No, that's not a typo. Read this. Then read this explanation from Jezebel.
Ok, so it's a way for Choice U.S.A. to try and guys to explicitly endorse pro-choice policies and position themselves as allies to women. I was going to be on Huffington Post Live today to talk about it, as one of their producers read my essay on male Feminism at the Good Men Project, but plans fell through. Still, I spent some of the morning thinking about the movement and talking to one of my brilliant friends, K., and came up with these thoughts to share.
1. The correct word for a man who is pro-choice is ... pro-choice.
2. Anything that can help men normalize being pro-reproductive rights and equal rights is a good thing. I do think men worry that embracing feminist agendas (let alone the word) threatens their masculinity. So if somehow they need to keep "bro" culture alive, while defending women's reproductive freedom, that seems fine to me.
3. The right-wing attack against the bro-choicers (read the Jezebel article), as K. points out, follows exactly the same line of attack as against pro-choice women: that it's all about sex. Pro-choice women, argue people like Rush Limbaugh and his ilk, are sluts (you remember Sandra Fluke). Bro-choice men are likewise only interested in consequence-free (child-free) sex. This is fascinating. What it shows, though it's not surprising, is the complete inability of anti-abortion voices to articulate a moral position for their foes. Abortion MUST always be about sex for the anti-abortion crowd, rather than privacy, or poverty, or reproductive freedom, or even small government. If you want an abortion or birth control or even competent sex-ed, you must be sex-obsessed.
In the meantime, California's teen birthrate has dropped 60%. Sex-ed is legally required to be comprehensive and medically accurate there.Correlation or causation?
