Taking the pill for last 40 years 'has put women off masculi

[joeblow]

Taking the pill for last 40 years 'has put women off masculine men'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... looks.html

By David Derbyshire
Last updated at 11:34 PM on 07th October 2009

It ushered in the 1960s sexual revolution and gave women control over their own fertility.

But the Pill may also have changed women's taste in men, according to a study.

Scientists say the hormones in the oral contraceptive suppress a woman's interest in masculine men and make boyish men more attractive. Although the change occurs for just a few days each month, it may have been highly influential since use of the Pill began more than 40 years ago.


Classic men: In the Fifties, more masculine men like Burt Lancaster and Kurt Douglas were considered attractive


Tough guys: In the Sixties rebels like Sean Connery and Steve McQueen made women weak at the knees

If the theory is right, it could partly explain the shifting in tastes from macho 1950s and 1960s stars such as Kirk Douglas and Sean Connery to the more wimpy, androgynous stars of today, such as Johnny Depp and Russell Brand.

Dr Alexandra Alvergne, of the University of Sheffield, says the Pill could also be altering the way women pick their mates and could have long-term implications for society.

'There are many obvious benefits of the Pill for women, but there is also the possibility that the Pill has psychological side-effects that we are only just discovering,' she said. 'We need further studies to find out what these are.'

The links between the Pill and sexual preferences are highlighted in a paper in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution.

Scientists have long known that a woman's taste in men changes over her menstrual cycle.

During the few days each month when women are fertile - around the time of ovulation - they tend to prefer masculine features and men who are more assertive.

On these fertile days, women are also more attracted to men who are 'genetically dissimilar', Dr Alvergne said. Picking a partner whose genetic make-up is unlike their own increases the chances of having a healthy child.


Big hair: Long locks like John Travolta and Ryan O'Neal's hit the spot in the Seventies


Softer look: Pin-ups like Rob Lowe and Michael. J. Fox were popular in the Eighties

On days when women are not fertile, their tastes swing towards more feminine, boyish faces and more caring personalities, researchers have shown.

However, if women are taking the Pill they no longer have fertile days.

That means they no longer experience the hormonal changes that make them more attracted to masculine men and those with dissimilar genetic make-up.

More...

    * Scientists unveil wonder pill that could cure period pain

Although the effect is subtle, Dr Alvergne said it could alter women's view of male attractiveness. 'It is a possibility - but there is no evidence of this yet,' she said. 'We need a lot more research in this area.' In her paper, Dr Alvergne reviewed seven studies showing how the Pill can change women's behaviour.

She also found evidence from three studies that the Pill can affect the way women are looked at by men.

Past studies have shown that men find women more attractive around the time of ovulation, possibly because women have evolved instinctive ways, by their natural scent or their behaviour, of alerting men that they are fertile. One study showed that lap dancers get bigger tips at the time of the month when they are most fertile.

Dr Alvergne said the use of the Pill could influence a woman's ability to attract a mate by reducing her attractiveness to men.


Girly locks: Heart throbs of the Nineties had flowing hair

 Her co-author at Sheffield, Dr Virpi Lumma, said: 'The ultimate outstanding evolutionary question concerns whether the use of oral contraceptives when making mating decisions can have long-term consequences on the ability of couples to reproduce.' An increasing number of studies suggest that the Pill is likely to have an impact on human mating decisions and subsequent reproduction.

'If this is the case, Pill use will have implications for both current and future generations, and we hope that our review will stimulate further research on this question,' said Dr Lumma.

The changing fashions for film stars appear to show a shift from masculine men in the 1950s - before the advent of the Pill - to more baby-faced stars today.

Many of the biggest box office draws are boyish in appearance, rather than classically rugged. The top Hollywood earners of last year include Will Smith, Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio and Hugh Jackman. Other boyish film stars include Jude Law.

The rise of such stars could also be explained by cynical attempts to market films and merchandise at an ever younger age group.


Tweeny pin-ups: 2009 favourites look cheeky and boyish like Zac Efron

[scorpio]

Excellent post!
The photos speak volumes. each decade of men is progressively more feminine.
Men and women are being reprogrammed into the opposite of what they used to be.
Notice on the last pic that the guys pants are cut in a very similar fashion to women's pants
Kinda faggy IMHO

[Father Brown]

Makes perfect sense to me.

