Ebony's Herina Ayot wonders how socioeconomics will affect African-American men's attitudes toward the male contraceptives that are getting closer to the shelves every day.
Historically, African American men have been on the lower rung of the socioeconomic ladder, so while the issue may not be directly related to race, it is indirectly. "I see people struggle with this all the time. When the male in the relationship is not able to reproduce, it impacts his sense of self differently than it would for a woman. A woman is more likely to be willing to adopt if it's a matter of wanting children. For a man, it's more about how they feel about themselves and what the world is going to think of them," says Pender Greene.
Therefore, making a decision to take birth control would be much harder for men who don't have a lot of money and are worried about risking not having children. In contrast, though research is lacking, Pender Greene suspects that the more educated and aware a person is, the more likely they are to be open to birth control, in terms of taking a non traditional approach. "There are many younger [educated] men who tend to have strong feelings about wanting more control over when they become fathers. I've worked with men who thought that their partner was on birth control when they were not, and finding out the truth about it later had been very devastating," says Pender Greene. "Using birth control themselves allows men to take control in that way … This approach gives them the ability to plan for parenthood and protect their career trajectory."
Read Herina Ayot's entire piece at Ebony.
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