The article is right that the burden of family planning falls on the woman (in heterosexual couples). And while a couple may be able to overcome social norms through their own communication on the...
Exemplary
The article is right that the burden of family planning falls on the woman (in heterosexual couples). And while a couple may be able to overcome social norms through their own communication on the issue, the efforts involved in fertility testing are wildly skewed.
My husband and I are in our early 30s and have just started the gauntlet of fertility testing. Although for him it’s less of a gauntlet and more of a minor exercise. We are located in a great location for healthcare and are going to one of the top fertility clinics in the nation. Our “treatment” falls only under my insurance because I am the patient, not him. My testing so far (about a month and a half of time, I am very lucky for the speed of this) has included 4 rounds of bloodwork, 2 trans-vaginal ultrasounds, and an HSG (a procedure in which dye is injected into my uterus and its progression is tracked through my fallopian tubes to check for blockages or other issues). His testing has been 1 round of bloodwork and 2 semen analyses (he had the option of producing the sample at home and just dropping it off).
As we have gotten our test results back I have been reading everything I can to try to figure out what I can (infertility is a bit mentally all consuming). It is so frustrating how much information I can find about what supplements, medications, or treatments do what to help with various issues that could affect me, but the science on what could help him is so limited in comparison.
The unfortunate issue is that in fertility treatments at the end of the day even with low counts, motility, and morphology you can bypass the problem due to the numbers game of semen production and procedures like ICSI-IVF where you only need a very small number of quality sperm. Hopefully this reduction in male fertility worldwide will push research towards more male centric treatment options. Because right now even in cases of severe male factor infertility it is the person with the eggs and the uterus who will undergo extensive interventions to try to overcome it.
Best of luck with the treatments. Everything around trying for and then having can be extra scary or frustrating. I suspect male centric treatments, beyond the usual health, weight, avoid hot...
Best of luck with the treatments. Everything around trying for and then having can be extra scary or frustrating.
I suspect male centric treatments, beyond the usual health, weight, avoid hot baths advice, will be slow and likely follow a male contraceptive breakthrough. Sperm seem to be difficult to regulate without causeing significant issues, but work is progressing.
Then the other piece is like you say: sperm are a numbers game, and with modern advanced you only need a few good ones.
Do you mean a breakthrough in hormonal male contraceptives? I think a breakthrough has already happened in the form of RISUG. But I don't think it contributes anything to knowledge on the...
Do you mean a breakthrough in hormonal male contraceptives? I think a breakthrough has already happened in the form of RISUG. But I don't think it contributes anything to knowledge on the infertility side.
Exactly, yes; I should have been more clear. Efforts to impact sperm function through hormones or other drugs have proven challenging. Thanks for pointing that out!
Exactly, yes; I should have been more clear. Efforts to impact sperm function through hormones or other drugs have proven challenging.
I've wondered why they don't, say, ask the man to provide 100 samples, have lab tech wash and sort them, and combine them into one dose of intrauterine insemination. Spermatozoa freeze and thaw...
I've wondered why they don't, say, ask the man to provide 100 samples, have lab tech wash and sort them, and combine them into one dose of intrauterine insemination. Spermatozoa freeze and thaw well, don't they?.Why put the woman through the hormonal wringer when the numbers game is so much easier to over come.
The pity is that because of the numbers game approach and focus on looking at the woman first some areas of male fertility are treated as secondary tests. For instance, most semen analysis will...
The pity is that because of the numbers game approach and focus on looking at the woman first some areas of male fertility are treated as secondary tests. For instance, most semen analysis will look at at only the base characteristics; volume, count, motility/progressive motility, and morphology. Issues with things such as DNA fragmentation often are not tested for without a history of recurrent miscarriage or failed IVF, all while testing for this can be an add on to the same sample provided for a typical semen analysis and is far less invasive.
Having fertility testing focus on female fertility issues does make sense from the numbers game approach to an extent, but I am not sure it makes practical sense in terms of cost benefit when looking at how male fertility is often sidelined. There are also some weird quirks when looking at male fertility testing, such as the abstinence period before sample collection, that seem to be rooted more in uncontested standard practices.
