Reproduction - sotsioloogia (0)

UNIT 4 What is Reproduction? Stratified reproduction describes:

• “...how reproduction is structured across social and cultural boundaries, particularly at local / global intersections...”
  
• “... power relations by which some categories of people are empowered to nurture and reproduce, while others are disempowered.”
  
• “...helps us see the arrangements by which some reproductive futures are valued and others are despised.” (Ginsburg and Rapp, 1995)
  

Biomedicalisation of Birth - extension of science and technology in biological reAlms and previously unmedicalised domains
• Viewing reproduction through a Sociological
lens poses complex probLems:
1. Nature vs Culture
2. Agency vs Structure
3. Private vs Public
How does Reproduction become political ?
• Structures constrain, Agency resists
• Danger of romanticising opposition for ‘oppositional positions’ cannot develop independent of dominant social positions.
Racialised Mothers’ from Slavery to Immigration
“ Welfare Mother ” is suffused with ideologies of ‘ race ’, class and gender . It implicates and blames the poor for their poverty . “Welfare Mother” or “Welfare Queen ” becomes the public face of ‘failed mothering’ by poor women . Dominant worldview that blames individuals for their failings, particularly if these are financial However , where there is structure there is agency and resistance
Ginsburg:
Colen: Collins labels the idealized or ‘ real ’ mother as being members of the right social class, marital status , race, and citizenship status.  These social locations determine a blurred view of who is entitled to be a mother, and also stands in the way of seeing the capability one has in being a parent .  She goes on to further explain the relationship between motherhood, national identity in the US and population policies.  Collins first examines how the traditional family ideal helps to determine a national identity.  Second she discusses the history of eugenics in how it has influenced reproductive policies and its development of the nation state, internationally.  Lastly, she highlights the differences in how these ideas influence middle -class white women, working class white women and working class African American women.  In all of this, one underlying idea is that these policies and social norms work to instill a hierarchy in the US.  Unfortunately, this hierarchy has been divided into two groups here ; either birth order or immigration order.
Ancient belief of man’s right to
dominate nature receives a
further fillip in the work of
scholars of the enlightenment.
During the seventeenth century
period of rapid commercial
expansion within Europe , machine
came to replace the organism as
the underlying metaphor for the
organisation of man’s universe.
Prior to this idea, the earth had
been viewed as a living organism
infused with a female soul .
II Contested reproduction
• The idea of the body as a machine firmly established the male body as the prototype of
this machine (Martin, 1987, Davis- Floyd : 1990, 1994).
• This is seen as a significant departure from the ideas propounded in medical texts from
the ancient Greeks up until the eighteenth century that described male and female
bodies as fundamentally similar . • A systematic campaign against against midwife assisted birth in medical journals from 18-19 century
• Dangers of childbirth exaggerated that meant safe delivery required male attendance
• Though women had hitherto been conceptualised as embodying the same genitals as
men inside their bodies, thus relegating women to ‘a lesser version of the male body’ .
• Any deviations from the male prototype became valid grounds for viewing female
biology as ‘abnormal’, defective and as untenable as nature itself, thus in need of
manipulation by man.
• The demise of the midwife and the rise of male-attended mechanically manipulated
birth followed close on the heels of the wide cultural acceptance of the female body as
a defective machine.
Birth of medical domain :
1773 obstetric forceps were invented which gave man midwife a distinct advantage .There was however an urgent need to deconstruct the view that saw birth as ‘normal’ and ‘natural’ physiological event coupled with resistance based on sexual prudery that denied men vital access to the ‘birthing subject ’ Creation of Lying in hospitals In England between 1739 and 1765 two lying in wards and four lying in hospitals were created. Provincial hospitals followed in 1800s Hospitals were financed by private capital and, mostly charitable and received patients from the working classes. In the Americas the women of colour and immigrants were. For the first time uninhibited access to female body becomes possible.
HOWEVER,

• Medical assistance could not improve midwife assisted mortality record .
  
