I'd like to start by saying that I do not see myself as a feminist, but I would also like to say that I'm not not a feminist—so to speak. I'm on board with the ideas that "women should be paid equally for the same job" and that having kids shouldn't have to set us back in the workplace, and so on, but I also know that there is no way I would be able to do half the jobs a man can do without breaking a sweat.
In reality, I don't care if you're a feminist or not...but the fact that there was a male contraceptive with a 96% success rate and they shut it down because, "the side effects were too severe"...I don't care who you are...that is funny stuff.
Science doesn't lie, and science says that pregnancy is the responsibility of both men and women, right? You need both the egg and the sperm to reproduce. I don't think I need to go into the "birds and the bees" talk for all of you, but this is a fact everyone should be aware of. So why is it the woman's fault if they are accidentally impregnated? If she wanted to ride solo on this roller coaster, she damn well could have. Don't be ignorant.
Besides the blame of an unwanted pregnancy, women often experience drastic changes to their body once they start any form of contraceptive. According to Web.MD, these are the most common side effects women experience while on the pill.
- Nausea
- Weight gain
- Sore or swollen breasts
- Small amounts of blood or spotting, between periods
- Lighter periods (okay, maybe they aren't all bad)
- Mood changes
It doesn't stop there, though.
According to a CNN article, "the lead author, Dr. Øjvind Lidegaard of the University of Copenhagen, [says that] among women both with and without a psychiatric history who were using hormonal contraceptives, about 10% to 15% got a prescription for an antidepressant during a five-year period."
WHAT?! Mental health is a big separate issue; it is a growing epidemic in our society that needs to be addressed and understood. But the fact that this medicine is leading many to develop depression is terrible. Women have been expected to deal with these effects since the dawn of proper oral contraception in 1960. (P.S. the popular method of birth control after a birth control ban was lifted in 1938 was the diaphragm. It was also referred to back in the day as a, "Womb Veil"... *shudders*).
Okay, first, let's rewind for a second. If you read the quote from CNN above, it states that men reported increased libido. Oh, I'm sorry! I wasn't aware that an increased sex drive was a bad thing! Second, injection site pain. Ladies, maybe they should try that HPV shot we all had to get in 8th grade because that was the real deal. And increased acne? Spontaneous constellations are formed on my forehead around the 22nd of every month (shout out to my concealer).
Regardless of the study's termination, 75% of the men in the study said that they would be interested in the birth control shot if it were available. If the hormone levels in the men's birth control are stabilized, it is only a matter of time before women's pills are looked into as well. I'd say that all in all, maybe these negative side effects were a good thing; I'm looking forward to what comes of this apparent fail and hopefully a future with a little less acne and a lot more days that reflect the happy women in the birth control commercials (because at this point who really wants to run a marathon or wind surf while on their period?).
