<p>however in the case of my pregnancy while I had an IUD inserted- I don’t know what else I could have done to prevent it
I was under the impression they were practically foolproof- afterall the physical presence of the IUD was to prevent implantation
however,I still got pregnant.
I suppose I could have combined methods but I didn’t realize that was necessary & that is why education is so important</p>
<p>I’ll agree with a lot of what’s been said…
Birth control is NOT 100% effective, but the “unplanned pregnancy rate” of 3 million women in the US annually (out of roughly 150 m. women, only about half of whom are even of childbearing age…) is absurd. My own thought is that you can use birth control that is 99% effective, but if you are that unlucky 1%, then you’re not 1% pregnant; you’re completely pregnant. </p>
<p>“Abortion clinics” also provide birth control at reduced rates - but the anti-abortion protestors outside of those probably dissuade many women from seeking out those services. Law of unintended consequences.</p>
<p>TheDad: agree fully. You’re right - I find the idea of men who are uncomfortable with successful women to be sickening. Also cannot understand why it is always the woman who sacrifices her career - who does the “half career” - why doesn’t she just wear short skirts, giggle a lot, and be done with it? It’s capitulation to the “smart but not as smart” philosophy, just in another form. You might have the degree, but you’re certainly not threatening to the super-powered husband!</p>
<p>SJMom: agree about the luck aspect. Most of the happily married people I know consider that they were lucky to meet their spouse - they don’t consider it any sort of reflection upon their prowess, charm, or personality. I’m sure I could repay my law school loans on the divorces of those who think otherwise. The route to fast marriage, IMO, is different from the route to happy and long-lasting marriage.</p>
<p>TheDad: I heard somewhere that the divorce rate for people married between the ages of 20 and 25 is 60%. </p>
<p>Other musings… “not until marriage” doesn’t solve another problem, which is “no pregnancy until career.” Unless you’re an accountant or an engineer, you’re not going to have a successful career straight out of undergrad - grad school is becoming increasingly common and necessary. </p>
<p>I’ve started to realize that men who want to meet nice women should avoid acting on their instinct to move to small towns (places that are great for raising kids). Single women who want to meet someone long-term tend to move to cities to increase their chances of finding someone - mostly because there are just more people there. (Of course, I’ve maintained for quite some time that it’s not “where” you meet some men but where they are from that is important - men from the Midwest or the South tend to be in relationships for something besides sex.) There’s some truth in the “move to Alaska” theory if you are female - I guess for men it would be “move to a city and take a cooking class.”</p>
<p>
Aries, I can only attest to my personal experience. When H and I finally realized that we didn’t really want to raise the kids in daycare, we did have many serious discussions about who would stay home. He has a Master’s degree in math, so it’s not as if he wasn’t able to hold on to a good job! But he worked in aerospace at the time, and the field was undergoing some changes. I worked in high tech sales, so with commision, could earn as much or more than he could. But I chose to stay home with my kids, although I knew that meant relocating as needed for his career, and I’ll always be grateful that I had that choice. I’m a little too type A, and found it difficult to delegate the most important task in my life to someone else. I gave up a business career, but I gained a life and found raising the kids to be the most creative and challenging endeavor of all. When working full time with two toddlers, I use to say that I could buy anything I wanted, except for time. So we went with time.</p>
<p>SJMom, it’s neat that the solution worked for you. It’s a bit disingenuous to think or project that that particular profile would necessarily work to make everyone else or even most people happy.</p>
<p>That’s not the point TheDad – the point is that, like many (I’d even say most) women I had a choice. It could easily have gone the other way. I don’t know why you have this mid-50’s mentality of the put upon, downtrodden little women, who have to battle against the big bully men to achieve anything, but it certainly isn’t the way I view the world. I don’t need any man to tell me I’m allowed to do something or that I can’t do a different thing. I guess I’m just ‘liberated’ – to me the gender wars are over and everyone won.</p>
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<p>Long low whistle. I don’t think we inhabit the same universe. There’s been a lot of progress from the 1970’s…but “won”? Ummm…no. And it’s more subtle but also more pervasive that a simplistic “downtrodden little women battling big bully men,” though there’s more of that residue than you might care to believe. A couple of decades of lawsuits may have managed to shut some of the more egregious mouths up but many underlying attitudes haven’t changed.</p>
<p>when young women can’t get birth control in some areas? where their pharmacists wont fill prescriptions written by their doctors? where polls indicate that if a woman is flirting many people beleive it is her fault if she is raped?
Where men who choose to stay home and be the hands on parent are belittled not only by former coworkers but by stay at home mothers?
Where boys get strokes for being tough and athletic, but not for being kind and sensitive ( although you often find both)
Where medical research isn’t done to the same extent on each sex, even though illnesses and disease manifests itself differently depending on sex?
no I don’t think anyone won and I think we are far from acknowledging the differences in the way men and women are considered in our culture</p>
<p>Let’s just say that we look at the world differently. There are problems for women, just as there are problems for minorities in this country. But they are not institutionalized and there are remedies. What people believe regarding rape is their own problem, but the legal system has come a long way regarding how victims are treated and what kind of questioning is allowed etc. I’m not saying that men and women are the same, EK – in fact, I argued against that idea on the thread about boys falling behind. </p>
<p>But I doubt that your daughters, or TheDad’s daughter (or wife for that matter) are in the same place in society that our mothers were in the 40’s and 50’s. Do you feel that they run into discrimination based on their gender on a regular basis? If so, is it from individuals or organizations? There will always be jerks in the world – it will never be perfect for anyone. I just don’t live in a world where I feel that I had fewer options than a man, or where people I know play games based on their genders. It just gets old to hear the same old song over and over, and I DO know men whose careers took a back seat to their wife’s. It may not be a 50/50 split, but it’s just not that unusual anymore.</p>
<p>I do believe that we have made progress, a lot of progress in some areas, but I wouldn’t go as far as to say “everyone won” that to me sounded like things are “settled”
I may be misinterpreting.
However I know that as women/minorities rise to careers where they would be scarce 30 years ago, the percieved threat to others also increases.
</p>
<p>No, society is not where it was in the 40’s or 50’s. But neither are gains complete, “won”, or “settled.” And I think the question of institutional vs. individual is a blue herring if the individual resistance is pervasive enough. E.g., it’s a lot easier for women to get into careers such as police or firefighting; they still get disproportionate crap on the job, though carefully enough so as not to trigger a lawsuit…and from a pragmatic perspective, one can’t answer every bad attitude with a lawsuit…but that doesn’t make the attitude either right nor the consequences trivial enough to be dismissed with the wave of a hand.</p>
<p>At another facet, women are wedging themselves into upper management in increasing numbers. But the ceiling, if not glass, is still often made of the elastic material that trampolines are made of. Jackie Robinson syndrome often still applies: you have to be better to be equal. </p>
<p>Progress has been made. Progress is being made. But it’s not time to be complacent, declare victory, and go home.</p>