Will Broadsheet please stop commenting on science or hire someone that understands what science is? The book report implies strongly that the original article was written by a researcher or at least an MD when it was written by a hack err medical philosopher that has a political agenda and seems not to understand how science works. I do have to thank you for actually understanding the male point of view and not resorting to the normal BS snarkfest. This despite agreeing with the basic premise that men need a form of reliable birth control.

All further quotes unless noted will be from Lisa Campo-Engelstein.

First bit of hogwash These contraceptive burdens and sacrifices limit people’s freedoms. Since men are frequently not responsible for contraception, they are absolved from these burdens and thus their freedom is not infringed upon. In short, men’s autonomy is enhanced by their freedom from contraceptive responsibility.

What a bunch of nonsense. No ones freedom is infringed upon when a person chooses to use birth control, male or female. You have a choose in the mater which is pretty much the definition of freedom of using any form of BC or not using it. If a women does not want to use BC she does not have too she can choose to have sex with a man that was snipped or uses a condom or even have sex with out any form of birth control but a baby might pop up 9 months later.

First, dominant understandings of women’s and men’s bodies have played a role

Ok, she admits that the accepted theory of human physiology in the medical and research community is that it is easier to develop BC for women because you have to stop 1 once a month compared to millions every day. So how is she going to over turn the work of millions of Biologist and MDs?

At play in these comparisons are implicit and sexist assumptions about the mind/body dichotomy: women’s bodies are more simplistic and closer to nature, while men’s bodies are more advanced and farther from nature. While some scientists still insist that women’s bodies are more controllable and better suited for medical intervention, especially reproductive intervention, other scientists assert that men’s bodies are more easily manipulated and that “if scientists had simply followed nature, they would have developed male contraceptives rather than female methods.”

Why some post modern bullshit mixed in with gender study victimization politics that is how. First, how is it sexist to notice that the reproductive systems of males and females are different? Why is sexiest to notice that it is easier to stop 1/2 things a month compared to 3 to 5 billions things a month? Who the hell thinks anything about this closer to nature nonsense? And if it is sexist to assume that women are closer to nature would she not be sexist but assuming it really is men that are closer to nature? And finally What the f--- does the mind have anything to do with this? But it is the mind/body dichotomy comment that gives away her agenda and her lack of scientific understanding.

Before you say hey Jim she cites a reference but the book she references not a medical journal or even written by anyone in a hard science but instead by a gender study professor who looked at the gender-political history of the male pill. So color me unimpressed that there is anyone with a PHD in biology or an MD except for some loon that buys into this nonsense.

Third, many do not think there is a market for male contraception because they doubt both the women will trust men to contracept and that men will be interested in using contraception. Yet this reasoning is based on gender ideologies, not fact, and so it is not surprising that empirical evidence shows the opposite conclusions.

Here she really does not support her argument. She makes her argument using one "international" study of presumably the non english speaking world. She ignores the very real possibility that the drug companies have done market research on this question. I really doubt that the drug companies have not looked at a block buster drug like the male pill would be and did a tiny bit of market research. If only half the number of people that use Viagra where to use the male pill it would be a multi billion dollar block buster let alone the 50 percent that said they would. But, either for the first time in history drug companies do not want to make money, the market is not really there under closer scrutiny or the cost is prohibitive to bring the drug to market or what the market would pay. A male pill will have to cost no more than birth control available to women other wise its DOA.

A potential male contraceptive based on a genetic defect with the PLC zena protein would sidestep the aforementioned negative side effects, thereby making it more acceptable to men.

Has a pill based on this PLC zena protein even been synthesized in the lab let alone tested on rats or made it to clinical trials? Medical breakthroughs with these types of claims are a dime a dozen. At this point no one knows what the side effects let alone if it will even work in healthy human males.