One thing that this article brings up that I don't think should be shrugged off is that men should be aware that male fertility is not a given. I absolutely would not want it to whiplash into the realm of fear-mongering and shame that I feel women are exposed to with the "ticking clock" metaphors, but it is important for men to be made aware of these issues to allow them to make more informed choices. It is devastating to learn that something you thought you could rely on may not actually work out for you.
The relationship between female fertility and identity is well known and there is much written and discussed on the topic. For men it is not as widely talked about and tropes such as "shooting blanks" are more often used as punch lines and insults.
Speaking personally, the fact that fertility declines with age for men too has been on my mind for several years. Been trying to situate things (finances, etc) such that having children might be...
Speaking personally, the fact that fertility declines with age for men too has been on my mind for several years. Been trying to situate things (finances, etc) such that having children might be an option, but I just hit 35 and it’s still probably going to be at least another year or two before I can even start to consider it since major hurdles have yet to be cleared (for instance, having been absorbed entirely into my work in effort to establish a career for the past decade and pandemic setbacks have left me without time to find a partner). Sometimes I wish I could pause time just to be able a chance to catch up a bit.
I definitely agree in getting yourself prepared. Just know that you will never be "ready." Every new parent feels unprepared the moment they carry their newborn to the car. Good luck!
I definitely agree in getting yourself prepared. Just know that you will never be "ready." Every new parent feels unprepared the moment they carry their newborn to the car. Good luck!
I do know that there is a device that sort of does this. ZyMot is a chip that selects the most motile sperm from a sample for IVF or IUI. I do not believe that they are standard practice for many...
I do know that there is a device that sort of does this. ZyMot is a chip that selects the most motile sperm from a sample for IVF or IUI. I do not believe that they are standard practice for many clinics and from what I have read you often have to opt for them. For ICSI I believe ZyMot has been shown to improve outcomes, for IUI or traditional IVF I am unsure of the clinical results. I also do not know if ZyMot can aid with low morphology, it seems more geared towards motility issues, however the relationship between morphology and fertility is not well understood still.
I wish I had a more thought provoking idea to share, but the one thing rolling around in the back of my mind as I read this article was "boy I'm glad I wasn't dating in my 30s." That said, I do...
I wish I had a more thought provoking idea to share, but the one thing rolling around in the back of my mind as I read this article was "boy I'm glad I wasn't dating in my 30s."
That said, I do agree that the social burden of children in all respects defaults to women. As this article hints, that permeates all aspects of dating, especially into your 30s and 40s when the decision to have children comes to a go, no-go point.
I’m quoting a portion of a @cfabbro reply out of context but: If you’re not comfortable with proposition that “the social burden of children in all respects defaults to women,” be the change! And...
I’m quoting a portion of a @cfabbro reply out of context but:
Be the change you want to see in the world!
If you’re not comfortable with proposition that “the social burden of children in all respects defaults to women,” be the change!
And regardless of whether or not you can effectuate that change yourself, applaud men you know who buck that trend, be it in small ways or big. Encourage (socially) good behavior, discourage (socially) bad behavior.
I completely agree. It's one of those things where I live in a bit of a progressive bubble, so I don't often have the opportunity to nudge behaviors, and these sorts of things don't come up often...
I completely agree. It's one of those things where I live in a bit of a progressive bubble, so I don't often have the opportunity to nudge behaviors, and these sorts of things don't come up often in a professional setting.
My wife and I often shake our heads when we hear about stories online or third hand because things so alien to us. We very much view things as, we each have so much effort to contribute, there is X amount of work to be done to solve the problem or maintain the house, how best can we share the work. The idea of either party abdicating responsibility for something is so weird to us.
Additionally, a big part is that, being slightly older, we already have had our kids, so have our age peers, and most of our close friends are more or less on the same page as us.
This article sucks. Is it a joke? It complains about a few things, chief among them that men's infertility is not given enough emphasis, but does it by blaming men. You can choose to read that as...
This article sucks. Is it a joke? It complains about a few things, chief among them that men's infertility is not given enough emphasis, but does it by blaming men.
This is not a new problem, yet there persists a shocking disconnect. Despite these well-known threats to male fertility, the vast majority of the focus on infertility – by governments, health services and couples – falls on women. The male partner is solely responsible in about 20% of infertility cases, and is a contributing factor in a further 30% to 40%.