Great example of something taken for granted because a critical mass decides it is ok. It may be hard to believe, but I know many women from my mother's generation, who were only 20 or so at the time this revolution began, who would never dream of fooling their bodies by taking something like the Pill. They had enough sense to avoid it.  

20 years aftrer the revolution began, it was considered absolutely harmless by most people.

The Pill along with other estrogen therapies is also making male fish female and may be in our drinking water loading up men with high levels of estrogen.

[Jenny Lake]

Here's the man credited with developing the Pill, holder of the first patent, Carl Djerassi.
http://www.answers.com/topic/carl-djerassi
Djerassi, at age 16, and his mother emigrated to the U.S. in 1939 to escape the Nazis. After his education, he went to work for the Swiss pharmaceutical CIBA in New Jersey. The standard biogs don't reflect his association with 'displaced scholars', but this was nearly his entire professional ubringing. For a chemist, he became exceedingly wealthy and retained his Board positions and privileges in several of his enterprises, including a position with Occidental Petroleum (Armand Hammer's company).

[Father Brown]

Jenny, that is very interesting, but with your knowledge and research in matters of health, medicine, and pharmaceuticals, I would be very interested on your personal opinions regarding the Pill. The environmental issues alone appear to be a nightmare that no one wishes to discuss.

[kolnidre]

The environmental issues alone appear to be a nightmare that no one wishes to discuss.

Indeed. No one discusses it because it's just in the air, and taking place incrementally. So bringing it up disturbs the glassy surface of the pond and sends ripples of "conspiracy theory" spiraling out.

These are some of the things I bring up to the "ecotists" and carbophobes I encounter, seemingly at every turn and each function I attend these days. Apart from the biphenol A and other hormones I believe Jenny has pointed toward low level radiation having a similar effect. I'd like to know more about the effects of the radiation soup we're swimming in at all times now on hormones, disease, and brain function.

I can't stand the faggy boys popping up all around me these days. Sometimes it's so bad I feel genuinely sad for the females accompanying them and just want to blurt something out like "find a real man, honey." One of these days I might end up doing that. I've no doubt I could deck any of those fairy boyz that dared take umbrage.

[Jenny Lake]

Father B,
I don't think people should take vitamins let alone hormones! I was talked into taking the Pill when I gained my independence as a teenager but did so only for a very brief time and then quit. The 'security' women think they're getting with the Pill has had an impact on the relationship choices --Peter Pan fly by nights and ne'er do wells doing far better than a socially healthy society would condone. There's a lot of vicious circle to this. I know as a young person I feared single-motherhood far more than a misbehaving boyfriend. I think young women felt much freer to take chances with chancey companions-- but that was also decades ago.
   Nature has some unbelievable strategies up her sleeve --it's 100% natural for male fish to transform into females when the population of the species has reached sustainability with its environment. And I think this issue is only part 'pheromones' and a lot spin, and I'd be sorry to see public money go down the tubes for social research on the attractiveness of feminized men or vice versa. More junk science sure isn't what we need. Feminized men/de-feminized women has so many variables. For example, looking into Dr. Mercola's archives I found a video called "Why Soy is Not a Health Food" --among the reasons are phytoestrogens from soy which in babies fed formula result in 20,000 times more estrogen in the bloodstream! ..shocking. This applies to soy protein isolates too. Mercola thinks these products should be banned, as they also contain aluminum. A study I read a while back connected feminizing hormones in male fetuses when their mothers used lipsticks and other cosmetics...so the biochemical end of things is complicated and grossly understated. I think women will make choices based more on their exposure to types growing up and the kinds of males they bond with, after all, we know the movies of the past fully exaggerated the masculine stereotypes. Can someone say Rock Hudson, Douglas Fairbanks, Henry Fonda, Jeffrey Hunter, or other stars I remember as a kid were definitively more masculine than male stars today?....just don't think so.

It's also alarming to see the image-making for young women portraying them as 'waifs'. Take a look at something on the front page of my Yahoo news today, http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/beauty/i ... age-521480 , and this is not too bad (cover girl) but the models today are walking the fashion shows totally bone thin. A 'masculine' man might crack one of these girls in two in a hugging accident. For the ladies that just can't aspire to waifishness, well...they'll need a sympathetic friend to love them as they are.

