The truth is, most women spend the majority of their lives trying not to get pregnant. According to the Guttmacher Institute, by the time a woman with two children is in her mid-40s she will have spent only five years trying to become pregnant, being pregnant, and not being at risk for getting pregnant following a birth. But to avoid getting pregnant before or after those two births, she would had had to refrain from sex or use contraception for an average of 25 years. Almost all American women (99 percent), ages 15-44, who have had sexual intercourse use some form of birth control.
Jessica Valenti, Not Wanting Kids Is Entirely Normal

Science: It’s a Girl Thing 

“This video was published by the European Commission for a campaign designed to attract more women to a career in science. The commission said that the video had to “speak their language to get their attention” and that it was intended to be “fun, catchy” and strike a chord with young people. “I would encourage everyone to have a look at the wider campaign and the many videos already online of female researchers talking about their jobs and lives,”

The original video was taken down after it received so many negative comments.”

They also engaged in an early 20th-century version of “hooking up.” With women earning little, “treating” was a key to relationships: Men paid for dinner and theater tickets with the expectation that women would reciprocate with sexual favors, as women extracted as much they could from their dates—hats, shoes, jewelry—while trying to maintain their respectability by flirting, even petting, but not going all the way. This was a high-stakes game, in an era when birth control was not legally available. But this new social life also created sexual norms that continue to inform what women and men expect of each other.

Why I prefer to go dutch.

(Singles in the City, WSJ)

Source: The Wall Street Journal