When I first wrote here about the men I called Testicle Defenders (four years ago — how time flies!), I had trouble finding reputable links to statistics on pregnancy-related domestic abuse. Turns out there are more doctors and scientists looking at this problem now, which is an excellent thing. Kat Stoeffel, at NYMag‘s fashion-celebrities-shopping-and-other-chickcentric-stuff blog:
If you don’t hear much these days about the stereotypical gold digger who lies about being on the pill to ensnare a man into marriage or eighteen years of child support payments, that may be because doctors are now being told to look for just the opposite: The woman whose partner sabotages her birth control. She’s not so hard to find.
Early this year, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists (ACOG) issued a committee recommendation urging ob-gyns to screen patients for these behaviors, collectively known as reproductive coercion. Whether women were in for an annual exam, a pregnancy test, or a second trimester visit, it recommended asking questions like, “Does your partner support your decision about when or if you want to become pregnant?”
The ACOG’s strategy reflects a growing body of research that identifies reproductive coercion as a unique form of domestic or intimate partner violence, and offers an explanation for the high rates of unintended pregnancies among women in abusive relationships. Increasingly, birth-control sabotage is viewed as a tool not for baby-crazed female stalkers, but for a class of predominantly male abusers who want to exercise control over their partner’s body, make her dependent upon them, or secure a long-term presence in her life…
In Miller’s 2010 study, one of the largest on reproductive coercion to date, 15 percent of 1,300 women who visited federal- and state-subsidized California family-planning clinics had their birth control sabotaged. One in five had been urged by a boyfriend not to use birth control, or told by a boyfriend he would leave her if she wouldn’t get pregnant. A larger portion of respondents, 35 percent, who reported intimate partner violence (IPV) also reported birth-control sabotage…
Miller’s co-author Rebecca Levenson, a senior policy analyst for Futures Without Violence, said she expects more and diverse women will come forward as information about reproductive coercion spreads and women recognize it as a kind of abuse. “Naming something is powerful,” she said. But first, she hopes the research will inform the many doctors who are in a position to directly intervene and reduce the reproductive harm facing IPV victims — be it an unwanted pregnancy, an expensive abortion, or the unhappy extension of a bad relationship — but don’t know to ask. Harm-reduction strategies range from offering birth control or emergency contraceptives in plain packaging to switching women to a stealthier method, like Depo Provera hormone shots or an IUD with the strings clipped….
Naming is powerful. Read the whole thing, which includes links to resources for women who are currently in ‘reprodcutively coercive’ or other IPV (intimate partner violence) peril.
El Cruzado
Some days I feel like I don’t want to be associated with this whole ‘male’ category of humankind, despite being one.
Forum Transmitted Disease
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST
I’m turning in my man card.
the Conster
Wow. Men can be such ridiculous fucking assholes. Where are all the Lorena Bobbitts?
Joy
I can definitely see this happening. A long time ago I was in an abusive relationship with a misogynist. It wasn’t a term well known then. He didn’t want me to use birth control,a fact I learned was used to control me, and of course I became pregnant. Then it was MY fault that I was pregnant and I needed to do something about it because he sure as hell wasn’t responsible for it. I had an abortion and of course he was pissed. A few months later I managed to get rid of him but only after my self-esteem was lower than a sewer. I have never looked back at my abortion and felt any guilt. It saved my life because had I carried the child I would have been bound to him forever. Not good for me or the baby. Luckily there was a clinic only 100 miles away and at that time some opposition at the gate, but nothing like today.
piratedan
I know, I know, it’s a fucking wonder that there are any women willing to sleep with any men anywhere with this kind of shite going on. Still having to fight that concept of women not being chattel or incubators but as actual people capable of making a decision about their own bodies and lives. Seems so simple and yet so many of my gender appear to be totally incapable of seeing women as people or having a skill set of making them a sammich.
schrodinger's cat
Its not just men, there are some deeply misogynistic women. I found this blog, which at first I thought was a parody.
Trollhattan
Jesus. I presume they take their shoes away at the same time.
I wake most mornings asking myself, “How I can help us become more like Pakistan?” So this gives me some grand ideas.
cathyx
@schrodinger’s cat: Both sides do it!
Phoenician in a time of Romans
One in five had been urged by a boyfriend not to use birth control, or told by a boyfriend he would leave her if she wouldn’t get pregnant.
That’s a bit confusing there – I can understand a desire to have children being a legitimate deal-breaker for a relationship – “being told [he/she] would leave [her/him] if [they] didn’t try to get pregnant”. If they’re lumping that in with coercion, it’s going to weaken the case.
The threat to break up with someone can be scummy or honorable; but either way, I don’t think it’s something you can deny as a legitimate right.
