with a post wondering if spousal permission for a vasectomy was typical (or legal) and found that many doctors took matters into their own hands and imposed rules on a case-by-case basis:
Well, according to Janet Crepps, a lawyer at the Center for Reproductive Rights, while there’s absolutely no law requiring men to obtain their partner’s consent, it can be imposed on a case-by-case basis at a clinical level.
Doctors can impose requirements in a private setting in order to protect themselves legally. It’s their choice that they want to do that. While it would be pretty difficult for a wife to successfully sue a doctor for doing a vasectomy on her husband, it wouldn’t surprise me if their legal counsel insisted that they would be better off getting that consent. That said, nobody I know is imposing that kind of requirement.8
I have spoken to many men who said that a doctor refused to do a vasectomy without the wife’s permission. This should never take place. Men are autonomous beings who have rights when it comes to reproduction.
Unfortunately, many sexist types feel that men don’t deserve any reproductive rights and should simply keep their pants zipped. William Saletan at Slate.com had this to say in a recent article:
Here’s the short version. First, for men: If you put your sperm anywhere near a woman’s reproductive tract, you had better be prepared to raise a child with her. Your ejaculation is your signature on a contract authorizing her to carry any resulting pregnancy to term and to enlist you as the father. If you aren’t prepared to sign that contract, ejaculate somewhere else. Don’t complain later that you weren’t consulted about subsequent decisions. The only decision you get is the one at the outset.9
This disturbing, rigid mindset is why so many men have gone on strike. In our society, men carry most of the responsibility with very little privilege. It may seem preferable at times to watch porn rather than to get near a woman, especially given the high stakes. As the technology for porn and sex improves, perhaps this will become a decent option. A better one would be to fight for fairer, saner laws and a more equitable society for men. I hope this paperback version of Men on Strike will contribute to that end.
In closing, I leave you with the words of a reader who took the time to mail me a letter about his own strike and how he felt about my book. Christian from Massachusetts wrote:
I felt such a release when reading it because someone out there finally has taken the time to explore and understand men and our unique experience of American society. Without realizing it, I think I’ve been on strike for years now. I know I’ve felt like “fair game” since I first saw Oprah on the airwaves in 1986. I was 16 at the time but it was clear that it was open season on males. As you demonstrate, that thinking has continued and become increasingly entrenched and accepted. . . . Your book made me feel appreciated, understood, and like I’m no longer walking alone.10
As a psychologist and an author, there is no greater reward for me than to hear that my book gave a reader hope, understanding, and a lessened sense of isolation. As noted above, men’s rights may have a long way to go in our society given the rigid mindset against men. The good news is that there are many of us out there who are patient, unrelenting, and will not falter along the path to justice. I hope you are one of them.
Helen Smith, PhD
Knoxville, Tennessee
Enslavement used to be based on race, now it’s based on gender.
—Carnell Smith, advocate for male paternity fraud victims
If you are a wimp, this book is not for you. The suggestions I make in this book are difficult and require sacrifice and if you, as a male, do not feel you are up to the challenge, put this book down and go elsewhere. What I am going to describe to you requires a revolution to change the culture, and thus the political climate in this country that allows laws and actions against the male sex that would never be allowed against the female one.
Perhaps you think this is fair, that men should suffer for the ills of their ancestors and for the discrimination against women in the past. Maybe you are a chivalrous white-knight type who loves nothing more than the thought of saving a damsel in distress and would like to see your fellow man brought to his knees by laws that limit men’s reproductive and personal lives as well as their livelihoods. Maybe you have political ambitions or work in a field that requires you to favor female privilege over male justice and you have no intention of changing because you benefit from this two-way arrangement. Maybe you are just a guy who wants to get laid and acts in a politically correct manner in the hope of getting more women. If so, you are not my audience, but you might want to stick around and learn something.
If you are a woman, the main focus of this book is on men but you may find some of the information of interest. It may help you to understand more about what the typical men are going through in this country and why they don’t marry as readily anymore or go to college as often as they once did. Though you may disagree with much that is written here, keeping an open mind to how men actually feel and think as opposed to how the media, white knights and other women tell them how to think and feel may help you to understand how to connect with men in a more open and intimate way. Your husband, son, father or brother will thank you for it. And as Martin Luther King Jr. once said from a Birmingham jail, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” If we as women allow injustice to men today, who knows what will happen to us tomorrow? If learning about men rather than blaming them for all the ills of the world appeals to you, welcome.
My actual audience is the man who knows that something in today’s twenty-first century is amiss. He can’t put his finger on it exactly but feels deeply that modern society has turned its back on the average male. All around you, you hear the question, “Where have all the good men gone?” But you know instinctively that it’s the wrong question. The right one is “Why have all the good men gone on strike?”
This book will tell you why and tell you and society how to fix it. Because if we don’t, our society will never be the same. Our sons, brothers, fathers, uncles and husbands will live in a world where they will not know due process, where a man can be jailed for no other reason than that a woman pointed a finger at him, or because he raised his voice to her or where he can be placed into involuntary servitude to pay for eighteen years for a child that is not his. Oops! Too late. This is already happening in the United States of America.
Men are sensing the backlash against them and are consciously and unconsciously going “on strike.” They are dropping out of college, out of the workforce, and out of marriage and fatherhood at alarming rates. So much so that a number of books have been written about this phenomenon in recent years that look at the “man-child” of today and summarize that he and his arrested development have taken a vacation from responsibility because he can, or because he can now get sex on demand.
Or worse, these books discuss how his irresponsible behavior has harmed females, since his only purpose on earth is to serve women. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most men are not acting irresponsibly because they are immature or because they want to harm women; they are acting rationally in response to the lack of incentives today’s society offers them to be responsible fathers, husbands and providers. In addition, many are going on strike, either consciously or unconsciously, because they do not want to be harmed by the myriad of laws, attitudes and backlash against them for the simple crime of happening to be male in the twenty-first century. Men are starting to fight back against the backlash. This book explains their battle cry.