• Toxaemias of pregnancy, sepsis and haemorrhage were noT brought under control till 1930s .
  
• Maternal and infant mortality remained at a constant high from 1835 to 1935
  
• Post WWII almost 90% births became institutionalised
  

Take a highly successful ‘natural Fact remains, women participate in the technocratic ritual of birth
• Feminist quandary: Technology can be profoundly empowering and
emancipating for birthing mothers and yet produces fear of
malfunctioning body, unpredictable nature which must be “assisted
technologically’
• The technocratic model opens doors whilst slamming shut already
opened doors
• The home-birth or “natural” childbirth movement was pioneered in
activist and feminist discourse
• As a backlash to medical control of the birthing experiences midwife
assisted birth is on the rise.
Pregnancy and childbirth become medical events - Bodies defective in need of active medical assistance
This dominant view holds considerable influence Euro-American cultures (99% of childbirth is institutional in the USA alone) Thus, selective application of medical technologies for de- and reconstruction of the birthing process There is no “ best ” way, but problematic when one way of assisting birth becomes normative, necessary , normalised foreclosing other options
process’ (e.g., salmon swimming
upstream to spawn)
P u n c h O n e : r e n d e r i t
dysfunctional with technology
(dam the stream , preventing
salmon from reaching their
spawning grounds)
Punch Two : fi x i t wi t h
technology (take salmon out of the
water with machines , make them
spawn artificially and grow eggs in
trays, then release the baby salmon
downstream near the ocean )
So, destroy a ‘natural process’ and
rebuild it as a ‘cultural process’.
III Reproduction gone awry • Research shows that women with minimal social support or less supportive partners tend to welcome more medical intervention
• Women with robust kin and familial support show very little postpartum depression or “baby-blues”
The Biomedical Rule of Thumb:
A couple is infertile if the ‘ wife ’ has not
conceived after 12 months of “ Marriage rate in Britain falls to lowest level since 1862 ...fewer than 2 in 100 women over the age of 16 got married in a single year [2008] ... from 2% to 1.96%” Telegraph, 11 Feb 2010
• Structural readjustments shaping how society relates to infertility or voluntary/involuntary childlessness Predominantly popular images associated with cohabitation are negative , an assumed stereotype/ consequence of norm violation?
unprotected intercourse or there is a
known condition that makes
conception unlikely
The Sociological Rule of Thumb:
Infertility is not simply a ‘ failure to
conceive’ but also a ‘normative
failure’.
Childlessness a more apt signifier
Experience of Childlessness or Infertility
is shaped by ideology and social
structure of a society, e.g. Liminality,
Ndembu Ritual
“Liminality”
• Liminal ( Latin limin-, limen meaning threshold). Relating to a transitional or initial stage; marginal, insignificant, occupying a position on, or on both sides of a boundary or threshold. Arnold van Gennep (1873-1957): Plastic sexuality,
Liquid love
• Separation (from previous status).
• Marginal or liminal period (transition).
• Reincorporation of those passing into new statuses Victor W Turner (1920-1983):
• Liminality as “Betwixt and Between Time”.
• Liminality is fraught with danger and opportunity .
Why?
• Anti-Structure: “liberation of human capacities of cognition, affect , volition, creativity, etc., from normative constraints … a kind of institutional capsule or pocket which contains the germ of future social developments, of societal change ”
Ndembu of Zambia: Infertility
Ritual & Social Structure
• Unable to achieve pregnancy woman consults a diviner
• Seance ensues, attended by woman’s kin and reveals the cause
• The diagnosis is invariably one where the afflicted woman is “caught” by an offended maternal ancestor who has emerged from her grave to sit in the woman’sbody
• The explanation lies not so much in magic or medicine but social structure: Ndembu are matrilineal and virilocal
• The tensions are built into the social fabric: Conflicting loyalties, allegiances mark the fault lines
• Failure to conceive draws attention to the major sourceof tension within society and an opportunity to work through the social structural tensions