Mnemosyne
@Joy:
As far as I can tell, that’s exactly the purpose — even if you left him after having a baby, you would still be legally bound to him through the child and he could continue to make your life harder through custody arrangements. I’m glad you were able to get out!
schrodinger's cat
@cathyx: I am in no way excusing the men who act like pond scum.
michelle
@Phoenician in a time of Romans: I think it has something to do with creating dependence more than with disagreements about whether or not there’s a baby in their future.
Mnemosyne
@Phoenician in a time of Romans:
There’s a huge difference between “I would like us to agree that we will have children at some point in the future and maybe plan for the best time to do that” and “If you don’t get pregnant in the next three months, I’m leaving you.”
Violet
Doesn’t surprise me at all. It’s all about control for these man. Whatever it takes.
Southern Beale
Wow. This is definitely an issue that is under-discussed in our culture today.
You know, just a few years ago we had this law pass in Tennessee making it illegal to coerce a woman into an abortion. All the clinics have to post a sign on the wall saying so.
But no one has to post a sign on the wall saying it’s illegal to coerce a woman into pregnancy or motherhood. Why the fuck not?
beltane
@Southern Beale: Why? Because around 27% of the population sees this as a good thing and part of God’s plan.
TooManyJens
@Phoenician in a time of Romans: From Miller’s study,
I doubt they were picking up a lot of cases of men in healthy relationships saying, “we’re incompatible if one of us wants kids and the other doesn’t, so we should end it.”
Karen in GA
So sayeth Louis C.K. the Wise.
Karen in GA
@beltane:
Exactly. Who do these girls think they are, complaining about having to do their jobs?
(And I just made myself a bit sick there for a minute.)
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@TooManyJens:
I doubt they were picking up a lot of cases of men in healthy relationships saying, “we’re incompatible if one of us wants kids and the other doesn’t, so we should end it.”
I wouldn’t have thought so, but the question could probably do with a bit more care. if I picked up on it in two minutes, you can bet some wingnut is going to use it to try and invalidate the issue.
Catsy
It’s stories like this that make me happier than ever that I got fixed years ago.
I would like to apologize to the female half of the species on behalf of all Y chromosomes.
Svensker
@Southern Beale:
Dunno. Maybe you should ask Erik Erikson.
TooManyJens
For those who are interested, here’s Miller’s original 2010 study, and here’s a study from 2011 investigating the effectiveness of health clinic interventions to reduce reproductive coercion. The results of the 2011 study are encouraging:
muddy
@Phoenician in a time of Romans: They will do that regardless.
pokeyblow
@Catsy: Can humans make lego “people” pregnant?
Tom levenson
Apropos of nothing but family pride, I’ll note that Rebecca Levenson, the study co-author and a driving force in this research and policy work that has flowed from it, is my sister in law.
Aimai
@Phoenician in a time of Romans: they do what they do. Who cares? Have you ever seen a MRA site or read these guys. Thevonly thing preventing them from being rapists is cowardice. Fuck them.
Also, btw, fuck you for essentially arguing that women misreported normal couple negotiations as coercion.
MomSense
@Joy:
Thank goodness you got out of that relationship!! Thank you for sharing your story with us.
Catsy
@pokeyblow: Yes, but it typically requires customization of the minifig. I’ve never seen a good purist technique for it.
Arclite
Wow, I spent so much time trying to avoid getting my GFs pregnant that he opposite never occurred to me. Heck, even my kids were accidents.
Bizarre.
Kay
We had such a brave thing happen here. The high school juniors write a letter to the editor as part of their grade. The paper prints the best. So we had patriotism letters and gun letters (guns are great!) , because they’re the BEST letters, right, so these are “good” students, nothing controversial!
This girl wrote a letter advocating for (real, science-based) health instruction, including this whole (factual) riff on teen pregnancy prevention.
I was just blown away by that, because she WILL catch shit for it. She’s 16 and she’s braver than 90% of the adults in this town. I hope she got her “A”.
pokeyblow
Quoting:
In Miller’s 2010 study, one of the largest on reproductive coercion to date, 15 percent of 1,300 women who visited federal- and state-subsidized California family-planning clinics had their birth control sabotaged. One in five had been urged by a boyfriend not to use birth control, or told by a boyfriend he would leave her if she wouldn’t get pregnant.
I have no idea what people out there do or think, so these numbers which seem high to me might be real. But WTF?
Regarding the “urged by a boyfriend not to use birth control,” I wonder whether that includes boyfriends not wanting to use condoms, but also not intending to impregnate the women.
Gin & Tonic
@Tom levenson: Wow, you guys must be wicked smaht or sumthin’.
