(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)

	persona 2009-03-10 07:07 pm UTC (link)
	Okay, I take back the WTF. It makes sense now to some degree; thanks. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

liz_marcs
2009-03-10 07:30 pm UTC (link)

No prob. :-)

I agree that had it not been for that PBS show, I would've been WTF-ing along with you.

And as another poster below pointed out, a lot of these things are on a continuum. Automating a lot of household chores (don't ask about life before a vaccuum cleaner. Just don't...) was a huuuuuge help to women. And while birth control allowed women to take ownership of their fertility, there's one big step between automatic household chorse and birth control.

Suffrage. The right to vote.

The first workable (and non-lethal) washing machine hit the US in 1911. By the early 1920s, automated washing machines were commonly sold.

Year women got the right to vote with the 19th Amendment? 1920.

JMHO, more free time for women = more women able to spend that free time agitating for...oh...voting rights.

Believe it or not, the "freeing of women from household drudgery leads to all other rights women have fought for/are fighting for" is a pretty longstanding theory of feminist history.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	snarkhunter 2009-03-11 01:05 am UTC (link)
	However, almost no middle-class and absolutely NO upper-class women ever went near a laundry. While labor-saving devices enabled lower-class women to seek other options, thus strengthening the women's movement in general, I am still inclined to go with the Pill on this, b/c for the first time ever women were able to have control over their childbearing. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	violetsquirrel 2009-03-11 08:21 am UTC (link)
	You're telling me that until the pill was invented no woman ever refused to have sex without a condom? The pill gives a woman direct control over their fertility, sure, but there are more ways to control whether you get pregnant or not than that. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

amadi
2009-03-11 01:28 pm UTC (link)

Sure they did, but other means of contraception aren't nearly as reliable as the Pill, including the condom. Also remember that prior to the era of AIDS, condoms weren't routinely used as contraceptives by married people. During WWII, condoms were heavily marketed to members of the military as a necessity. After the war, there was a common connotation that condoms were for sexual behavior with good-time girls that you met on liberty/shore leave, not for your wife.

Also, keep in mind the sexual dynamics prior to the first wave of feminism. Girls were taught that "nice girls don't" and that after marriage, sex was a "wife's duty" (whether she liked it or wanted it or not). Not only was there no social support for the idea that a wife could say no to her husband when he insisted on sex (or that she should) there was no legal support for wives to do so. The notion of spousal rape being a legal offense didn't rise in the U.S. until 1975.

Given the dynamics, the Pill also has one other quality that no other contraceptive has: the ability to use it in stealth. At the time of its debut in 1960, there really was no other means of contraception that can be easily used by a woman without her partner's awareness. The ability of a to prevent pregnancy on their own, for themselves, was immensely freeing and health/life-saving for countless women.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

	snarkhunter 2009-03-11 03:22 pm UTC (link)
	No, of course not. I did mean "direct" control. However, the Pill eventually directly contributed to the normalization of premarital sex and continuing research into better contraceptive options. Of course, I suppose AIDS contributed to the latter, too...better barrier methods needed to decrease the spread of AIDS. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	violetsquirrel 2009-03-11 03:26 pm UTC (link)
	You're right, I was just having a kneejerk reaction to the implication that this was the first time there was ever any kind of control. Came off a lot harsher than I meant reading it now. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	snarkhunter 2009-03-11 04:01 pm UTC (link)
	Nah, it's cool. I knew what you were getting at, and my original comment did sort of tend towards that generalization. (Reply to this)(Parent)

bolboreta
2009-03-11 10:57 am UTC (link)

The first workable (and non-lethal) washing machine hit the US in 1911. By the early 1920s, automated washing machines were commonly sold.

Things like these make me feel like I do live in a third world country. Both my parents (born in 1954) can clearly remember not having running water, much less a washing machine.

Hearing my grandma (on my dad's side) talk about household chores is horrifying. She lived in an area where they had wells instead of fountains (in my area fountains have washing places attached) so they did laundry in the river. And she had four sons and no daughters, which meant she had to do it all by herself (they went to the river in groups, but that was only company). It's not surprising that my dad is the most feminist person I've ever met.

My mum's side was a bit better off because they could just go to the fountain (we had to do this once when I was a kid because we exceeded the water limit!) and there were many women in the house. I've always imagined they had a washing machine when they moved into the city, but now I'm not so sure.

That said, I'm not necessarily agreeing with the Vatican, there are important things out there like the right to vote and the right to own property (and a passport! your husband had to consent to that as well!).

(Reply to this)(Parent)

(Read comments) -