[Jenny Lake]

One study showed that lap dancers get bigger tips at the time of month when they are most fertile..

lol!!
--should public money fund studies like this?

Maybe the TIU menfolk could help clarify what it means to be masculine? I wouldn't want my femininity gauged by the degree of enthusiasm in a lap dance.

Biologically, with the Pill and assorted other sundries to skew the cues, I know I'd appreciate a male perspective.

[Rockstar]

I was just saying this to a female friend of mine the other day, I'm in NYC and the woman here all like the metro-sexual faggy boys and real men like meself are some sort of threat to them ! go figure, now I know why, they are all on the pill here, lol, guess I shold move
Rockstar NYC

[Jenny Lake]

There was a time when gender separation concepts were supported by the 'work' assigned to men and women and the rituals accompnaying those distinctions --now largely gone, especially in the metro environment. Modern women struggle just as much without cultural support for their femininity and are vulnerable to the extreme exaggerations of image-making --one which I think is rather rightly rejected by the majority.

The Pill may be a wedge that started this process --the biological effects being another issue really-- and the wedge split the generations, not genders. It seems to me that we were culturally just getting around to some comprehensive retrospectives on the roles of men and women too, brought on by economics. Femininity now looks like cheap marketing tricks with hollow stereotypes if you accept the fashion and guidance coming from the women's magazines as any indicator (like Cosmopolitan).

I think we have a phenomenon today of many living generations of women who are widely separated in their outlooks by multiple shifts is social norms and men are left to flounder around trying to figure it out. Overriding all of it is the decided control to eliminate procreation, biology coming back into the picture. Maybe we can rethink our values based on the survival of our species and not worry too much about how things look, but how things actually work. Western nations are seeing infertility rates begin to skyrocket.

[scorpio]

I've no doubt I could deck any of those fairy boyz that dared take umbrage.

Sounds like you need to attend a sensitivity seminar and an anger management therapist        :lol:
I may need to attend as well, as I have had the same thoughts.

[Father Brown]

There was a time when gender separation concepts were supported by the 'work' assigned to men and women and the rituals accompnaying those distinctions --now largely gone, especially in the metro environment. Modern women struggle just as much without cultural support for their femininity and are vulnerable to the extreme exaggerations of image-making --one which I think is rather rightly rejected by the majority.

The Pill may be a wedge that started this process --the biological effects being another issue really-- and the wedge split the generations, not genders. It seems to me that we were culturally just getting around to some comprehensive retrospectives on the roles of men and women too, brought on by economics. Femininity now looks like cheap marketing tricks with hollow stereotypes if you accept the fashion and guidance coming from the women's magazines as any indicator (like Cosmopolitan).

I think we have a phenomenon today of many living generations of women who are widely separated in their outlooks by multiple shifts is social norms and men are left to flounder around trying to figure it out. Overriding all of it is the decided control to eliminate procreation, biology coming back into the picture. Maybe we can rethink our values based on the survival of our species and not worry too much about how things look, but how things actually work. Western nations are seeing infertility rates begin to skyrocket.

I agree that we ought to look at how things work rather than how they look. But how they look, is an indicator and makes manifest, what is at work. Does that make any sense?

You seemed to be worried about public funds supporting this research. That thought did not even enter my view of this story. I did not even think about it. I can understand your point of view as you are obviously much more plugged into that phenomena at work in our world. However, with all the BS research out there funded at our Univeristies, I find no trouble at all if this kind of research is being funded. At least a story like this helps us get out a question that many have long ago looked at as solved. That the Pill is good and its status is beyond questioning.

But, I don't like public funding of stem cell research. It is not my goal to live forever. I even have a problem with organ transplants as we have seen where that leads to, a new type of high-tech cannibalism.

The Pill seems to be Vitamin Fem. And while I agree that it is a generational phenemona, I believe it is also creating a splitting of the sexes this side of the generational divide.

I have practiced contraception and understand its appeal. In the past, I bought into the lie of overpopulation, or that other great lie which asks why would anyone want to bring children into this rotten world? Or the other one, how can I afford all these kids? Unfortunately, I realized too late that having 10 or 12 children could have helped my point of view take hold in the world.