Seriously, kudos. And apologies to the non-New Englanders.
greenergood
@beltane: Yeah – remember Mitt Romney’s graduation speech last month to go out and make a ‘quiver-full’ of babies; something makes me think that all those babies are not equally welcomed by both partners
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22526252
scav
Huzzah for the greater clan Levenson, but look at this next little bit for the all-natural if-lions-as-I-imagine-them-do-it-it’s-mandatory claims of Erick bin Erick and his horror at wimminz with jobs. Joblessness Shortens Lifespan of Least Educated White Women, Research Says
So, maybe they can work so long as they don’t bring home so much cash as to threaten the mental well-being of the natural manly patriarch? Or, more likely, am I a whining lefty emo to worry about physical health of those complements at all?
Alison
@Aimai: Thank you.
Cassidy
Suddenly the thought of a civil war and sending as many of these fucks as possible to see Jesus doesn’t spun so bad.
JPL
@scav: Because the cost of child care is so high and wages so low, it is seldom feasible for lower income families to have the wife work. It adds to the cycle of poverty.
scav
@JPL: ? May as may be (and price impact of child care not restricted by possession of hs diploma or absolute poverty level) but what does that have to do with the gap in death rates?
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Cassidy:
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
-Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address
What Lincoln, and Obama, didn’t understand when they took office is that there are many who don’t have those better angels.
JPL
@scav: Working out side the home can increases one’s self worth. Recently, I saw a news clip where some lower income females wanted to work but couldn’t afford to.
Feelings such as that can increase stress levels and lead to depression.
Maybe there is not a direct correlation.
ruemara
@scav: Being jobless rather limits one’s ability to live in a positive situation. And being in a negative situation does not increase one’s will to live.
Also, in the wimmens and browns news, I spotted this on NYT. I have no subscription and ran out of article views, but I got to skim a bit of it. Sadly, it’s a bit of old news to me. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/28/us/texas-firm-highlights-struggle-for-black-professionals.html?src=recg&gwh=1DE15F43F02C229DCFF77FC4C5CC8726
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@Aimai:
Also, btw, fuck you for essentially arguing that women misreported normal couple negotiations as coercion.
Are you on drugs or what?
Ultraviolet Thunder
I’m stuck in G W Bush Airport for an extra 3 hours pn my way from Detroit to Puebla MX.
Bad enought to waste time, but why here?
scav
@JPL: Could believe that, certainly one of the likely things to track. I just jumped a bit (perhaps unwarrented) at the assumption that they’d all be necessarily be wrestling with kids and that would be the deciding logical factor of whether they’d be in the job-force. (I’d rather think that would be one of the obvious things to control for, too. I may be showing my residual optimism there.) I’d still be interested in teasing out other factors along side. Geographic patterns? Rural-Urban, any influence of part-time labor? Religious/other cultual factors?
jl
@Phoenician in a time of Romans: I can’t quite follow the argument you and other commenters are having.
It seems to me that the behavior done in one way can be part of normal relationship negotiations (which might end up with the relationship ending if they can’t agree) and done in another way can be very abusive.
I guess it depends on what ‘urged’ means in this context. If ‘urged’ means something like yelling “You gimme kids right now or I am out of here and you’ll be out on the streets.” That would be abusive.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
Stuck inside of Houston with those Puebla Blues again…
Calouste
@pokeyblow:
Self selecting sample. Women in healthy relationships, where the man takes his responsibility for reproductive health, and where there is an agreement on future offspring, have less of a reason to visit a family planning clinic.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@Phoenician in a time of Romans:
Are you on drugs or what?
My apologies, Aimai, that was unfair.
I am NOT, however, “essentially arguing that women misreported normal couple negotiations as coercion” – I am pointing out that the question asked (as reported) may capture both. A woman who answered “yes” based on normal couple negotiations isn’t misreporting anything; the fault lies with the designer of the survey (assuming the reporting was accurate).
pokeyblow
@Calouste: Interesting. So you think that, apart from the income/wealth implication, you can infer something about relationship health from the fact that women visit “federal- and state-subsidized” family-planning centers?
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@jl:
It seems to me that the behavior done in one way can be part of normal relationship negotiations (which might end up with the relationship ending if they can’t agree) and done in another way can be very abusive
I agree.
I was just struck by it because I’m in the reverse situation – a woman I am in a relationship with made trying to have kids a condition of staying together. It was a fair condition (tick tick tick goes the biological clock) – but if the question as reported was asked of me (ignoring the genders), I’d have to say “yes”. I’m hoping the interview questions were a bit better designed.
scav
@Phoenician in a time of Romans: They may also have deliberately asked such seemingly innoquous questions instead of simple “is your partner abusive” questions (that could provoke self-image protecting reactive lies) so that they could build up a constellation of factors supporting a diagnosis.
TooManyJens
@Calouste:
Wait, what?
Higgs Boson's Mate
@pokeyblow:
Ummm, I think that surveying those women who visited subsidized family-planning clinics gives you a snapshot of women for whom this was the only alternative. Any conclusion about relationships in general would only be a product of one’s biases.
pokeyblow
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Yes. My first guess would be, apart from having less money, and perhaps more education, than average, these women would be a representative sample from the sexually-active population.
