Today, most reversible contraceptive methods (pill, rhythm, IUD, abortion) rely on the woman owning responsibility (one which they may be unwilling or unable to carry out). Male contraception relieves women of that burden.
You would think so, but... there are women (maybe a lot of them) who think the loss of power over conception would be bad for women [0]. Read the column. I don't know about you, but it gives me a very queasy feeling. Like there is some subtext that this woman believes she should be able to force parenthood on an unwilling partner.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/apr/28/malepi...
The rest of that article is… creepy. That's way more than subtext.
> At the moment it is the woman who retains control over the moment at which that melting in the bones feeling is allowed to over-take the firm "no this would ruin my life" feeling in the head.
Is not the whole point of contraception insurance againt emotional losses of control?
It's not an either-or question. Both statements about male contraception are true: it relieves women of the responsibility (by allowing couples to decide to place the burden on the man) but it also gives control to men that previously only women had.
Yes, lying about contraception in order to trick a man into getting you pregnant is unethical, but it's not unheard of. Women are humans (duh), some humans do unethical things, some of those humans are women, using pregnancy as leverage.
Personally I wouldn't think this behaviour is very widespread (although I have heard women joke about it being an option -- not implying any of them would actually consider it) but considering the significance of the consequences, I think it's understandable why some men might value this risk far greater than its actual prevalence would suggest, regardless of whether this risk assessment is rational or not. The tired meme of the poisoned M&M springs to mind.
That's the problem right there...
This method seems to have no side effect and would reduce the chance with another contraceptive method with 98% success of prevention would make the odds of pregnancy within 1 year negligible (and they only go down over time)
The article claims that since the executives of pharma companies are rich, white men they would not be inclined to threaten their manhood by using this contraceptive and therefore don't see a market to bring it to.
Perhaps Western would be a better adjective. I agree with you though, as it stands skin colour seems to have little to do with it.
"The fact that the big companies are run by white, middle-aged males who have the same feeling—that they would never do it—plays a major role"
I think it's far more likely that these companies don't want to fund trials as it won't be nearly as profitable to them as current contraceptive options. If this was a pill instead, I have no doubt that the companies would champ at the bit for it. I think it's not coincidence that they could only find a non-profit to fund the trials for this specific product/procedure.