This story seems to go back to Lambeth. When the Episcopal Church declared it OK to practice contraception. Hard to believe that before the '30s any kind of contraception was not widely practiced.

[Jenny Lake]

If men are taking their cues from women, and I think the opening post shows that they are, then it's up to women to bring role definition to society's table. Myself-- I'm in the middle generation of this mess and the directives of the Protocols ring in my ears; "trouble every aspect..in all nations". I see the biological beginnings as a wedge between Mother and Child, tampering with milk and the critical bonds of human sustenance.

In the past few years, some high-profile murder cases committed by men against their pregnant spouses made these issues very sharp. The murderers were quite 'masculine'. Women were buzzing over these stories. The effect, imo, is that women are not safe with 'masculinity' (and neither are a lot of males apparently) and history has too many tragic examples; infanticide was birth control. The invention of Chivalry was supposed to help straighten that out. It was really the first step of women's liberation --an effort to recover and honor feminine qualities in the face of patriarchal domination. Men and women in educated 'court' society of medieval Europe organized around new norms of stereotypes and we're still living with the repercussions. Masculinity and Femininity became abstractions back then (peasants excepted) and we've been centuries overcoming those problems.

Looking at ancient 'enlightened' socities, like Greek and Egyptian, men and women had much greater likeness in appearance and taste, the roles largely 'legal' distinctions. So would the modern trends represent a low-intensity-conflict of forced enlightenment? --the androgenous communistic example? Is this what we're really resisting? It feels true for me. That's what I'm resisting! I like 'masculine' men and they know it by my outward femininity, but I can tell you from my experience that chivalry is just about dead. I would also resist actual perpetuation of legal divisions but if the goal is preserving our species I think we should make better and special provisions for women and children.

with all the BS research out there funded at our Universities I find no trouble at all if this kind of research is being funded. At least a story like this helps us get out a question...

Good, us getting out the questions, but the continued 'seeking' for answers to them in this particular vein is incentive to misdirect. Lets get on with the real problems we identify through the questioning process. 'Science' funding is a big part of the economic warfare.

[Jenny Lake]

p.s. --science has no morality and wants none.

[Christopher Marlowe]

I think women will make choices based more on their exposure to types growing up and the kinds of males they bond with, after all, we know the movies of the past fully exaggerated the masculine stereotypes. Can someone say Rock Hudson, Douglas Fairbanks, Henry Fonda, Jeffrey Hunter, or other stars I remember as a kid were definitively more masculine than male stars today?....just don't think so.

I'm going to ignore Jenny and go with the original post because it is just the GREATEST EXCUSE EVER.

Someone will ask, "Hey, CM, why is it that you have no girlfriend or wife?"

Me: "I'm too ruggedly handsome.  Women on the pill are put off by my virile masculinity because they're on the pill. It's a scientific fact. I suppose that I could meet a woman if I was more of a sissy, but my strong jawline won't allow it.  The only women that are ever interested in me are strippers who are ovulating."

[Jenny Lake]

CM --those sociologists are looking for you. Why don't you call them up and say "Hey, it's me. I'm the guy padding the tips of those gals". Really, save us all a lot of unecessary data gathering. They can just follow you around for a few months...

[Jenny Lake]

By creating the first practical oral contraceptive, the birth control pill, in the 1950s, Gregory Pincus brought privacy and convenience to women worldwide.

New breakthroughs in birth control came in the early 1950s from Carl Djerassi's successful synthesis of orally active analogues of the female hormone progesterone. Sponsored by women's rights activist Katharine McCormick, Pincus used the discoveries of Djerassi as a blueprint for developing a practical oral contraceptive.

Pincus, leading a team of researchers, generated a series of experiments proving that progestin, a synthetic form of the female hormone progesterone, prevented ovulation in animals. After they completed successful testing on humans, the FDA approved the distribution of Enovid®, the first birth control pill, in 1960.

The cultural impact of the Pill is wide-reaching, allowing women the liberty of choosing a method of birth control that can be administered in the privacy of their own homes. The Pill is still commonly used today with 98% effectiveness.