But I may (per usual) be missing something.
pokeyblow
* Actually, the sexually-active population interested in preventing pregnancy.
Calouste
@pokeyblow:
Yes, is that that hard to understand? If a guy uses condoms or has been sterilized, there is less reason for the woman he is with to visit a family planning clinic, right? And your not saying that relationships where there is agreement on contraceptives and future offspring aren’t healthier on average than ones where there is not such agreement? Kids or no kids or when to have kids tends to be a pretty big thing to most people.
ETA: Or, you know, that the reason that those women had to visit the clinic is because they had their birth control sabotaged, which isn’t exactly the sign of a healthy relationship.
jl
@Phoenician in a time of Romans: It might be a problem with the language used in the report, which might not reflect the full question in the survey.
Possible the word ‘urged’ wasn’t the actual one used. Or, maybe the subjects were put through some screening questions before or after the ‘urged’ question to put more meaning into the word.
You’d have to read the study, and maybe look at the survey instrument itself.
peggy
@Kay:
Good for her. If it turns out badly, keep us updated.
Aimai
@Phoenician in a time of Romans: well I think it’s weird to think that a health care intake exam style question is so cut and dried that the researchers, doctors, and women all just kind of make a major error in self reporting something that is happening to them. That’s not the way exams work, is it? If there is a mass outbreak of scabies and doctors ask “have you experienced itching and peeling? Fo you really think that first question is also the last diagnostic question? Do you really think professionals are wasting their time asking stupidly vague questions which wouldn’t tell them anything?
pokeyblow
@Calouste: If the premise is that a man using condoms (which many women do not like) or having a vasectomy (permanent, usually) are morally superior choices to a woman taking birth control, then perhaps.
I was under the impression that many women took birth control because they thought it was a good idea, with manageable life implications. Now it sounds a bit like “a woman on the pill is a woman with a bad man.”
Shalimar
@Ultraviolet Thunder: There’s a George W. Bush airport? Is there a track around the whole thing so pilots can go bike riding when they’re supposed to be doing their jobs?
Roger Moore
@pokeyblow:
This is among women who are coming to a subsidized family planning clinic, so they aren’t necessarily representative of the population at large. The number is high, but part of that is that women who are being coerced into getting pregnant are presumably overrepresented in the clinics’ clientele.
pokeyblow
@Roger Moore: I get it.
Still, imagining this group of less-well-off women who have the brains and energy to avail themselves of family-planning, whatever the demographics, it is mind-blowing to think that 15% are in situations where, what?
a) the boyfriend switches sugar pills for their medicine?
b) the boyfriend takes the medicine away and won’t let them take it?
c) the boyfriend says “bitch, you’re gonna get pregnant right now!” ?
Bearing in mind that the boyfriend probably doesn’t have any money either….
If that many people are living lives like that, it’s fucking weird.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@Ultraviolet Thunder: There’s a George W. Bush airport? Is there a track around the whole thing so pilots can go bike riding when they’re supposed to be doing their jobs?
I believe that if you buy a ticket to Georgia, you get sent to Mississippi for a decade until a Democrat airport finally gets you out.
NWMagpie
Back in 2000, I started frequenting childfree forums. I’d recently discovered the term online, and identified with it immediately – I didn’t want kids, and after helping out with raising my nephew during his first two years, I didn’t want anything to do with parenting them. Of course you had the people who were little more than trolls, screaming abuse at anyone who’d even considered having a child; then there were others, like my friends and myself, who said, “We have no good reason to have children, we don’t want to, and if you tell us we have to do it, fuck you sideways with a rusty chainsaw.”
We were also pretty decisive about the fact that children were a deal-breaker in a relationship. A stepchild was one thing (several people, including one of my best friends, married men with children from a prior relationship, but didn’t plan on having any themselves). But a lot of the women on the boards talked about how some partners they’d had would go beyond trying to “convince” them to have kids. One guy poked holes in his own condoms. Another routinely flushed his wife’s pills. One friend thought she’d convinced her boyfriend that their relationship would be fine if they didn’t have kids; then she found that, as revenge, he’d started putting his own semen in the food (he cooked, she didn’t), making sure she got the “seeded” portions. All of the women who talked about how they were continuously upbraided, pleaded with, and threatened were patronized by their friends and families. “Oh, he wouldn’t do that,” was the common response. Or, “Well, what could it hurt if you did get pregnant? (Insert clueless remark about having beautiful babies, etc.).”
It’s worse than control. It’s a deliberate degradation. It’s saying that a woman’s body isn’t hers; it belongs to the man who got her pregnant, and he can do whatever he wants to her. Her consent is not only unnecessary; it’s beyond consideration.