The Politics of Reproduction

Abstract

This book analyzes the dialectical, historical, and material aspects of the reproductive process. It offers the thesis that the reproductive process is not only the material base of the historical forms of the social relations of reproduction, but that it is also a dialectical process which changes historically. Chapter 1 analyzes the reproductive process and expounds on the human significance of the dialectics of that biological process. A selection of the conceptual concerns of feminist theory is discussed, and the works of Hegel, Marx, and Freud are incorporated where relevant. Chapter 2 is a critical examination of the theoretical framework of feminist studies and includes the works of De Beauvoir, Millet, Firestone, and Reed. The reliance of these women on existing theories, however selective the approach, is viewed as a weakness which perpetuates the elements of male-stream thought and which works against women, particularly in the denial of the creativity, historicity, and intellectual significance to human reproduction. Chapters 3 and 4 discuss the relation of creation to procreation as a determinant of the social forms of the separation of the public realm and politics from the private realm and family. This division is argued to be responsible for man's historically demonstrable need for a second nature, as seen from the works of Arendt, Machiavelli, and Plato. Chapter 5 examines Marxist interpretation of the polis life, whose real and imagined virtues frame the idealist political vision. George Thomson demonstrates the limitations of economism in either describing or understanding the historical move from family to polity. Marx preempts reproductive dynamic and awards it arbitrarily to the reproductive process. This is the materialist ideology of male supremacy. Some of the dimensions of the theoretical task which history now presents to women are discussed in the conclusion, as are some of the problems of unifying feminist theory with feminist practice.

Did You Know My Father?

“…This parallels the position of women ascribed by various nationalist struggles, pointing to a close link between nationalism and the politics of reproduction and motherhood (e.g. Ginsburg andRapp 1991, 1995;Jolly and Ram 2001;Kanaaneh 2002).…”

Selective Reproductive Technologies

“…In modern states, childbearing is a vital political issue; attempts to control women's fertility and to regulate the size and character of populations are at the heart of state politics worldwide (Ginsburg & Rapp 1991, 1995Browner & Sargent 2011). The twentieth century witnessed dramatic government-led interventions into human reproduction: Some countries introduced population policies aiming to restrict or enhance fertility; others pursued reproductive agendas that were overtly eugenic.…”

Negotiating Development Prescriptions: The Case of Population Policy in Nigeria

“…4 Conveniently, population policy is a tactic that simultaneously meets the needs of both of the poles of biopower: disciplining the body through management of individual fertility and regulating the population (Foucault, 1978). Drawing from governmentality (Foucault 1994(Foucault /2003 and other authors' applications of it (Ginsburg and Rapp 1991;Greenhalgh 2003;Newland 2001;Richey 2004Richey , 2008, states may use population policy to regulate and manage the population as part of the art of government, thus reinforcing the power of the state, a preoccupation of many African leaders (Clapham 1996). Even the collection of demographic data, an activity all population policies dictate, can be thought of as a means to connect the state to the population by making society ''legible'' (Scott 1998).…”