Do you have any intellectual issues with my comment, or are you simply engaging in highbrow dismissal?

shanacarp3• 10 years ago

I don't think you understand genetics.

There technically is no such thing as a "good" or "bad" gene, only an advantageous, disadvantageous, and neutral variant of a gene. Given that some genes can be read forwards and backwards, and that simple environmental causes, aka just changing an environment, can turn a disadvantageous gene expression into neutral or positive, it's hard to say something is eugenically good in a population unless it is a 1 gene mutation with 99% penetration that always causes death. (Huntingtons would be in this group)

Genomics says what you are saying is frankly impossible. If it weren't A) there would be no such thing as incomplete penetrance B) or traits linked to multiple genes C) or ways to manipulate social science statistics with simple experiments, like subsidizing iuds for high school students and seeing what happens. That's a purely environmental factors, and yet your supposed "bottom 20" stops acting like it as thier environment changes in one subtle way

Where did you get the Idea that any of what you are saying is scientifically sound?

Overtonwindow• 10 years ago

It could also be an error in the self reporting population; it's socially more "acceptable" to say you use contraception, even when you don't.

The Pill, the Condom, and the American Dream

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