As a man, I think it’s the sort of experience that men struggle to understand because of patriarchal dynamics.

What I mean is: if a doctor were to:

• ask me if I have considered other forms of birth control
• and then explain all the different birth control methods to make sure I actually understand,
• ask if I’ve talked about the decision with my wife,
• and then explain that a general impression of her opinion isn’t the same thing as sitting down together and reviewing all the data,
• ask if understand how the surgery will affect my body
• and then explain the hormonal changes my body would go through
• etc

before agreeing to schedule a vasectomy.

Interpretting these questions through the lens of my lived experience:

These are thorough but pragmatic questions. The doctor is trying to make sure I understand all the options. The doctor is a peer with special expertise and wants to make sure that I understand all the risks.

But women too often grow up in an environment which tells them:

• Women should trust the men in their lives too make the best decisions for them.
• That having children is the most important thing they can do in the world.
• A woman’s value is proportional to her utility as a wife and mother.
• Women that have sex for fun are disgusting sluts.

So when they get asked a barrage of questions identical to the ones I’dve been asked, they experience them very differently. Women are not irrational to hear the exact same questions very differently if they are interpreting them through the lens of their experiences. Maybe they experience those questions as:

• “Why don’t you just stop having so much sec you slut?”
• “Don’t you know how to have sex with out getting pregnant you dumb bitch?”
• “Do you have your husband’s permission?”
• “Does your husband know you’re a slut?”
• “Do you understand that you will be destroying your value to society if you don’t have kids?”
• “Do you understand that you will become any even crazier bitch after this?”

And too often, the doctor really does mean that.