You can choose to read that as women being blamed for infertility or that men's problems are being ignored by society and women receive disproportionate amount of focus on their health and wellbeing. Or maybe blame no one and acknowledge that this is a changing landscape where resources are inefficiently allocated for tackling a problem that both sexes are working through together.
In today’s shifty, commitment-phobic dating culture, I’ve found that even expressing that you don’t want children can put men off
Are we supposed to ignore that the same happens if you reverse the roles? This article was a complete waste of time to read. Also, why is it that life.men continues to have way more articles critical of men than life.women does of women? I know I haven't done my part in submitting articles; I accept that blame.
EDIT: I want to emphasize that I see male and female infertility as an issue and that men historically have not had to shoulder the burden of navigating through that. However, I don't find blame games very helpful, especially when some of the blame is on men for institutions helping women as opposed to not helping men. Where's the man's fault in that? And if we move past the blame, wouldn't a blame-less awareness campaign of male infertility be so much more conducive in achieving the goals that both partners have? It's not like I wake up and know my sperm is less effective than my grandpa's was, just saying.
Thank you! I read through her "article" and all I could think was if she'd gender reversed every "man" and "woman" in it, every "male" and "female", all hell would've broken loose. Because if...
Thank you! I read through her "article" and all I could think was if she'd gender reversed every "man" and "woman" in it, every "male" and "female", all hell would've broken loose. Because if she'd written that, the way she did, but saying about women what and how she'd said about men, it would've triggered a whole lot of people.
But, as usual, somehow dumping on men and making it their fault and how they're evil and wrong and horrible, that's okay and can be published. Never anything of the sort about women, but definitely okay to do it about men.
the men in my life is that they are not really thinking about children at all, instead assuming that they will happen “one day” or waiting for the decision to be made for them – by their partner, or circumstance.
I strongly suspect she, and a lot of women based on the attitudes I see expressed online, do not, would not, react favorably to a man becoming inquisitive or eager for the woman in his life to get pregnant.
That's a woman's choice, you see. The man needs to stay the fuck out of it. It's no business of a man's to think, no way, that he'd like "his woman" to want to bear his baby. That misogynist asshole won't be the one enduring nine months of hugely disruptive, dangerous body changes. Nope, which is why he needs to stay way the hell out of it because it's her decision.
That's the message men have been beaten with for decades now. Stay out of it. It's her choice. How dare a man demand she endure all that. Or even have an opinion.
Now, somehow, that article's author is angry men don't raise the subject with her. So which is it? Be interested (in a polite manner, of course), or is it a woman's choice?
Here's a thought. Words! If you're in a relationship (though, technically a relationship isn't a requirement for procreation; another topic I suppose), why not TALK WITH YOUR PARTNER! "Significant Other, I was thinking, do we want to have a baby?" Oh my, how simple ... no, it's a trick. And, of course, the man can't be the one to raise that subject. So she has to, because it's her choice.
Ask. Tell. Speak. Find out. Don't expect your partner to read your mind. Communication. Express yourself.
Or, get a slot on The Guardian and make it all the man's fault. Genius.
There is the other side as well, which can be easily expressed as How dare you impede on a woman's God given right to bear children by expressing even the slightest hesitation?. In a lot of ways,...
There is the other side as well, which can be easily expressed as How dare you impede on a woman's God given right to bear children by expressing even the slightest hesitation?. In a lot of ways, the message, explicit or otherwise, is that men are accessory to the whole thing.
I actually chose to read it in the context of the article, which is that for some reason, men don’t seem to feel the same kind of social pressure to have children that women do, and so issues...
You can choose to read that as women being blamed for infertility or that men's problems are being ignored by society and women receive disproportionate amount of focus on their health and wellbeing.
I actually chose to read it in the context of the article, which is that for some reason, men don’t seem to feel the same kind of social pressure to have children that women do, and so issues related to their fertility go unaddressed. The average woman is taught to pay a lot of attention to her reproductive health, while the average man is not. Women are saddled with some kind of sense of social responsibility to maintain their fertility. Men are not. You can just ignore all of this author’s other words and pretend like it’s some nebulous “society” keeping men down, but fyi if you do that, you’re literally just feeding into the system she’s criticizing, and only participating in the “societal ignoring” of men’s fertility issues. The truth is, there’s not really anything stopping men from simply just taking a more active role in their reproductive health, or at the very least, not expecting more from women than they do of themselves. And guess what, if more men did, less women would feel this way.
