October 4, 2024 | Written by A.Y.

The difficulty some men have in understanding the importance of a woman’s right to make her own reproductive choices is unfathomable until you understand that women bear most physical, mental and emotional health costs associated with sex even when the couple stays together. (If the couple splits up, the woman sometimes must handle everything on her own.)

This year my understanding is that more men prefer Former President Donald Trump than do women and more women prefer Vice President Harris than do men. I do not believe that the difference is solely attributable to the gender chauvinism of those polled. Instead, I suspect that a large part of the difference arises because women bear the lioness’s share of the physical and emotional burden of pregnancy, childbirth and child rearing.   

At the risk of oversimplifying the issues and promoting ancient misogyny, I wonder if women could take a cue from the Greek playwright Aristophanes and his play Lysistrata (AD 411). Lysistrata – Wikipedia  In that comedy, set during the Peloponnesian Wars, Lysistrata, a resident of Athens, works with other Greek women to force Greek men to stop an ongoing war.  They do this by abstaining from any sex with their male partners until those partners relent and end their war. In 2024, women could withhold any intimate relations unless their male partners work on and vote for protecting women’s reproductive rights.

While some men may not be moved by such an ultimatum, many men who currently oppose a women’s right to choose may concede that’s the right is appropriate if it is the only way to get sex. This especially true for younger men.  Men would then have a tangible incentive to defend the reproductive freedom of women.