Abstract

The feminization of contraception remains one of the most persistent gender inequalities, while the role of men in birth control and family planning continues to be largely overlooked both in policy and research. This article advances knowledge on the gender politics of contraception by exploring the vasectomy experiences of childless men in Santiago, Chile. Through 20 semi-structured qualitative interviews, we analyze how men refuse, reproduce, and reinforce gender privilege in opting for voluntary sterilization. Through vasectomy, men challenge precepts of hegemonic masculinity that conflate being a man with procreation and parenthood while they also take on more reproductive responsibility to ostensibly subvert gender inequalities underlying the female contraceptive culture. However, through vasectomy men also reinforce traditional features of masculinity such as their entitlement to sexual pleasure and control over conception while they also enjoy the benefits of their structurally advantaged gender position, such as less questioning over sterilization, praise for their reproductive responsibility, and increasing social capital as contraceptive pioneers. By revealing how men navigate gender privilege through vasectomy, we stress the ambivalent implications of voluntary male sterilization for gender equality in contraception and unveil the making of hybrid masculinities that retain privilege even in their attempts toward gender equality.