Whose Life Is It Anyway?

What's the best thing modern age (or any other age) gave to women?

I think it has to be a control over how many if any, kids they wish to have.

This post by Bones made me wonder why most organised religions seem to look at contraception so suspiciously.
I think religion fears that contraception might make women and men 'immoral' ...
Or else why do we have derogatory words for babies born out of wedlock?

There are some who think there is nothing as important for women as wanting to be mothers. Such glorification of motherhood also means if you can't or don't wish to have any children there must be something wrong with you. They make me understand why some women 'are actually annoyed that men do not have to undergo labour pains' ;)

The mental level of such thinking is the same as the mental level of my maid's alcoholic husband, who insisted that tubectomy would make it convenient for her to cheat on him!

She had agreed to undergo tubectomy after the birth of her fourth daughter but her family won't even come to meet her in the hospital for days. (Also because she put an end to any hopes of a male baby) .

She was sickly and underweight and it was difficult to imagine her surviving many such pregnancies, but we have a social system that authorizes us to take decisions for, and control other lives.

Sickly or not she didn't care if they abandoned her. She feared that if she died her husband would dump her four unwanted daughters in some orphanage and marry again.
(They were fine eventually. I saw him riding his bicycle with the baby in the basket to keep her happy while the mother tried to finish house work).

Women would have no careers or economic independence, that came with working, without this control over their own bodies.
Can you think of anything else that has changed women's lives as much?