http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/5269/
[TitusOneNine] 25 Aug 2007--At least from the mid-twentieth century, traditional gender and sexual mores have been coming “unstuck” in Europe and North America. Legal and social prohibitions have been lifted--first against divorce, then divorce and remarriage; against extra-marital sexual activity and cohabitation; against birth control and abortion; against out-of-wedlock pregnancies; against homosexual activity and partnerships; against adoption by singles and homosexual couples. Reproductive technologies have opened the possibility of effective birth control, in vitro fertilization, artificial insemination, surrogate motherhood and other biological-clock extensions. In some places, public consensus is beginning to resettle and to take the form of positive legal provisions--no fault divorce laws with equal parental rights; legalized abortions; a variety of legal arrangements for cohabiting and/or reproducing couples; and--in this country most recently--civil partnerships open to same-sex as well as mix-gendered pairs. Likewise, after a post-war lull, women have re-entered the workplace and moved into the professions. Slowly, laws have been passed to guarantee equal access, to require equal pay for equal work, to institute maternity/paternity leaves, and to remove glass ceilings.
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