Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) told GQ Magazine in a lengthy profile men need to speak out more about how they have personally benefitted from women having abortions in the aftermath of Roe v. Wade being overturned.
Ocasio-Cortez was seen protesting outside the Supreme Court in June when the landmark decision was officially overturned after the draft opinion was leaked in May.
BREAKING: Congresswoman @AOC has arrived in front of the Supreme Court and is chanting that the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade is “illegitimate” and calls for people to get “into the streets” | @TPUSA pic.twitter.com/jNkCYDrLtz
— Drew Hernandez (@DrewHLive) June 24, 2022
Ocasio-Cortez also took to social media to tell her followers how to get around abortion bans.
Yeah, and? pic.twitter.com/yMR4mvf5mF
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 27, 2022
"For almost every woman that has gotten an abortion, there’s a man who has either been affected or liberated by that abortion too," Ocasio-Cortez said during an interview. "In this moment it’s really only going to be the vulnerability of men, and men talking to other men, that gives us the greatest hope of shifting things the fastest, soonest."
"I think there’s plenty of well-meaning reasons why men may feel like it’s not appropriate for them to talk about it," she continued. "I think sometimes the way white folks don’t like to talk about race and they say, ‘We just want to center the person who’s most impacted, so it’s not my role to do anything or take a space and speak up.’ But we know that when white folks take up space and say the right thing in rooms of other white people, that is the most shifting activity that can happen, more sometimes than any protest or any person writing a letter to the editor or anything like that. And we need men to be speaking up in that way as well. But I think men, sometimes they think, I’m not a woman. This doesn’t affect me the most."
Ocasio-Cortez added that, like women, men also "suffer from being under patriarchy" by having to exhibit characteristics such as "stoicism, competition, domination, dominance—are leading to mental health issues for men. There’s a stigma around men being vulnerable."