Pincus was born in Woodbine, New Jersey, and studied biology at Cornell and Harvard Universities, earning his Ph.D. at the latter in 1927. Revered as the father of the Pill, Pincus was a pioneer in biotechnology.

http://www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/1_3_ ... pincus.asp

Gregory Goodwin Pincus (1903-1967), son of Joseph Pincus and Elizabeth Lipman

--Pincus' maternal uncle, Jacob Goodale Lipman, was dean of New Jersey State College of Agricaulture at Rutgers University, Director of the N.J. State Agricultural Experiment Station, and the founding editor of Soil Science magazine.
--Pincus studies genetics at Harvard (under W.E. Castle), reproduction at Cambridge (under F.H.A. Marshall), and further genetics at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute (under Richard Goldschmidt, friend and colleague of Julian Huxley)
--Pincus began his contraception work in the 1930s, and variants of reproductive science such as 'artificial inovulation' which is the transplantation of eggs from one female to another, even between breeds and species
--after another year at Cambridge in 1938, Pincus returned to the US and taught at Clark University in Worcester, Mass where he co-founded with Hudson Hoagland in 1944, the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology
--in 1954, the first Pill was field tested on women in Haiti and Puerto Rico
--Pincus died Aug.22 1967 of myeloid metaplasia, a bone marrow disease speculated to have been caused by his work with organic solvents

[Jenny Lake]

Contraception was the collaborative work and ideology of Julian Huxley, Richard Goldschmit, Walter Rothschild (who were all mutual friends) and the Dexter/McCormick/Rockefeller clan. I don't have this whole picture yet, but it's interesting. Long before the 1954 field trials, human experiments were going on with injections in the 1930s.

Katharine Dexter McCormick, married to Stanley McCormick (International Harvester fortune) who was a diagnosed schizophrenic and brother to brother-in-law of John D Rockefeller Jr., worked closely with eugenicist Margaret Sanger who introduced to her to Gregory Pincus, whom she generously funded until their deaths in the same year. She herself lived to age 92 (1875-1967). Her husband was 'put-away' at a McCormick family estate in Montecito, Calif. in 1909, after which Katharine engaged in suffrage and birth control activism. "She also hosted the World Population Conference in her home in Geneva [and] established the Neuroendocrine Research Foundation, ..also partially funding the publication of Endocrinology magazine".
http://historicalbiographies.suite101.c ... d_the_pill

[MikeWB]

I don't have any strong opinions on birth control pills but I do have some opinions on the Daily Mail. Daily Mail is a tabloid newspaper. They write garbage headlines that sell copies. Most of their stories are crap and nonsense!

That said, if this is all true about male movie stars, how do you explain top Hollywood actors like:

- Russel Crowe?


- Clive Owen?


- Hugh Jackman?



It's also funny how they picked a pic of young Brad Pitt as an example when he looked completely differently in a movie that made him a big star. In Fight Club, his biggest film and the film that made him a super-star, he looked like this:


In short, this article is total bullshit! It suffers from selection bias and you can present and "prove" anything by using the same technique.

[Jenny Lake]

not only that, Mike, stats for 'pill' users put them at less than 20% of all contraception users --not the popular choice. India has a non-hormone 'pill' that was introduced in the 90s, but no stats were given and all studies on hormone-contraception and adverse effects state the situation as 'too new' to produce meaningful data, although that's a spin as well to protect the products.

[scorpio]

From my own personal observations I have noticed that men have become increasingly feminized, both physically and socially.
If I compare my generation to my grandfather's generation, that certainly holds true.
I don't know or care much about hollywood so I wont comment on that part of the thread.

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

Yep Scorpio,

I agree. I think without the Jew Media, Movies and Magazines and all of the collective Jewish social corruption...

men would be men and women would be women

... and it would be that simple and probably a little more innocent about sex, marriage, relationships, etc.  For example,  the Idiot Jew Cosmopolitan Magazine is just "How To Be a Skank and look UnHealthy!".

[Father Brown]

Contraception was the collaborative work and ideology of Julian Huxley, Richard Goldschmit, Walter Rothschild (who were all mutual friends) and the Dexter/McCormick/Rockefeller clan. I don't have this whole picture yet, but it's interesting. Long before the 1954 field trials, human experiments were going on with injections in the 1930s.