Fertility and reproductive ability are also deeply tied to societal value (and personal worth) and infertility is a disability that is often ignored at best and treated as a personal moral failing...
Women are saddled with some kind of sense of social responsibility to maintain their fertility.
(Agreeing and building on what you said)
Fertility and reproductive ability are also deeply tied to societal value (and personal worth) and infertility is a disability that is often ignored at best and treated as a personal moral failing at worst. I believe that this weight sits heavier on women because of that history of oppression.
But the patriarchy, and ableism, impacts everyone. So yeah men suffer under the status quo too.
For single men, the reason that men don't feel the same social pressure to have children is that men have a slower biological clock in that regard. That's obviously unfair, but it's not something...
For single men, the reason that men don't feel the same social pressure to have children is that men have a slower biological clock in that regard. That's obviously unfair, but it's not something men have any control over either.
I first learned about it last year; this is now my second time ever hearing about it. I'm pretty sure most of my male acquaintances haven't ever heard of it and I'm about to turn 30. We haven't had the generations to internalize the content yet and incorporate it into the rearing of children, so it would be really nice if men didn't have to take blame here.
The article does bring to light an important subject, but if I were the one to write it, I would have written it to not include any blame at all, because blame in my mind signals intent. If my dad knew that my sperm was less potent than his sperm, he'd probably give me even more lectures about having kids than he already does now. He doesn't know! Instead, my "social responsibilities" drilled into me was that I needed a great career, to have a lot of money, and to always be able to provide. That was the "meta" when my parents, and their parents, and their parents, were courting. This resulted in plenty of warnings of disciplinary actions if I were to engage in any non-academic activities or engaged in romantic ones prior to graduating from college and landing a solid job. Even if we ignore the fact completely that it wasn't well known at that time that men's fertility was in danger, do you see where the message about fertility might have some mutual exclusion there? I'm sure that's why they omitted it during my upbringing.
When we were children, the state of the world was different. If men's fertility continues to trend downwards, we'll see more and more parents teaching boys that they can't assume their swimmers are efficient.
I just don’t understand how you can read this article and feel like someone is blaming you for something. Not even the things you quoted were anything but assertions of facts which you didn’t even...
I just don’t understand how you can read this article and feel like someone is blaming you for something. Not even the things you quoted were anything but assertions of facts which you didn’t even seem to dispute. Have you considered that maybe she didn’t explain the causes of these phenomena, not because she is “blaming men” for something, but because she’s a woman and doesn’t have that perspective herself?
Implies that men are not behaving right. Directly laying the blame at men for dating younger women. (Off-topic, but there's an equal number of women who are dating older men. What's their...
But you wouldn’t know it from the way many men behave
Implies that men are not behaving right.
And it’s hard not to feel enraged by the number who are dating women 10 years their junior in the hopes (subconscious or not) of delaying the conversation.
Directly laying the blame at men for dating younger women. (Off-topic, but there's an equal number of women who are dating older men. What's their nefarious motive?)
It’s not entirely men’s fault
So everything preceding was men's fault.
But men’s complacency about their sperm quality
Men's fault. If we are not proactive about our sperm quality, then we must surely be complacent rather than just ignorant from the failures of our learning institutions to know that this is even an issue for us.
In my opinion, taking someone at good faith means that unless they literally tell you that they’re implying something, you don’t get to make positive assertions all on your own about what they...
In my opinion, taking someone at good faith means that unless they literally tell you that they’re implying something, you don’t get to make positive assertions all on your own about what they must be implying. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s go through each of the things that you’ve quoted here.
But you wouldn’t know it from the way many men behave
If you take this at face value, it actually just suggests that the behavior of the average man betrays the statistical reality of men’s reproductive health. Do you disagree with that?
And it’s hard not to feel enraged by the number who are dating women 10 years their junior in the hopes (subconscious or not) of delaying the conversation.
Honest sharing of feelings is not blaming anybody and if it makes you feel a certain kind of way that is on you.
