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>From this point on, the specter of women's "forgetfulness" stubbornly attached itself to the discourse around birth control. A slew of ads targeted at physicia

>From this point on, the specter of women's "forgetfulness" stubbornly attached itself to the discourse around birth control. A slew of ads targeted at physicians encouraged a paternalistic approach, depicting women as "scatter-brained, incompetent, and in need of guidance," Gossel writes. I'm aware that the times were unjust to women but whenever you're marketing a product at a massive scale, like 51% of the population, you should be as simplistic and as helping as possible. Simply because you're dealing with all kinds of people, not just the smart ones. So I just don't see the reason to paint a picture of a paternalistic conspiracy against women here. It's rather sensible marketing to a massive audience. How come we've gone 60 years with these pills? There are women who have entire careers behind them in biology and medical science and we're still using these pills. I remember in the early 2000's meeting some women who were using a staff instead. But at least one stopped because she felt she became too hormonal with the staff under her skin.

jcoffland 8y ago
> So I just don't see the reason to paint a picture of a paternalistic conspiracy against women here. It's rather sensible marketing to a massive audience. Yeah, but try turning it around. "Easy. For you to explain… for him to use." I doubt they would have used this language for a male product. Either way, it sounds terribly patronizing.
- ericand 8y ago
  Some of the other examples were advertisements to doctors. Would you still feel this way if that were the case on this one?
- adrianN 8y ago
  Advertisements depict men as bumbling idiots all the time.
  - benj111 8y ago
    In the UK (at least) this seems to now be banned https://www.asa.org.uk/news/harmful-gender-stereotypes-in-ads-to-be-banned.html https://www.asa.org.uk/news/harmful-gender-stereotypes-in-ad... Edit: Wording
- SamReidHughes 8y ago
  There's a ton of advertising done that way. It sucks.
- gambiting 8y ago
  There's an ad on British TV at the moment showing a woman saying to a man that she got him a gym membership and patting him on the belly as she says so. It's incredibly patronising and I can't ever imagine the same ad with gender roles reversed being allowed on TV.
  - watwut 8y ago
    How is that argument against what he said? He is talking about back then and you are talking about now. But when we switched to speaking about contemporary ads, Uber has one where woman wonders "how come he is always on time and able to find any place in city"? So women are still in ads in position of stupid people.
    - gambiting 8y ago
      >>How is that argument against what he said? Because he said he doubts someone would make an ad where someone talks down to a man. So I gave an example of exactly this happening right now on British TV. This is not me saying that portraying women as stupid is ok - far from it. Just that there are ads which are equally patronizing towards men too.
      - watwut 8y ago
        Gotcha, I see the point now. Agreed, it is good to point out exaggerations and such.
      - jcoffland 8y ago
        > Because he said he doubts someone would make an ad where someone talks down to a man. Well actually I didn't say that and I didn't know that all replies on HN were required to be arguments against but it does make sense now that I think about it.
  - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
    There are a fair few ads like this although they're now supposed to be banned. Unfortunately the enforcement of advertising rules in this country is more reactive than proactive and I doubt most people would feel strongly enough to complain. https://adage.com/article/global-news/u-k-bands-gender-stereotypes-ads/309785/ https://adage.com/article/global-news/u-k-bands-gender-stere... (Personally I'd feel pretty petty submitting a complaint about such an ad and I have far better things to be doing with my time)
- apatters 8y ago
  That slogan was actually marketing the pill towards men in 1964, not women. So what you're actually comparing is how marketers appealed to men in 1964 vs how they would in 2019. Sure I agree that like many things in the 60s that ad was patronizing, probably toward both genders. What is probably most interesting about that comparison in my opinion is that a birth control ad targeting men in 2019 would probably appeal to their desire to protect themselves, not their partners...
mdasen 8y ago
How come we've gone 60 years with these pills? There are women who have entire careers behind them in biology and medical science and we're still using these pills. There have been a bunch of refinements to the pill as well as alternative options in the years since, but ultimately I think it's about finding something that works. It's hard finding new drugs and there would be a high bar for a new kind of pill. Progestogen-only pills were first used in 1968. Vaginal rings (like the NuvaRing), contraceptive patches, implants, depo-provera, spermicidal sponges, and diaphragms have all been tried (plus IUDs which slightly pre-dates the pill). Why haven't we had progress in all sorts of areas? Chemotherapy was developed before the pill and it's still widely used despite its side-effects. It doesn't mean that people aren't working hard on new cancer treatments. Discovering new ways of treating the human body is hard.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  >Chemotherapy was developed before the pill and it's still widely used despite its side-effects. Chemo consists of thousands of different drugs prescribed in different circumstances, and new ones are being discovered all the time. It has bad side effects because none of the drugs are very "good" when compared with for example first-generation antibiotics which would save your life without even short term side effects.
kaffeemitsahne 8y ago
> I remember in the early 2000's meeting some women who were using a staff instead. But at least one stopped because she felt she became too hormonal with the staff under her skin. What do you mean by "staff"?
- dekhn 8y ago
  birth control implant is a thin rod size of matchstick, I'm gonna guess "staff" is a colloquial term refrring to it.
treis 8y ago
>So I just don't see the reason to paint a picture of a paternalistic conspiracy against women here. It's rather sensible marketing to a massive audience. It is kind of striking that the pill is the only medication that comes this way. Not because it's paternalistic against women, but because it's such an obviously effective tool against forgetting your pills. I transfer my pills to a calendar container because I'd forget otherwise. So does seemingly every old person in the country. It's a bit of a wonder why the pharmaceutical industry hasn't innovated.

