A Clamor for Women :: Puberty Health Medical Essays

A Clamor for Women A guy once told me that being female was very encouraging because I had something to look forward to every month—my period. Well, what he doesn't know is that this God-given blessing has become a curse to all men because they have to deal with a woman's every qualm. But since men are so clever and inventive they found a way to prevent pregnancy by controlling menstruation and therefore indirectly controlling women. Once a girl has her first menstrual cycle, she not only has to deal with PMS (premenstrual syndrome) which includes bloating, swelling of extremities, sensitive breasts, depression, social withdrawal, mood swings, irritability, anxiety, and confusion, but she also has to encounter non-sympathetic guys who just make her feel worse. And most importantly, she has to face the fact that she can become pregnant. But don't lose hope yet, girls, the men are going to save you from your naturally-occurring misery. They are going to invent a drug that will set you free of all the hassles of womanhood—the Pill! Carl Djerassi invented the modern birth control pill, which was originally advocated as a step toward freedom for women. With the introduction of the pill, women had the choice as to whether a pregnancy was desirable at the time. They could finally pursue careers and â€Å"plan† a family accordingly. However, the pill's original purpose has been skewed. Doctors are now urging younger and younger girls to use the pill but not for the purpose of birth control, even though that is always an underlying reason, but as a means of controlling PMS, blood flow, or acne. PMS is natural and healthy. It can be minimized, once recognized, through a healthy diet and exercise without the hormone-tampering caused by birth control pills. Nonetheless, more women are turning towards this man-made device to control the â€Å"hormonal† woman inside them. But did you ever stop to think why all these problems are solved by the pill? Or why the problems are â€Å"problems† in the first place? Men. They found women to be trying around that â€Å"time of the month† and they also wanted sex without the fear of another mouth to feed. So they solved their problem with the pill and tried to convince women that it was really her problem. Kottak, the author of Researching American Culture, writes, â€Å"The fact that the development of birth control pills and other contraceptive methods has been largely aimed at women is the result of a number of assumptions made by the largely male research establishment† (219).