an open letter to doctor william reville

Bill.
I saw your article today in the Irish Times.
You were writing about major scientific advances of the last hundred years.
You included a typical Irish Times style eulogy to the contraceptive pill.
Your eulogy claimed that the pill had enabled women to plan careers for the first time in history without having to worry about their reproductive processes.
I feel this was disingenous of you.
The whole concept of careers did not exist for men or women throughout most of human history.
For most of human history access to a career could not have had anything to do with women's reproductive processes because there simply were no careers.
Beyond peasant, and peasant's wife, that is.
For most people on earth, there still aren't.
Only in the twentieth century did we see a broad cultural possibility in the western world for careers for anyone, either men or women.
And women entered the workplace in large numbers before the contraceptive pill was ever marketed.
Opportunities in the work place became open to women generally in the western world because of a labour shortage around the time of World War Two.
I reiterate: Not because of the availability of contraceptive pills.
In any case for more than 90 percent of the human race there are still no careers.
There is no significant evidence that the policy of throwing contraceptive pills at the third world has led to a surge in careers for the women of India, Mongolia, Arabia, Africa, South America or Asia.
It has had other effects though.
The availability of contraceptive pills has removed from third world women one of their prime legitimacies in refusing sexual favours to the males who oppress them.
You might have noted this critique Bill.
It's an important one.
So even today there are no careers, excepting the career of landless peasant, for 90 percent of the human race regardless of the availability of your much vaunted liberating and empowering contraceptive pills.
You should not pretend otherwise.
Nor should you pretend that Rosie The Riveter or any other woman on the planet earth is musing fondly to herself in old age: "Mmm yes, thanks to the contraceptive pill I was able to plan my career."
It never happened Bill.
Except perhaps in the case of Helen Gurley Brown the former editor of women's porno mag Cosmopolitan.
She might indeed claim to have been enabled by contraceptive pills Bill but she's hardly an objective judge.
She's a fan.
I would suggest that she might have had a vested interest in promoting the use of contraceptive pills as a jusifyer of her own pornographic vision for women and as a source of advertising revenue for her magazine.
I wonder am I right in this.
In any case, most of us would recognise that Helen Gurley Brown became editor and had a brilliant career at Cosmopolitan magazine not through the liberating power of contraceptive pills but through the simple enabling device of marrying the publisher.
Ah yes.
I digress.
Your rose tinted article did make some pretence at noting the criticisms voiced by some of us of the contraceptive pill.
One criticism to be exact.
You said that critics have complained that the contraceptive pill contributed to infidelity in marriage.
This is the only criticism you cite.
Shame on you Bill.
We've complained of no such thing.
The major criticisms of the contraceptive pill are as follows.
1. The contraceptive pill has had negative health consequences for millions of women. Sometimes it has killed women. Many more have been left utterly unable to have children. Teenagers who are put on the contraceptive pill swell up like balloons. Doctors rarely make these side effects clear to the young idiots they are poisoning with these pills.
2. The contraceptive pill has probably been a prime enabler for the amoral sexual incontinence which characterises our culture. It has probably been a factor in the abasement of sexuality in general and the objectification of women in particular which also characterise our societies. Okay Bill, we can include marital infidelity among the list of sexual dysfunctions promoted by the contraceptive pill, along with promiscuity, porno, the sex trade, and child abuse. All of em Bill. This is what the critics of contraception say if you're ever writing an article again and wish to pretend to be objective and balenced.
3. The contraceptive pill has certainly led to the development of the abortion pill. How many Shakespeares have we lost to abortion Bill? I'll tell you. They were all Shakespeares.
4. The female hormones in the contraceptive pill have entered the food chain. This has led to a feminisation of males and a masculinisation of females in the animal kingdom. Scientists agree that the alterations to gender identity in animals are observable. It is highly probably that the female hormones being pissed into the water table by the half wits you Frankensteins have put on the contraceptive pill, are also having profound effects on the sexual identities of human beings. It would explain a lot, wouldn't it Bill? It is strange that a scientist like yourself would fail to note this thesis. Tell me. Do pharmaceutical companies pay you and/or the Irish Times for your eulogies on the contraceptive pill? I'm wondering Bill are you criminally dishonest or just a clown.
Best regards always.
James Healy