It's reminded me of a column I wrote on the 50th anniversary of the birth control bill, sort of an homage to all the multi-tasking we women have to do. Enjoy!
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| Me multi-tasking: soothing the baby while writing |
Want to do it all - and not get pregnant? There's a pill for that
Daily Breeze (Torrance, CA) - Saturday, June 26, 2010
On the 50th anniversary of the birth control pill , as experts expound on its feminist virtues and larger sociocultural impacts, I find myself captivated by this observation from an Associated Press story:
"A world without 'the pill ' is unimaginable to many young women who now use it to treat acne, skip periods, improve mood and, of course, prevent pregnancy."
That a single pill meant to prevent pregnancy now solves all of these problems says a lot about women. Leave it to us to multi-task our birth control.
I mean, who has the time to just prevent pregnancy? If you're going to spend half a millisecond staving off ovulation, you may as well knock out a couple of other errands, too. And so we pop the Pill to treat acne, reverse anemia, manage endometriosis, reduce cramps and cut out menstruation entirely.
Some birth control manufacturers even tout these secondary effects.
Before the federal government slapped them down for misleading advertisements, the makers of Yaz claimed their little pill improved your skin, reduced headaches, curtailed irritability, lessened anxiety, cleaned the bathrooms, cooked dinner and picked up the kids from soccer practice.
OK, maybe I'm exaggerating. But it's no wonder drug companies try to capitalize on the female quest to have it all.
I didn't really get the whole multi-tasking thing until I started juggling motherhood, a full-time job and a husband who'd rather eat three bowls of cereal for dinner than turn on the stove. Now I know why a whole industry exists to help women jam-pack every second of their day with activity.
The other day, while flipping through a women's fitness magazine, I came across an article devoted to "taskercise," which basically entails transforming mind-numbing tasks into mini-workouts. Like doing tricep dips on the edge of the tub while waiting for my kid's bath to fill. Or squats with the laundry basket as I transfer clothes from the washer to dryer. And lunges across the kitchen while preparing dinner.
I guess I should be grateful for the advice. But the whole concept just saddens me. When did I become the kind of person who can't take 30 minutes out of her day to get some exercise? Am I really destined for a life of half-hearted workouts and mediocre dinners?
The picture isn't the same for men. Compared with the 1960s, men today help out more with the housework and child care, but strangely, they also have more leisure time, according to 2005 research out of the University of Maryland.
As for women, now that many of us work outside the home, we've lost that "me" time. Instead, we're heating up food while emptying the dishwasher and catching up with the husband as we sweep the floors.
We turn laundry into sock puppet theater and call it playtime with the kid (I'm grateful my son is still young enough to be fascinated by me folding pajamas).
Almost three-quarters of us women think we have too little time for ourselves, compared with 57 percent of men, and 39 percent of us "always feel rushed." At the end of the day, when I'm reading my son "Goodnight Moon" before bedtime and wondering where the time went, I count myself in that category.
So I don't much fault the makers of Yaz - or any other birth control pill manufacturer - for playing into the hearts of time-strapped women. Promise us a magic multi-tasking pill , and we're happy to indulge.
I'm sure if women stopped to really think about it, we'd laugh it off as the cheap marketing scheme it is, a half-baked attempt to profit off the frantic pace of our lives and our desire to have it all.
But unfortunately, we don't have the time.
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