First Revision WorkshopTransformations, Week 21

Workshop Aimsintroduce the examprovoke thought about your revision strategiesidentify key concepts on the module draw connections across the moduleconvince you that you already know more than

you thinkstart thinking what you would need to know

about in order to write on some term 1 topics

The ExamWhen? 9.30 am Monday 18 June

(provisional)Where? Not yet knownDuration? 2 hours (1 Q/section) or 3 hours

(at least 1 Q/section)16 questions, 8 in each section

Section 1 Why do people have children?; Who owns women’s bodies?;

Femininity and motherhood; Masculinity and fatherhood; Pregnancy, Childbirth; Beyond the nuclear family; Adoption.

Section 2: Timing Parenthood; Contraception; Abortion; Infertility; IVF; Reprogenetics; Gamete donation; Surrogacy.

Why do you do exams?To demonstrate what we knowUniversity regulationsTo demonstrate capacity to work under

pressureTo demonstrate time management skillsTo demonstrate skills of privilegingTo demonstrate independent thinkingTo demonstrate creativity, synthesis, originalityTo bring everything togetherIn order to be classified

Revision StrategiesWrite down what you got right in your

revision strategy last year and how you achieved it.

Write down what you want to improve on in your revision strategy this year and how you’re going to do it.

Key Module ConceptsCivic/cultural vs ethnic nationalismReproduction (obviously). Biological reproduction and social

relations of reproduction.Gender divisions of labour in reproductionFertility rates – just risen again in UK – and infertilityCivic/cultural vs. ethnic nationalism and link to state policiesReproductive Rights ‘Foetal rights’New Reproductive Technologies, inc. IVF, surrogacy,

reprogenetics, gamete donationEthicsSaviour SiblingsParenting - biological or genetic

- gestational (mother only)- social- public and private

Module Concepts continued  Femininity and Motherhood; Masculinity and Fatherhood (‘to father’ = to reproduce genetically; ‘to mother’ = to

reproduce socially)Social birth (precedes actual birth)Timing Reproduction – biological time / social time ‘Fitness’ to parent, gendered discourses of ‘good’ parenting

(and ‘bad’)Possessive Individualism re claims over reproductive

potentialPsychoanalysis and the ‘reproduction of mothering’Recombinant familiesRace, ‘racialization’ and the politics of reproductionSurrogacy – partial and full, commercial & altruisticAdoption – inc. transracial, transnational, lesbian and gay

Key Module ObjectivesWhat follows are 12 module objectives

Working in pairs, read through them, identifying any additional key concepts, and identify which module topics they are most associated with (many of them cover several weeks of work, not just one).

Key Module Objectives1. To subject to sociological and feminist

scrutiny the often taken for granted practices of having (or not having) and raising children and the ways they have been and are being transformed in contemporary society. Primarily UK focus but with some international perspectives.

2. To investigate the challenges to the norm of the heterosexual, nuclear and biologically based family posed both by new social relations of reproduction in the UK.

3. To explore the extent to which the necessary link between heterosex and generational reproduction has been weakened or broken (through diverse sexual practices; contraception; abortion) and the gendered implications.

 

4. To contextualise feminist demands for women’s reproductive rights, and the forms of opposition faced from the various stakeholders in women’s reproductive bodies.

 

5. To examine the links between parenting and gender identity, ie. motherhood and femininity; fatherhood and masculinity.

6. To explore the unequal gender division of labour both in biological reproduction and social reproduction, the extent to which they are linked and how women’s greater share of the daily maintenance of human life is produced and reproduced. To ask what scope there is for men to take a more equal share of child-care.

 

7. To explore discourses about who’s fit to parent and the practices that these discourses shore up, thus illuminating the extent to which social hierarchies are produced and reproduced through the medical and welfare institutions that govern biological reproduction.

8. To consider intersectionality in reproduction: it is not just gender that makes a difference but also ‘race’, class, age etc.

9. To look at legal interventions in reproduction, eg. surrogacy contracts; adoption procedures, regulation of reprogenetics.

 To address the complexities of NRTs,

including gender, ethics, regulation etc, considering the most recent (eg. reprogenetics, gamete donation) as well as the now commonplace (eg hormonal contraception, IVF).