It’s not entirely men’s fault
She literally is saying that you can’t just blame men for this…
But men’s complacency about their sperm quality
She literally immediately before writing this spends an entire paragraph writing about the external factors which can explain men’s complacency about their reproductive health. She literally writes an entire paragraph explaining to you all the ways in which it’s not men’s fault. There’s literally nothing to even talk about here with respect to this quote, unless you’re contending the idea that in general men are more complacent about their reproductive health than women.
That would have been the case if it only happened once or twice, but I felt this way throughout much of the article. No, she is literally saying you can blame men for a part of this. How much of...
In my opinion, taking someone at good faith means that unless they literally tell you that they’re implying something, you don’t get to make positive assertions
That would have been the case if it only happened once or twice, but I felt this way throughout much of the article.
She literally is saying that you can’t just blame men for this…
No, she is literally saying you can blame men for a part of this. How much of that part is up to you to interpret, but she is literally saying that some part of it is men's fault. Literally. My opinion of that is that any non-zero amount is ridiculous given the under-education.
Honest sharing of feelings is not blaming anybody and if it makes you feel a certain kind of way that is on you.
And I shared how I felt in the top level comment and continued to do so for a few more comments. If that makes you feel how you do, that's on you then. If we don't see eye-to-eye, well that's fine with me too. I have nothing more to share at this moment.
Just like on those old Duracell batteries where you place your fingers on the contact points to get a charge level, don't you just. Erm, you know, place the fingers on the ends, and. Yeah. Just...
It's not like I wake up and know my sperm is less effective than my grandpa's was, just saying.
Just like on those old Duracell batteries where you place your fingers on the contact points to get a charge level, don't you just. Erm, you know, place the fingers on the ends, and. Yeah. Just get a reading? Is that not normal?
I mean, in reality you provide a sample and they have a human count cells, count weird looking ones, and time their activities. So exactly like Duracell, just that the voltmeter is a bit more...
I mean, in reality you provide a sample and they have a human count cells, count weird looking ones, and time their activities. So exactly like Duracell, just that the voltmeter is a bit more complicated
I want you to list three “great monoliths” which historically you were allowed to criticize but now you’re not. And marginalized groups are not “great monoliths”. I feel like if you read a history...
I want you to list three “great monoliths” which historically you were allowed to criticize but now you’re not. And marginalized groups are not “great monoliths”.
I feel like if you read a history book, you’ll tend to find that “great monoliths” tended to subjugate people for criticizing them, until it became economically unviable to do so.
The article is right that the burden of family planning falls on the woman (in heterosexual couples). And while a couple may be able to overcome social norms through their own communication on the issue, the efforts involved in fertility testing are wildly skewed.
My husband and I are in our early 30s and have just started the gauntlet of fertility testing. Although for him it’s less of a gauntlet and more of a minor exercise. We are located in a great location for healthcare and are going to one of the top fertility clinics in the nation. Our “treatment” falls only under my insurance because I am the patient, not him. My testing so far (about a month and a half of time, I am very lucky for the speed of this) has included 4 rounds of bloodwork, 2 trans-vaginal ultrasounds, and an HSG (a procedure in which dye is injected into my uterus and its progression is tracked through my fallopian tubes to check for blockages or other issues). His testing has been 1 round of bloodwork and 2 semen analyses (he had the option of producing the sample at home and just dropping it off).
As we have gotten our test results back I have been reading everything I can to try to figure out what I can (infertility is a bit mentally all consuming). It is so frustrating how much information I can find about what supplements, medications, or treatments do what to help with various issues that could affect me, but the science on what could help him is so limited in comparison.
The unfortunate issue is that in fertility treatments at the end of the day even with low counts, motility, and morphology you can bypass the problem due to the numbers game of semen production and procedures like ICSI-IVF where you only need a very small number of quality sperm. Hopefully this reduction in male fertility worldwide will push research towards more male centric treatment options. Because right now even in cases of severe male factor infertility it is the person with the eggs and the uterus who will undergo extensive interventions to try to overcome it.
Best of luck with the treatments. Everything around trying for and then having can be extra scary or frustrating.
I suspect male centric treatments, beyond the usual health, weight, avoid hot baths advice, will be slow and likely follow a male contraceptive breakthrough. Sperm seem to be difficult to regulate without causeing significant issues, but work is progressing.
