Now reading: America And The Pill

[In the 1960s, Hugh Hefner] argued that giving the pill "to the girls who request them is in the best interests of the girls themselves, and that this, after all, should be the deciding factor."
But Hefner's insistence that the "deciding factor" should be what is in "the best interests of the girls themselves" maybe have been a bit disingenuous. Soon, Playboy began insisting that women take the pill regardless of side effects or reservations, claiming that those who resisted the pill were neurotic, prudish, hostile to men, or unwilling to take responsibility for contraception. (There was no similar insistence, however, that men should take responsibility for contraception.)

- America And The Pill, Elaine Tyler May

It has become my project to investigate the progressive-in-name-only attitudes about women's birth control methods, with a special focus on the pill. Five decades on, supposedly progressive young men still shamelessly hold and boast the kind of mindset that was found at Playboy in the '60s.