Katharine Dexter McCormick, married to Stanley McCormick (International Harvester fortune) who was a diagnosed schizophrenic and brother to brother-in-law of John D Rockefeller Jr., worked closely with eugenicist Margaret Sanger who introduced to her to Gregory Pincus, whom she generously funded until their deaths in the same year. She herself lived to age 92 (1875-1967). Her husband was 'put-away' at a McCormick family estate in Montecito, Calif. in 1909, after which Katharine engaged in suffrage and birth control activism. "She also hosted the World Population Conference in her home in Geneva [and] established the Neuroendocrine Research Foundation, ..also partially funding the publication of Endocrinology magazine".
http://historicalbiographies.suite101.c ... d_the_pill

Great information. Thanks, Jenny. By chance do you know if the McCormick's of International Harvester are related in any way to the McCormick's of the Chicago Tribune?

I believe that Population Control, like Televison Programming, is a Double-Entendre. Not only does it seek to 'control' how many people are allowed on planet earth, it certainly goes a long way in 'controlling' the activites and poltics of those who have a life. Take the reduction in the birth rate. From a tactical point alone, we could not have exported all those jobs to China had we been having as many children as we had in the past. The so-called service economy we have adopted can only keep us comfortable for as long as this phoney wealth surplus can sustain itself. Part of that surplus, which made us feel richer, was realized by the fact that we did not have as many children to clothe, feed, and school. Couple that with the cheap goods we were able to purchase, manufactured in overseas slave labor camps, and we certainly had the illusion of a high life. This eventually led to a need for cheap labor vis a vis illegal immigration because Americans became too 'important' to do certain jobs.

[scorpio]

Part of that surplus, which made us feel richer, was realized by the fact that we did not have as many children to clothe, feed, and school. Couple that with the cheap goods we were able to purchase, manufactured in overseas slave labor camps, and we certainly had the illusion of a high life. This eventually led to a need for cheap labor vis a vis illegal immigration because Americans became too 'important' to do certain jobs.

Another factor in the 'making us feel richer'  was that people in many parts of the country were using their houses as a piggy bank.

Illegal immigration has become a major issue in the USA. I see it everyday.
Our culture is being destroyed on many fronts - spiritually and economically, just to name a few.

[Jenny Lake]

Father B-- I believe it was 'Robert' McCormick, head of the Trib, and yes,(from memory, without checking) he was a nephew/first cousin to Cyrus McCormick and sons....now, I'll go check.

[Jenny Lake]

yep, sort of. Here's a link-- two Roberts, son and grandson of William Sanderson McCormick, brother of Cyrus McCormick. The Tribune was passed maternally through the Medill family to the McCormicks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:McCormick_family

[sirbadman]

Just a few things to remember:

1. Looks aren't actually too important to a lot of women, providing you are not "letting yourself go", ie steadily getting more overweight or less hygenic or whatever, ie getting worse because of a lack of effort.

With my gf, she told me i wasnt the typical look she goes for, but really this crap doesnt matter in the scheme of things.  

2. There is a big question mark over soy and its estrogen-like effects, most emulsifiers (say used in chocolate for instance) are soy-based, plus there are other commonly used chemicals which have estrogen like effects. Two possible impacts in my view are increasing male um johnson problems and the second being that girls are entering puberty at very young ages, i believe, historically anyway. Might be wrong on the latter. Still could be a good idea to watch how much soy you are eating if you are male.

As far as looks go i think the main difference in the last 20 years is that everyone is more chunky. It's pretty disgusting that lots of women/girls born after 1985 are actually larger than their mothers. And when all the girls are so big, guys of a similiar age probably wont give a damn about how much weight they are carrying either.

Notice Hollywood is promoting young and fat jewish stars, trying to make obesity more acceptable.

Eg: Seth Rogen, Jack Black, Jonah Hill, Nikki Blonsky.

[Large Sarge]

Notice Hollywood is promoting young and fat jewish stars, trying to make obesity more acceptable.

Eg: Seth Rogen, Jack Black, Jonah Hill, Nikki Blonsky.

good observation there....

Jack Black & seth Rogen are getting lots of media play (TV & Movie)

and all of it directed to the younger folks (comedies, kids tv shows, Teen sex flicks, etc)