Then the other piece is like you say: sperm are a numbers game, and with modern advanced you only need a few good ones.
Have a great night!
Do you mean a breakthrough in hormonal male contraceptives? I think a breakthrough has already happened in the form of RISUG. But I don't think it contributes anything to knowledge on the infertility side.
Exactly, yes; I should have been more clear. Efforts to impact sperm function through hormones or other drugs have proven challenging.
Thanks for pointing that out!
I've wondered why they don't, say, ask the man to provide 100 samples, have lab tech wash and sort them, and combine them into one dose of intrauterine insemination. Spermatozoa freeze and thaw well, don't they?.Why put the woman through the hormonal wringer when the numbers game is so much easier to over come.
The pity is that because of the numbers game approach and focus on looking at the woman first some areas of male fertility are treated as secondary tests. For instance, most semen analysis will look at at only the base characteristics; volume, count, motility/progressive motility, and morphology. Issues with things such as DNA fragmentation often are not tested for without a history of recurrent miscarriage or failed IVF, all while testing for this can be an add on to the same sample provided for a typical semen analysis and is far less invasive.
Having fertility testing focus on female fertility issues does make sense from the numbers game approach to an extent, but I am not sure it makes practical sense in terms of cost benefit when looking at how male fertility is often sidelined. There are also some weird quirks when looking at male fertility testing, such as the abstinence period before sample collection, that seem to be rooted more in uncontested standard practices.
One thing that this article brings up that I don't think should be shrugged off is that men should be aware that male fertility is not a given. I absolutely would not want it to whiplash into the realm of fear-mongering and shame that I feel women are exposed to with the "ticking clock" metaphors, but it is important for men to be made aware of these issues to allow them to make more informed choices. It is devastating to learn that something you thought you could rely on may not actually work out for you.
The relationship between female fertility and identity is well known and there is much written and discussed on the topic. For men it is not as widely talked about and tropes such as "shooting blanks" are more often used as punch lines and insults.
Speaking personally, the fact that fertility declines with age for men too has been on my mind for several years. Been trying to situate things (finances, etc) such that having children might be an option, but I just hit 35 and it’s still probably going to be at least another year or two before I can even start to consider it since major hurdles have yet to be cleared (for instance, having been absorbed entirely into my work in effort to establish a career for the past decade and pandemic setbacks have left me without time to find a partner). Sometimes I wish I could pause time just to be able a chance to catch up a bit.
I definitely agree in getting yourself prepared. Just know that you will never be "ready." Every new parent feels unprepared the moment they carry their newborn to the car. Good luck!
I do know that there is a device that sort of does this. ZyMot is a chip that selects the most motile sperm from a sample for IVF or IUI. I do not believe that they are standard practice for many clinics and from what I have read you often have to opt for them. For ICSI I believe ZyMot has been shown to improve outcomes, for IUI or traditional IVF I am unsure of the clinical results. I also do not know if ZyMot can aid with low morphology, it seems more geared towards motility issues, however the relationship between morphology and fertility is not well understood still.
I wish I had a more thought provoking idea to share, but the one thing rolling around in the back of my mind as I read this article was "boy I'm glad I wasn't dating in my 30s."
That said, I do agree that the social burden of children in all respects defaults to women. As this article hints, that permeates all aspects of dating, especially into your 30s and 40s when the decision to have children comes to a go, no-go point.
I’m quoting a portion of a @cfabbro reply out of context but:
If you’re not comfortable with proposition that “the social burden of children in all respects defaults to women,” be the change!
And regardless of whether or not you can effectuate that change yourself, applaud men you know who buck that trend, be it in small ways or big. Encourage (socially) good behavior, discourage (socially) bad behavior.
I completely agree. It's one of those things where I live in a bit of a progressive bubble, so I don't often have the opportunity to nudge behaviors, and these sorts of things don't come up often in a professional setting.
My wife and I often shake our heads when we hear about stories online or third hand because things so alien to us. We very much view things as, we each have so much effort to contribute, there is X amount of work to be done to solve the problem or maintain the house, how best can we share the work. The idea of either party abdicating responsibility for something is so weird to us.
Additionally, a big part is that, being slightly older, we already have had our kids, so have our age peers, and most of our close friends are more or less on the same page as us.