jcoffland 8y ago

> So I just don't see the reason to paint a picture of a paternalistic conspiracy against women here. It's rather sensible marketing to a massive audience. Yeah, but try turning it around. "Easy. For you to explain… for him to use." I doubt they would have used this language for a male product. Either way, it sounds terribly patronizing.

ericand 8y ago
Some of the other examples were advertisements to doctors. Would you still feel this way if that were the case on this one?
adrianN 8y ago
Advertisements depict men as bumbling idiots all the time.
- benj111 8y ago
  In the UK (at least) this seems to now be banned https://www.asa.org.uk/news/harmful-gender-stereotypes-in-ads-to-be-banned.html https://www.asa.org.uk/news/harmful-gender-stereotypes-in-ad... Edit: Wording
SamReidHughes 8y ago
There's a ton of advertising done that way. It sucks.
gambiting 8y ago
There's an ad on British TV at the moment showing a woman saying to a man that she got him a gym membership and patting him on the belly as she says so. It's incredibly patronising and I can't ever imagine the same ad with gender roles reversed being allowed on TV.
- watwut 8y ago
  How is that argument against what he said? He is talking about back then and you are talking about now. But when we switched to speaking about contemporary ads, Uber has one where woman wonders "how come he is always on time and able to find any place in city"? So women are still in ads in position of stupid people.
  - gambiting 8y ago
    >>How is that argument against what he said? Because he said he doubts someone would make an ad where someone talks down to a man. So I gave an example of exactly this happening right now on British TV. This is not me saying that portraying women as stupid is ok - far from it. Just that there are ads which are equally patronizing towards men too.
    - watwut 8y ago
      Gotcha, I see the point now. Agreed, it is good to point out exaggerations and such.
    - jcoffland 8y ago
      > Because he said he doubts someone would make an ad where someone talks down to a man. Well actually I didn't say that and I didn't know that all replies on HN were required to be arguments against but it does make sense now that I think about it.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  There are a fair few ads like this although they're now supposed to be banned. Unfortunately the enforcement of advertising rules in this country is more reactive than proactive and I doubt most people would feel strongly enough to complain. https://adage.com/article/global-news/u-k-bands-gender-stereotypes-ads/309785/ https://adage.com/article/global-news/u-k-bands-gender-stere... (Personally I'd feel pretty petty submitting a complaint about such an ad and I have far better things to be doing with my time)
apatters 8y ago
That slogan was actually marketing the pill towards men in 1964, not women. So what you're actually comparing is how marketers appealed to men in 1964 vs how they would in 2019. Sure I agree that like many things in the 60s that ad was patronizing, probably toward both genders. What is probably most interesting about that comparison in my opinion is that a birth control ad targeting men in 2019 would probably appeal to their desire to protect themselves, not their partners...

mdasen 8y ago

How come we've gone 60 years with these pills? There are women who have entire careers behind them in biology and medical science and we're still using these pills. There have been a bunch of refinements to the pill as well as alternative options in the years since, but ultimately I think it's about finding something that works. It's hard finding new drugs and there would be a high bar for a new kind of pill. Progestogen-only pills were first used in 1968. Vaginal rings (like the NuvaRing), contraceptive patches, implants, depo-provera, spermicidal sponges, and diaphragms have all been tried (plus IUDs which slightly pre-dates the pill). Why haven't we had progress in all sorts of areas? Chemotherapy was developed before the pill and it's still widely used despite its side-effects. It doesn't mean that people aren't working hard on new cancer treatments. Discovering new ways of treating the human body is hard.

whatshisface 8y ago
>Chemotherapy was developed before the pill and it's still widely used despite its side-effects. Chemo consists of thousands of different drugs prescribed in different circumstances, and new ones are being discovered all the time. It has bad side effects because none of the drugs are very "good" when compared with for example first-generation antibiotics which would save your life without even short term side effects.

kaffeemitsahne 8y ago

> I remember in the early 2000's meeting some women who were using a staff instead. But at least one stopped because she felt she became too hormonal with the staff under her skin. What do you mean by "staff"?

dekhn 8y ago
birth control implant is a thin rod size of matchstick, I'm gonna guess "staff" is a colloquial term refrring to it.

treis 8y ago

>So I just don't see the reason to paint a picture of a paternalistic conspiracy against women here. It's rather sensible marketing to a massive audience. It is kind of striking that the pill is the only medication that comes this way. Not because it's paternalistic against women, but because it's such an obviously effective tool against forgetting your pills. I transfer my pills to a calendar container because I'd forget otherwise. So does seemingly every old person in the country. It's a bit of a wonder why the pharmaceutical industry hasn't innovated.