“Infertility”, is a “ secret stigma”, i.e. no obvious bodily stigmatising features . Medicalisation of infertility turn private/secret stigma into public crisis
Enacted Stigma: Stems from intentional Discrimination
Felt Stigma: Stems from internalised societal evaluations, a sense of failure to live up to the norm
Changing Face of Relationships?
• Childlessness or “infertility” a ‘norm violation’?
• Normative Motherhood, Prescriptive Fatherhood?
• Is heteronormative marriage on the decline?
• Conjugal bond weakening and Cohabitation of the
rise?
Do men and women react differently to childlessness?
• “Status- passage ”
• Threat to a couple’s shared re a l i t i e s n e c e s s i t a t i n g construction of new shared realities
• But, His & Her realities can be markedly different
HERS
HIS
• “ Cataclysmic Role Failure”: (1) Retreat from
interaction with the ‘ fertile ’ world (2) Become too focussed on ‘infertility’
“It was as if a part of me had died, a part of me was
never going to be fulfilled. Grieving to hold a baby...a
part of me felt like a major disappointment to everybody...I felt like I had disappointed my husband , I disappointed my folks, I disappointed his folks, and I disappointed myself.” “It affects your ego. It has an immense affect on selfconcept, in all kinds of crazy ways . You ask ‘How can I be a real woman?’ By affecting the self
concept , it affects sexuality, and it affected work for me for a while. ‘How can I be good at this; I’m not a normal person ’”
Failure of Volition: ‘Infertility’ as “culpable failure of volition”
• “The desire to explain sickness and death in terms of volition - decision /will/ choice / resolution to commit to a particular course of action or acts done or left undone - is ancient and powerful ” ( compare this to other cultural tropes such as “ Karma ”, “Kismat”, “what goes around comes around” etc.)
• “Involuntary biological failures” also become “voluntary volitional failure”, e.g. Physicians imply that failure of will or desire is evident in individual choices as delaying chilbearing, “biological clock ”.
• Crisis of Masculinity: (1) ‘Hegemonic
masculinity’
(2) Expectation that men will not be: (a) weak (b) vulnerable (c) emotional d) losing physical control.
• Will always be:
(a) strong /robust (b) not needing help (c) ceaselessly interested in sex (d) displaying aggressive behaviour (when needed) (e) show physical dominance
• Male infertility more stigmatised because of a cultural conflation with sexual dysfunction. “Infertility = loss of manhood”
• “Marital Bargaining”: (1) within the internal dynamic of a
relationship there is tremendous bargaining when
seeking medical or other solutions (2) Men enjoy
superior bargaining power (3) Self-preservation and
protection of masculine identity through distance (4)
Keeping it together (5) being (a) tough (man): “One time my wife wanted to discontinue [treatment] - she was discouraged - and I wanted to continue . I won. I always win. She became pregnant the next time...It is a difficult procedure. I saw the possibilities that were offered...” “”...my wife seems to think it is a tremendous amount of burden, something she can’t deal with on an ongoing basis ...I didn’t think it was a big deal. My wife seems to make big deal out of it...but I didn’t think it was burdensome. She will disagree with me.”
• Media: (1) “Stunning drop in the numbers of men capable of normal sperm production ” (2) “At this rate, there will be no men capable of propagating our species ” (3) [men/sperm counts drowning in] “sea of oestrogens” (4) [healthy sperm possessing] “ turbo charge” [by means of which] “pierces the barriers the sperm has to fight its way through” (5) [single sperm as] “pure purposefulness - the male animal refined into a single-celled, highly perishable, posterity-seeking rocket”
• Science: (1) [Egg as] “a dormant bride awaiting her mate;s magic kiss , which instills the spirit that brings her to life” (2) [Sperm by contrast have a] “ mission ” [to move through] female genital tract in quest of the ovum” (3) [Sperm carry out] “perilous journey” into the “ warm darkness” where some fall away “ exhausted ”, survivors “assault” the egg, successful candidates “surrounding the prize”.