I agree with weirwoodtreehugger and want to add that, no matter your socioeconomic status, when you're a woman, anything you do is automatically representative of your entire gender. You're stressed about the math test because it counts for a lot of points and you want to do well, but you're also stressed because, if…

"I'm troubled," the chief said, dipping his shortbread cookie into his tea in a not-at-all-troubled and totally-calm way.

There is an important racial issue here, but I don't think it's the one you're trying to address. PoC make up a very, very small amount of mass murderers. Yes, there is a tendency to take violent PoC and blame their violence on their race. No, we don't do that to white people. However, there is something to be studied…

Several insurance plans do cover erectile dysfunction meds. I work in a doctor's office. I see what's covered all the time.

So in your mind that's how everyone who would take advantage of low- or no-cost birth control is behaving? That's a delusion you're going to have to give up. You already pay for subsidies that allow men to have erectile dysfunction medication at very low costs. Are you whining about that? No. It's always been about…

Prove it's extortion and not reality. Maybe then we can have a real debate.

Much better than a bunch of freeloading children, yes?

It's not extortion, it's reality. You can't force people into not having sex. People will always have sex, it's a biological function. The effect of this, without birth control, is more children. More children means less money to spread around. Less money means these children need more assistance. If we all (and yes,…

Birth control is not recreational. It is, for many, many women, a treatment for debilitating disease. Should poor women have to go without treatment so you can pretend to have the moral high ground?

Uh, yeah it does. As a society, it's better for everyone if we behave sensibly. Some people would really love to commit murder, does that mean we shouldn't try to force them not to do it? No, because it's better for everyone if murder doesn't happen. See how that works?

Which is cheaper? Funding one woman's birth control or funding 18 years of a poor child's meals, health care, day care, school, and college?

Then what does that have to do with birth control at all?

You said you were up in arms about birth control for teenage girls because you didn't want your nieces to feel pressured to have sex. Having access to birth control does not pressure girls into feeling like they should have sex. Those are two completely separate issues.

Birth control does not encourage people to have sex. Birth control does not encourage people to have sex. Birth control does not encourage people to have sex.

It's not even free, it's paid for by taxpayers, or completely covered by all insurance plans. You have enough reasons here now for it to be "free," but it's not actually free at all. That's one of the other huge misconceptions.

I'm a nanny for a two-year-old girl and a one-year-old boy and while that can't compare to parenting, I feel like I'm watching gender socialization happen real-time. The kids' parents have totally bought into the gendered bullshit. There's two of everything, one in pink, one in blue. The little girl seems to be just…

The other price is that those things don't even work. You can follow all the rules and still be victimized. The price is that nowhere is safe and no one is trustworthy. Your family, your friends - all more likely to rape you than the stranger you're warned about. It's like a big joke. "Haha, she believed us when we…

Not judging their dynamic, but I can see why this would be unsettling to some people. Many abusers don't allow their significant others to associate with the opposite sex, and think of them as property. If this is what works for this specific couple, I have no problem with it, but I can understand why it skeeves some…

It's complicated because it's not always a perfect rule. Abused people don't always become abusers, and abusers haven't always been abused.

Rape isn't about sex. He didn't rape these women to get laid, he raped them to feel powerful, he raped them to put them in their place, he raped them because he likes to make women vulnerable and take advantage of them.