This month marks the 50th anniversary of the U.S. government's approval of the birth control pill. Here are some of the ways the pill has helped change women's lives:

• Proved much safer than earlier birth control methods, most notably the cordite-ignited vaginal gun
• Successfully helped to replace the term "spinster" with the term "career-oriented"
• Women are now able to learn math
• A woman can now freely enjoy other races in her extramarital affairs without the damn baby's skin color giving it away
• For baby-boomer women, the pill heralds the start of all '60s montages
• Changed your mother's life, as she likes to say, yet you exist, and she doesn't appear all that thrilled with her life choices anyhow
• Kept Stephanie Lyall of Lawrence, KS from realizing just how awful a mother she would have been
• Skin really cleared up; plus, no kids