Sometimes I feel like I need a little LeFou to stand next to me and when I say, "I'm afraid I've been thinking," he could chime in and say, "A dangerous past-time!"
Molly woke me up, needing to go to the bathroom. Liking my carpet un-peed-upon, we went for an early morning ramble through the avenues of time... er. The grass outside our apartment. We come back in and I decide heck, I'm awake, I'm staying awake. So I brush my teeth and see my birth control sitting on the counter.
And I wonder: why do girls take birth control? Why not boys?
The logic seems fairly sound to me. Males are capable of producing babies at any time -- no off days for periods and they only really have one hormone (to my knowledge) that deals with that. Scientific simplicity.
On the other hand, females are capable of producing offspring only during ovulation and then completely incapable of doing so during their periods. So it seems like you would want to get the lady to not be able to have the baby, since her window is so much shorter. But pregnancy happens outside of those times as well and then whose fault is it? Always the woman's.
(This is not to say that pregnancy is always an unwanted thing. But when it is, especially with unmarried couples, the "blame" seems to rest wholly on the female in the relationship. This might be only in my experience -- I dearly hope it is, for it disturbs me. The reasoning seems to go, "Yes, they had sex, but you can't blame the boy for that. Why wasn't she on the pill?")
It seems to me that men are (almost) entirely excluded from the baby-process. They are necessary to become pregnant, yes, but if you break up with your boyfriend after the fatal act, who is still pregnant for 9 months? and goes through labor? and wakes up in the middle of the night to nurse the baby? etc.
It requires a truly magnificent man who wants to be a father to participate in the care of his wife, the pregnancy induced nightmares, the panic of labor, the nightly waking-up routines, the diapering, the pampering, etc. I admire these men, not only because they are wonderful to their wives but because they are so rare.
I've seen enough men who feel frustrated at a pregnancy and would rather break up with their girlfriend or suggest an abortion than go through the miraculous bonding experience that is childbirth and rearing. If he doesn't want the baby, he can break up with her, take her to the abortion clinic himself, and then walk away. He can hide. If she decides to go through with the pregnancy and he breaks up with her, who bears the marks of the pregnancy? Who deals with the societal shaming?
Now, to be fair on this subject, the married couples who accidentally become pregnant are an entirely different story. My ire focuses mainly on teenage/unmarried pregnancies and the ridiculous men that shirk from an adult responsibility that is at least 50% their doing.
So why this antiquated idea that a woman has to be in charge of
everything according to the pregnancy? Yes, it is in her body, but she
was never the only person responsible for getting it there. Yes, women
are naturally nurturers and have instincts to take care of and protect
their young. But why is she the one blamed for unwanted children?
Isn't it his fault just as much?
I have never personally experienced these things, but I have friends who have gone through abortions and WHO does it affect markedly? Not the boyfriend. Never him. He's simply glad to have his slate "wiped clean". But the woman mourns that child instinctively, whether or not she agreed to the abortion in the first place. This subject probably deserves a rant of its own.
I doubt we can change these men. (Though while we're working on cloning, science, can we clone some of those paternal emotions and poison the water supply?) So why not make the man responsible for whether or not the pregnancy occurs?
Is it a basic societal sexism that makes us think that the only person in charge of rearing a child is the woman? We ought to know better by now. Truly strong families have involved parents. (No hating to single parents out there -- you guys are amazing.) But a family with an uninvolved father or uninvolved mother? They almost always fall apart. Why let that start with pregnancy?
Give the men the medication that controls whether or not their body produces its natural hormones. That way, when the pregnancy does happen, the man is the one primarily responsible for it. The woman will do the rest, but let's get some of this responsibility over to him, especially if he's one of those anti-baby people.
Nota bene: I am married, unpregnant, and not planning on becoming pregnant any time soon. I have no personal experience as to the involvement of a man in a pregnancy. I'm not a scientist, nor do I have any idea how a male-birth-control would work. It's an interesting concept, though, and one that I think harks back to some sedentary sexism and woman-blaming that is not only archaic but also harmful.
Also, I have no idea what Peter thinks of this, so don't think I'm representing his feelings here. He's still asleep, lucky man.
