America and the Pill: A History of Promise, Peril, and Liberation by Elaine Tyler May Page B
Authors: Elaine Tyler May
Tags: United States, Social Science, History, 20th Century, Modern, Social History, Abortion & Birth Control
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gage in sexual intercourse well before the encounter, not acci- dentally in the heat of the moment. And they did not feel guilty about their behavior. They could have gone on the pill, but they didn’t. The sexual revolution was real for these young women—sex was happening all around them, everyone was talking about it, the young men they dated expected to have sex with them, and they wanted to be freed from the rigid codes of virginity. But they did not have the confidence or easy access to get the pill, and they did not feel empowered enough in their relationships to demand that their sexual partners take adequate precautions.
Indeed, Rebecca and Eleanor were representative of college women in the 1960s. The sexual revolution unfolded gradually on college campuses across the country. Disproportionate media attention to hippies, communes, and visible centers of
the counterculture such as Haight-Ashbury gave a skewed im- pression of the changes that took place in the 1960s. On cam- puses in the nation’s heartland like the University of Kansas (KU), students protested against rules governing their personal behavior, in loco parentis policies, and what they considered a lack of respect for their independent judgment and maturity. University students asserted their right to make their own de- cisions about sexual behavior and to have access to contracep- tives, including the pill. 34
As students protested school policies at universities across the country, debates raged about whether or not the pill should be available at campus health centers. A majority of 20,000 re- spondents to a 1967 Good Housekeeping poll disapproved of distributing birth control to unmarried women, citing moral objections. 35 Campus officials faced competing pressures from public opinion and student demands. At Brown University, the president came to the defense of a beleaguered health official who had prescribed the pill for two unmarried students over the age of twenty-one. A student journalist argued that college policies should be “geared to safety and efficiency and not to the ordering of the personal lives of its students, or to the leg- islating of chastity.” Regardless of the rules and public opposi- tion, it appeared that college women who wanted the pill could get it. The head of student health at the University of Chicago said many women got the pill from family doctors at home and brought their birth control to college. “Or they borrow from each other or use the prescription of a married sister or they put on an engagement ring and get them as part of preparation for marriage. It’s not a very formidable task to obtain the pills.”
A West Coast doctor agreed: “There is certainly a lot of Pill swapping, like sugar and eggs.” One doctor asked a student if she had considered the fact that she “might someday want to marry a man who holds virginity in high regard.” Her reply shocked the doctor: “Yes, but I’m not at all sure I want to marry a man like that.” 36
In spite of all the controversy and commotion, by 1967 only 45 percent of the nation’s college health services prescribed the pill for students. 37 At KU, the university provided prescriptions only for married women over eighteen and refused them to sin- gle women of any age. In 1966, a forum about the policy in the student newspaper generated a flood of letters, all written by male students. Most of the letters focused on student responsi- bility and called for access to the pill. “Who should make the moral decision, the university or the students themselves?” wrote one of them. But none of these men asked if women stu- dents should be the ones to make the decision. Finally, in 1967, a letter appeared from a female student: “I take the Pill because I’d rather express my love than repress it. I’m not promiscuous, but once in awhile I meet a ‘special’ guy. I’ve seen too many girls on campus totally disregard school for several weeks as they
Indeed, Rebecca and Eleanor were representative of college women in the 1960s. The sexual revolution unfolded gradually on college campuses across the country. Disproportionate media attention to hippies, communes, and visible centers of
the counterculture such as Haight-Ashbury gave a skewed im- pression of the changes that took place in the 1960s. On cam- puses in the nation’s heartland like the University of Kansas (KU), students protested against rules governing their personal behavior, in loco parentis policies, and what they considered a lack of respect for their independent judgment and maturity. University students asserted their right to make their own de- cisions about sexual behavior and to have access to contracep- tives, including the pill. 34
As students protested school policies at universities across the country, debates raged about whether or not the pill should be available at campus health centers. A majority of 20,000 re- spondents to a 1967 Good Housekeeping poll disapproved of distributing birth control to unmarried women, citing moral objections. 35 Campus officials faced competing pressures from public opinion and student demands. At Brown University, the president came to the defense of a beleaguered health official who had prescribed the pill for two unmarried students over the age of twenty-one. A student journalist argued that college policies should be “geared to safety and efficiency and not to the ordering of the personal lives of its students, or to the leg- islating of chastity.” Regardless of the rules and public opposi- tion, it appeared that college women who wanted the pill could get it. The head of student health at the University of Chicago said many women got the pill from family doctors at home and brought their birth control to college. “Or they borrow from each other or use the prescription of a married sister or they put on an engagement ring and get them as part of preparation for marriage. It’s not a very formidable task to obtain the pills.”
A West Coast doctor agreed: “There is certainly a lot of Pill swapping, like sugar and eggs.” One doctor asked a student if she had considered the fact that she “might someday want to marry a man who holds virginity in high regard.” Her reply shocked the doctor: “Yes, but I’m not at all sure I want to marry a man like that.” 36
In spite of all the controversy and commotion, by 1967 only 45 percent of the nation’s college health services prescribed the pill for students. 37 At KU, the university provided prescriptions only for married women over eighteen and refused them to sin- gle women of any age. In 1966, a forum about the policy in the student newspaper generated a flood of letters, all written by male students. Most of the letters focused on student responsi- bility and called for access to the pill. “Who should make the moral decision, the university or the students themselves?” wrote one of them. But none of these men asked if women stu- dents should be the ones to make the decision. Finally, in 1967, a letter appeared from a female student: “I take the Pill because I’d rather express my love than repress it. I’m not promiscuous, but once in awhile I meet a ‘special’ guy. I’ve seen too many girls on campus totally disregard school for several weeks as they
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