Overview

In the US, the most common contraceptive methods rely on women's time, labor, and vulnerability to risk. Comparatively few people rely on vasectomies as a means of preventing pregnancies. Something is happening rhetorically—through meaning-making symbols and the material practices they manifest—that sustains a collective disinterest in vasectomies. Jenna Vinson draws from her feminist rhetorical study of thirty-seven television and film representations, health insurance policies, and interviews with seventeen people who have experienced vasectomy, surfacing barriers to vasectomy uptake, including problematic tropes and practices that keep vasectomy unappealing, out of mind, and inaccessible. Stop Saying Snip! also illustrates tactics and circumstances that lead people to get a vasectomy, sharing real vasectomy stories and showing that women often play an important (and until now unheeded or pathologized) role in this communication process. This book intervenes in the misogynistic cultural expectation that it is women's responsibility to endure the pain, labor, and risks of managing fertility by identifying the rhetorics that make men's reproductive bodies seem unnatural sites for pregnancy prevention work. Fostering a persuasive vision of vasectomy is an urgent project that contributes to the movement toward reproductive justice.

Full Product Details

Author:   Jenna Vinson
Publisher:   Rutgers University Press
Imprint:   Rutgers University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.00cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.454kg
ISBN:  

9781978843592

ISBN 10:   1978843593
Pages:   222
Publication Date:   14 April 2026
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  General/trade ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Preface 1 Introduction Albert’s Story 2 Insuring (Few) Vasectomies: The Rhetorical Force of Health Insurance James’s and Henry’s Stories 3 Vicious Visions of Vasectomy: Snips, Threats to “Manhood,” & the Pedagogy of Fear Bob’s and Frank’s Stories 4 Obstacles to Telling Personal Vasectomy Stories Dillon’s Story 5 Women’s (Rhetorical) Work to Facilitate Vasectomies Rimi’s and Winifred’s Stories Conclusion: A Call to Reconsider Protest Rhetorics and Vasectomy Appendix A Appendix B Appendix C Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index

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Author Information

Jenna Vinson is an associate professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. She is the author of Embodying the Problem: The Persuasive Power of the Teen Mother.

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