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Michelle Martinez
Anthro112
03/12/02

Ironically, in my mind, birth control is a life saver. Although it keeps people from bringing life into this world, it also prevents people from getting unwanted births and it helps prevent overpopulation. With birth control, people have more of a choice of whether or not they want a baby. In addition, they can have sex without conception!

This, unfortunately, was not the case in 1902, when birth control did not even exist. Every single time a couple would make love, they have a lot higher risk of childbirth than they do now. This probably resulted in stricter rules about sex that people had to live with. The concept of staying away from premarital sex and preserving one's virginity made a lot more sense back then when consequences of premarital childbirth was a big threat to young couples. People had to make a lot more effort to be discreet. With the constant threat of childbirth, it was harder for a couple to keep their coupling to themselves.

Because of this lack of birth control, there was a lot more babies around. Just because people are told to stay away from sex more does not mean they are going to do it. As a result, females were constantly within the different stages of childcare, from pregnancy to birthing to child rearing. This again was probably where the standard of stereotyping women as belonging in the domestic sphere came from. Because they spent so much time taking care of children, they were mainly associated with that and taking care of the household. Men took charge of affairs outside of the household since women were so busy with other worries. Thus, we are stuck with the roles of stereotypical man being the hard-working breadwinner of the family and the stereotypical woman stuck at home, taking care of the kids notion.

With the dawn of birth control, we gradually move away from these generalizations and take more control of our lives, women especially. And that is why I am glad to have been born in an era where we have birth control.