 

10. To consider the interface between medical practitioners and women of reproductive age in an era of technology, paying particular attention to women’s agency.

 

11. To examine debates about the timing and risks of motherhood, particularly concerns about teenage mothers and older mothers, in the light of experiences of old and young motherhood.

 

12. To address the complexities of NRTs, including gender, ethics, regulation etc, considering the most recent (eg. reprogenetics, gamete donation) as well as the now commonplace (eg. hormonal contraception, IVF).

Topic by Topic RevisionWork in small groups of 3/4From what you can recall about each topic,

try to come up with three bullet points that reflect the major learning points for those weeks. What are the three key points (e.g. the conclusions from the lecture) that you would need to think about when revising this topic?

You won’t remember everything – don’t worry, it’s not a test. It’s a starting point for your revision (and you know more already than you might feel like you do).

Why Children (and why not)?A question mostly asked of women (why?)Hormonal contraception & limited availability of

abortion broken link between heterosex & children

Having (or not having) children is an outcome of complex social, political, cultural and economic factors, many of them gendered

For Chodorow it’s psychological – urge to mother is reproduced in women as part of their childhood

 Experiences of women who choose not to be mothers show dominance of myth that all ‘real’ women want children as well as its contestation as women try to unshackle femininity from motherhood(Gillespie).

Who Owns Women’s Bodies? Who Needs Children?

Family, community, state all stakeholders in reproduction

Women more crucial to biological reproduction than men, partly why others have sought to control their reproduction

Women’s reproductive rights - key demand of 2nd wave feminism

Relies on new concept of self from 17th c – possessive individualism (MacPherson) – initially applied only to propertied men but then claimed by women (and others)

Husbands, families, communities, religious organisations, governments have all put pressure on women to reproduce more or less, or not at all (dependent on ‘fitness’ claims; whether state espouses ethnic or cultural nationalism)

 

Femininity and MotherhoodDominant discourse: motherhood = ultimate

expression of femininity (so women without children not ‘real’ women)

Reality: some women definitely want children, others definitely don’t, others are ambivalent

Second-wave feminism exposed motherhood: for Firestone as root of women’s oppression through domestic confinement; others (eg. Rich) more positive but critiqued idea that motherhood = women’s natural and happy destiny  

Dominant discourses about good mother (eg. kind, self-sacrificing) map onto dominant discourses of femininity so when not coping some mothers reluctant to get help

Ideas about good and bad mothering not fixed but changing product of history (Smart)

Masculinity and FatherhoodNo dominant discourse that fatherhood =

men’s destiny But hegemonic masculinity expects Provision;

Protection; Authority/Discipline and public fatherhood from ‘good’ father

New Right blames social problems on absent fathers: fear of fatherthelessness

Is fatherhood being reinvented as nurturing? Constraints include labour market and hegemonic masculinity, impetus includes homeworking, new masculinities

Is nurturing fatherhood more likely for working class men? (US study – Shows & Gerstel)

Embodied PregnancyDo new technologies expand women’s choice and

autonomy or promote anxiety, risk and a new eugenics?

Screening tests only give probabilities and some diagnostic tests carry risks – how much do women understand?

How easy is it not to have the tests? Consent required from pregnant woman but pressure to ‘ensure’ a healthy baby strong; is consent to screening de facto consent to abortion?

Draper: woman’s embodied knowledge of her pregnancy (haptic hexis) being displaced by the machinery’s visual knowledge of her pregnancy (optical hexis)

Ultrasound scans blur social and medical events, as father ‘bonds’ with baby, scans and DVDs circulate and social birth precedes biological birth

Giving BirthChildbirth = medicalised – from 17th c

increasingly subject to gaze and interventions of medical professionals (originally all men) rather than ‘wise women’

Hospital births now hegemonic, C-sections more common

Emily Martin: pregnant body represented as machine, reproduction as production. Preoccupations with efficiency routine, legitimated as about ‘safety’ but serving hospital

Martin considers how some women resist medicalisation of birth covertly

Women’s own accounts stress importance of control, which means different types of birth for different women 

In midwifery the ‘with-woman’ discourse competes with a ‘with-institution’ discourse

Next Week…

Continue topic by topicMaking links between topicsTips on survival in the exam room