But I'll keep on posting the good post! ☺️
Have a great day!
This article sucks. Is it a joke? It complains about a few things, chief among them that men's infertility is not given enough emphasis, but does it by blaming men.
You can choose to read that as women being blamed for infertility or that men's problems are being ignored by society and women receive disproportionate amount of focus on their health and wellbeing. Or maybe blame no one and acknowledge that this is a changing landscape where resources are inefficiently allocated for tackling a problem that both sexes are working through together.
Are we supposed to ignore that the same happens if you reverse the roles? This article was a complete waste of time to read. Also, why is it that life.men continues to have way more articles critical of men than life.women does of women? I know I haven't done my part in submitting articles; I accept that blame.
EDIT: I want to emphasize that I see male and female infertility as an issue and that men historically have not had to shoulder the burden of navigating through that. However, I don't find blame games very helpful, especially when some of the blame is on men for institutions helping women as opposed to not helping men. Where's the man's fault in that? And if we move past the blame, wouldn't a blame-less awareness campaign of male infertility be so much more conducive in achieving the goals that both partners have? It's not like I wake up and know my sperm is less effective than my grandpa's was, just saying.
Thank you! I read through her "article" and all I could think was if she'd gender reversed every "man" and "woman" in it, every "male" and "female", all hell would've broken loose. Because if she'd written that, the way she did, but saying about women what and how she'd said about men, it would've triggered a whole lot of people.
But, as usual, somehow dumping on men and making it their fault and how they're evil and wrong and horrible, that's okay and can be published. Never anything of the sort about women, but definitely okay to do it about men.
I strongly suspect she, and a lot of women based on the attitudes I see expressed online, do not, would not, react favorably to a man becoming inquisitive or eager for the woman in his life to get pregnant.
That's a woman's choice, you see. The man needs to stay the fuck out of it. It's no business of a man's to think, no way, that he'd like "his woman" to want to bear his baby. That misogynist asshole won't be the one enduring nine months of hugely disruptive, dangerous body changes. Nope, which is why he needs to stay way the hell out of it because it's her decision.
That's the message men have been beaten with for decades now. Stay out of it. It's her choice. How dare a man demand she endure all that. Or even have an opinion.
Now, somehow, that article's author is angry men don't raise the subject with her. So which is it? Be interested (in a polite manner, of course), or is it a woman's choice?
Here's a thought. Words! If you're in a relationship (though, technically a relationship isn't a requirement for procreation; another topic I suppose), why not TALK WITH YOUR PARTNER! "Significant Other, I was thinking, do we want to have a baby?" Oh my, how simple ... no, it's a trick. And, of course, the man can't be the one to raise that subject. So she has to, because it's her choice.
Ask. Tell. Speak. Find out. Don't expect your partner to read your mind. Communication. Express yourself.
Or, get a slot on The Guardian and make it all the man's fault. Genius.
There is the other side as well, which can be easily expressed as How dare you impede on a woman's God given right to bear children by expressing even the slightest hesitation?. In a lot of ways, the message, explicit or otherwise, is that men are accessory to the whole thing.
Literally, how do you read this article and think it comes across as angry?
I actually chose to read it in the context of the article, which is that for some reason, men don’t seem to feel the same kind of social pressure to have children that women do, and so issues related to their fertility go unaddressed. The average woman is taught to pay a lot of attention to her reproductive health, while the average man is not. Women are saddled with some kind of sense of social responsibility to maintain their fertility. Men are not. You can just ignore all of this author’s other words and pretend like it’s some nebulous “society” keeping men down, but fyi if you do that, you’re literally just feeding into the system she’s criticizing, and only participating in the “societal ignoring” of men’s fertility issues. The truth is, there’s not really anything stopping men from simply just taking a more active role in their reproductive health, or at the very least, not expecting more from women than they do of themselves. And guess what, if more men did, less women would feel this way.
Fertility and reproductive ability are also deeply tied to societal value (and personal worth) and infertility is a disability that is often ignored at best and treated as a personal moral failing at worst. I believe that this weight sits heavier on women because of that history of oppression.
But the patriarchy, and ableism, impacts everyone. So yeah men suffer under the status quo too.
For single men, the reason that men don't feel the same social pressure to have children is that men have a slower biological clock in that regard. That's obviously unfair, but it's not something men have any control over either.
