The image captioned ‘Percent distribution of women aged 15–49, by current contraceptive status’ really surprised me. Only 8.7% use male condom as a contraceptive method! It is a simple and reliable method that does not put the all of the responsibility on the woman and requires no medical intervention… I would have guessed that easily over 70% use condoms 🙃
The way this is reported on, and what precisely each number means are things you should investigate when they do not line up with your expectations. This chart comes from this data brief. In the definitions the following is stated (emphasis mine):
In this report, as in prior NSFG reports (3), women who were currently using more than one method are classified by the method that was most effective in preventing pregnancy, because that method has the greatest impact on their risk of unintended pregnancy. For example, women who report using both oral contraceptive pills and male condoms in the current month are classified as using pills, because pills are more effective at preventing a pregnancy.
Aha, that does make some difference. For example, my girlfriend takes birth control pills due to health-related reasons (and as far as I can tell, this is moderately common), so even though we do use condoms we would not be counted. Sorry for being lazy on this one, and thank you for doing the work of researching this in more depth ^_^
I think you brought up a fantastic point and one that did not line up with my expectations either, so thank you for surfacing the question so that others can see. 😊
i believe we’ve previously had a discussion on this here, but alas i cannot find it right now.
Unfortunately this is somewhere in medicine where you will see a lot of discrimination if you do not currently have children and attempt to access this route of birth control. Women are more likely to experience this kind of discrimination when pursuing healthcare that limits child bearing capabilities in the future. Perhaps men pursuing more permanent options will make the system relax a bit when it comes to push-back when pursing certain kinds of care.
I also wonder whether it’ll spur legislators to fast track options which have been under development for a long time such as RISUG. I know the ability to make babies is an important platform for conservatives, so seeing men pursue options that they haven’t made illegal might spur them to action… or they might just ban vasectomies or something idk