--- title: Nancy Gibbs on the Pill's Importance | TIME description: On the 50th Anniversary of the Pill, Time Executive Editor Nancy Gibbs talks about why we're still fighting about it half a century later — whom it helped, whom it hurt, what it meant and why it mattered. canonical: https://time.com/video/jiTSvHXM/ og:title: Nancy Gibbs on the Pill's Importance og:description: On the 50th Anniversary of the Pill, Time Executive Editor Nancy Gibbs talks about why we're still fighting about it half a century later — whom it helped, whom it hurt, what it meant and why it mattered. og:url: https://time.com/video/jiTSvHXM/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/jiTSvHXM/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Nancy Gibbs on the Pill's Importance twitter:description: On the 50th Anniversary of the Pill, Time Executive Editor Nancy Gibbs talks about why we're still fighting about it half a century later — whom it helped, whom it hurt, what it meant and why it mattered. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/jiTSvHXM/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Nancy Gibbs on the Pill's Importance > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Nancy Gibbs on the Pill's Importance [Watch (HLS stream): Nancy Gibbs on the Pill's Importance](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/jiTSvHXM.m3u8) (2:47)  _Published 2010-04-22. On the 50th Anniversary of the Pill, Time Executive Editor Nancy Gibbs talks about why we're still fighting about it half a century later — whom it helped, whom it hurt, what it meant and why it mattered._ --- Jul 27, 2023 1:31 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Bill Gates on Energy](/video/fn2oaC5b/) ### Bill Gates on Energy [Bill Gates on Healthcare](/video/YxMNctaW/) ### Bill Gates on Healthcare [The Influencers- Nancy Gibbs and Bill Gates](/video/ODjHuYQj/) ### The Influencers- Nancy Gibbs and Bill Gates --- ## Transcript >> One of the biggest misconceptions about the Pill which I shared was that somehow it caused the sexual revolution. Once it became so easy for women to avoid pregnancy that you had this mass liberalization of attitudes about everything from pre- marital sex to adultery to all sorts of sexual behaviors. But for the next 10 years as we are seeing all of this liberalization in society, all of the rebellions, we're seeing 'Woodstock', we're seeing 'The Summer of Love'. The birth control pill was prescribed almost exclusively to married women. It was designed for married women. Most college campuses did not offer it. Planned parenthood clinics would not give it to single women. You know even into the 70's the celebration of the pill was still in the context of marriage. In 1975, Loretta Lynn comes out with a song about the Pill. >> You wined me and dined me, when I was your girl. Promised if I'd be your wife, you'd show me the world-- >> And what you realize as you look at the lyrics is that-- is that the singer is singing to her husband and it's about how much-- how much more fun their marriage is going to be now that she doesn't feel like she's going to be sort of constantly latched to the cradle and being pregnant all the time. And so, you know, even into the 70's, the celebration of the pill was still in the context of marriage and the idea that it was something that was going to, you know, unleash a wave of promiscuity among sixteen year olds was just, was not where it wasn't the culture. What it did cause, however, and where I think its impact was most significant when I go back and talk to women who sort of came of age in the 60's and 70's was that with the passage of Title IX, with the opening up of colleges and universities, graduate schools, two women for the first time, it became possible for them to plan out their lives in a way that they haven't before. To be able to undertake a college degree, a graduate degree, with the idea that they would be able to complete their education or take a job and complete, you know, that sort of early years of apprenticeship without fearing that they might be derailed by an unexpected and unintended pregnancy. It also made it much harder for colleges or universities or employers to deny women opportunities on the basis that, why do we wanna give her this slot if she's just gonna get pregnant and drop out? And so, you do have a sort of, have a straight line between the availability of the pill and the emergence of women in universities and graduate schools, the enormous increase in their numbers in graduate schools and their greater role in the work force. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Nancy Gibbs on the Pill's Importance","description":"On the 50th Anniversary of the Pill, Time Executive Editor Nancy Gibbs talks about why we're still fighting about it half a century later — whom it helped, whom it hurt, what it meant and why it mattered.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/jiTSvHXM/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2010-04-22T15:54:33.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/jiTSvHXM.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/jiTSvHXM/","duration":"PT2M47S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/jiTSvHXM/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```