I first learned about it last year; this is now my second time ever hearing about it. I'm pretty sure most of my male acquaintances haven't ever heard of it and I'm about to turn 30. We haven't had the generations to internalize the content yet and incorporate it into the rearing of children, so it would be really nice if men didn't have to take blame here.
The article does bring to light an important subject, but if I were the one to write it, I would have written it to not include any blame at all, because blame in my mind signals intent. If my dad knew that my sperm was less potent than his sperm, he'd probably give me even more lectures about having kids than he already does now. He doesn't know! Instead, my "social responsibilities" drilled into me was that I needed a great career, to have a lot of money, and to always be able to provide. That was the "meta" when my parents, and their parents, and their parents, were courting. This resulted in plenty of warnings of disciplinary actions if I were to engage in any non-academic activities or engaged in romantic ones prior to graduating from college and landing a solid job. Even if we ignore the fact completely that it wasn't well known at that time that men's fertility was in danger, do you see where the message about fertility might have some mutual exclusion there? I'm sure that's why they omitted it during my upbringing.
When we were children, the state of the world was different. If men's fertility continues to trend downwards, we'll see more and more parents teaching boys that they can't assume their swimmers are efficient.
I just don’t understand how you can read this article and feel like someone is blaming you for something. Not even the things you quoted were anything but assertions of facts which you didn’t even seem to dispute. Have you considered that maybe she didn’t explain the causes of these phenomena, not because she is “blaming men” for something, but because she’s a woman and doesn’t have that perspective herself?
Implies that men are not behaving right.
Directly laying the blame at men for dating younger women. (Off-topic, but there's an equal number of women who are dating older men. What's their nefarious motive?)
So everything preceding was men's fault.
Men's fault. If we are not proactive about our sperm quality, then we must surely be complacent rather than just ignorant from the failures of our learning institutions to know that this is even an issue for us.
In my opinion, taking someone at good faith means that unless they literally tell you that they’re implying something, you don’t get to make positive assertions all on your own about what they must be implying. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s go through each of the things that you’ve quoted here.
If you take this at face value, it actually just suggests that the behavior of the average man betrays the statistical reality of men’s reproductive health. Do you disagree with that?
Honest sharing of feelings is not blaming anybody and if it makes you feel a certain kind of way that is on you.
She literally is saying that you can’t just blame men for this…
She literally immediately before writing this spends an entire paragraph writing about the external factors which can explain men’s complacency about their reproductive health. She literally writes an entire paragraph explaining to you all the ways in which it’s not men’s fault. There’s literally nothing to even talk about here with respect to this quote, unless you’re contending the idea that in general men are more complacent about their reproductive health than women.
That would have been the case if it only happened once or twice, but I felt this way throughout much of the article.
No, she is literally saying you can blame men for a part of this. How much of that part is up to you to interpret, but she is literally saying that some part of it is men's fault. Literally. My opinion of that is that any non-zero amount is ridiculous given the under-education.
And I shared how I felt in the top level comment and continued to do so for a few more comments. If that makes you feel how you do, that's on you then. If we don't see eye-to-eye, well that's fine with me too. I have nothing more to share at this moment.
let me get this straight: you believe that what my comment is, is a criticism of you for sharing your personal feelings?
Be the change you want to see in the world! Post some positive topics about/for men, if that's what you want to see more of here.
why did I think you were going to suggest posting topics critical of women... :)
I'm pretty sure men post misandrous articles to this group because they are bothered by misandry and wish to see it discussed.
Just like on those old Duracell batteries where you place your fingers on the contact points to get a charge level, don't you just. Erm, you know, place the fingers on the ends, and. Yeah. Just get a reading? Is that not normal?
I mean, in reality you provide a sample and they have a human count cells, count weird looking ones, and time their activities. So exactly like Duracell, just that the voltmeter is a bit more complicated
"Men" is the last of the great monoliths that you can level casual, sweeping blame at, you know.
I want you to list three “great monoliths” which historically you were allowed to criticize but now you’re not. And marginalized groups are not “great monoliths”.
I feel like if you read a history book, you’ll tend to find that “great monoliths” tended to subjugate people for criticizing them, until it became economically unviable to do so.