Mother: Caring for 7 Billion Page #4

The American housewife...

who has a more important,

a more responsible occupation?

Wife,

Mother,

Laundress,

Counselor,

Maid,

Chef,

Purchasing Agent.

All of these are her duties

at one time or another.

When you think back to the 50's

the expectation was that a

woman would stay home,

run a household,

raise the children

and her husband would go off and

work

and bring home the bacon.

Uh... I wanted the pills.

I see...

Well, the introduction of the pill

in the 1960's was huge.

Women could choose the timing

and the number of births.

They had the means and

the opportunity

to delay childbearing indefinitely...

and many of us did.

There is still a lot of societal

pressure

to have children.

When you say,

"I'm childfree by choice,"

there is an assumption that

you are that way

because you hate children

or you're heartless or

cold or

there is an assumption that...

something is seriously wrong,

not just physically,

but mentally or emotionally.

When I talked to people

about their birth control

methods,

most of them told me

they had sought permanent

sterilization

and this is very, very tough

for women

particularly younger women in

their 20's and 30's

that are seeking tubal ligations.

Many doctors will say,

will ask you to undergo

a year of counseling...

at your own expense,

before they give you a tubal ligation

or they'll just flat out

refuse

your request for one.

Often it is,

"Oh you're too young...

"You haven't had any children yet... "

"You're likely to change your mind.

No one challenges a

young woman who says,

"I want to have three children.

If you say, "I don't want

to have any children,"

you will be challenged in the

medical community...

and in the mental health

community.

We live in a sex soaked society,

but we don't really like

to talk about sex.

We certainly don't want

our children

to hear about sex.

Even though...

sex sells all our products,

sex is all over T.V.

Sex is what everybody

loves in the movies.

So, it's a weird dichotomy.

In the United States,

remember that

40% of pregnancies are

unintended.

Our teenagers have the

highest birthrate

in the developed world

and yet we make it very

hard for them

to get family planning

in many states.

We should be looking at reducing

the number of unintended

pregnancies

by making it easier to get

family planning

in the United States.

It is not widely known

that there are a very large

number of

barriers standing between

women and the means and

the information

to contraception that they need

in order to manage

their childbearing.

In almost all countries,

the desired family size

is lower than the

actual family size.

in huge surveys,

the demographic and

health surveys.

According to published studies,

it is estimated that

215 million women worldwide

who wish to have smaller families

don't use modern family planning.

Largely because of informational

and cultural barriers.

Many of these women don't

want or intend to use it

because they have heard

it is dangerous,

male partners are opposed,

their religion is opposed,

or they are leaving decisions

on the number of children

up to God.

According to the UNFPA,

if those women met their needs

it would reduce population

growth by 28%

and at the same time

would save lives

and advance human rights.

Every day

800 women

and more than 20,000 children

die from preventable causes.

Every 2 minutes

a women dies

at what should have been

a joyful moment.

And millions of women

are unable to choose if,

when and how many

children they should have

because they lack modern ways

of contraception.

For anybody who thinks

that poor people

want large families in Africa,

for example,

then they better look again

and notice

that Africa has an

enormous

number of abortions

every year

and a lot of those are

unsafe and

a lot of those do a lot

of damage.

We are loosing every year

about 350,000 women

from maternal death.

13% of those women die

because of unsafe abortions.

So that's the mathematics.

The numbers are out there.

There are so many women who

are raped worldwide

and have children

who are then...

often really not cared for.

The issue isn't abortion.

The issue is preventing...

the need for so many abortions.

I wanted to meet the people.

not just read about it in a book,

but really meet people

and see what they're doing

to figure out solutions.

That's where I found out about

Population Media Center

and they are using entertainment

to get out social messages

about population.

Population Media Center

specializes in the production of

long running serialized dramas

on radio or television.

Also known as soap operas

or tele novellas.

Where characters evolve

into role models for

the audience,

gradually, over time.

I think what makes Population Media

Center's work so unique

is the fact that it connects

with the audience

at an emotional level.

We're not just building

cognitive information,

because so many of our decisions

are based on emotion.

Not actually the information

that we have.

By creating scenes that

the audience can relate to

and characters that the audience

sees themselves in

we're able to convey a message

and also allow them to...

really understand how they too

can take the actions

that the characters have

taken in their lives

and apply it to their own.

Do you usually listen when

you are doing other things

or when you are travelling?

I was invited to a focus group

of the radio dramas.

All the women there had amazing

stories to tell about

how these characters had served

as role models for them

so that they could be

strong and...

start to change some

of the practices that

kept the women down

in their villages.

Women are basically viewed...

as they are in very rigid

domination systems,

as technologies of reproduction.

In some of the poorest and

most rigidly male dominated

cultures

and they go together;

women have no status

whatsoever,

unless they produce a son.

The girl in a poor country,

especially the poorest girls,

they... eat last,

they eat least.

They get up earliest,

they go to bed latest.

They do the most work and...

they have the least say

over what happens

in their life.

Women are in many poor countries

considered property of the man

and in some countries

they have

slightly lower status than

the cattle.

When women are sold into

marriage

at age 9 or 10

and they become pregnant

as soon as they're fertile

they don't have the right or

the ability to make decisions

about family life or family planning

on their own.

70% of those living

in absolute poverty worldwide

are female.

There is no way in a humane,

non-authoritarian, caring way,

to change this over breeding

without raising the status

of women worldwide.

After the focus group...

I was so moved by Zinet's story

and all the hurdles that she

has encountered and...

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