Baseball Player Mansplains Birth Control To Jessica Chastain, Twitter Shuts Him Down

MLB player forgot his opinion on women’s rights doesn’t matter

Another day, another mansplaining debacle for the folks on Twitter to handle. Professional baseball player and father of six Matt Garza decided to get all up in Jessica Chastain’s business about birth control, but thankfully Twitter shut his sexist shit down. Just a quick reminder for Garza and fellow mansplainers: we didn’t ask for nor do we want your opinion on our reproductive rights.

Chastain took to Twitter earlier this month to share how disappointed she was about the Senate’s vote to gut the Affordable Care Act. In addition to taking away health care from millions of children and possibly killing others, the repeal of Obamacare would force millions of women to pay for their birth control out of pocket. “#BirthControl is no longer covered by health insurance,” the Golden Globe-winning actress tweeted. “Congrats USA, you’re doing your part to keep women out of the work force.”

Garza, who pitches for the Milwaukee Brewers, decided to share his outdated and incredibly unhelpful opinion when he responded to Chastain’s tweet. “It’s called abstinence, a word that has been forgotten amongst this generation,” the 33-year-old wrote on Twitter. “It’s the best contraceptive… #juatsaying [sic].”

Our favorite part of his ridiculous comment – outside of his blatant spelling error – is the idea that contraception is new to this generation. Sorry, bro, but various forms of birth control have been around since Ancient Egypt. And the pill has been available as a form of contraceptive for women in America since 1960. In the two years after it launched 1.2 million women in the U.S. were on it and that number almost doubled to 2.3 million by 1963. Twitter didn’t waste any time breaking it down for Garza.

And while abstinence is technically a contraceptive method, it’s definitely the least effective one. From the Guttmacher Institute: “The two-thirds of U.S. women (68%) at risk of unintended pregnancy who use contraceptives consistently and correctly throughout the course of any given year account for only 5% of all unintended pregnancies. In contrast, the 14% of women at risk who do not use contraceptives at all or have a gap in use of one month or longer account for 54% of unintended pregnancies.” And a focus on abstinence-only education is positively correlated with teenage pregnancy and birth rates.

Some badass ladies also took the time to remind the athlete that birth control isn’t just for preventing pregnancies. There are several reasons why women use all forms of birth control. All of which are no one’s damn business.

And since the pitcher decided to get involved in women’s business, some Twitter users didn’t hesitate to comment on Garza’s sex life and his baseball career.

Chastain, our new lady crush, simply ignored the baseball player’s comments and instead sent our several more tweets that only showed she’s not backing down from her support of women and their health care needs.

The following day our shero also announced that she’d be attending the Women’s March on Washington this Saturday. “I am marching to protect the disenfranchised,” the actress wrote. “I stand with you for reproductive choice, wage equality, and freedom from sexual violence.”