Neglected or Misunderstood Read online

  62. See Jaggar, p.154; and Jackson, p.114.

  63. Ariel Levy, Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005); Natasha Walter, Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism (London: Virago, 2010).

  64. See Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: The Will to Knowledge, Vol. 1, trans. Robert Hurley (London: Penguin, 1998).

  65. Power, pp.144–8.

  66. Power, p.150.

  67. Sarah Marsh and Guardian readers, ‘The gender fluid generation,’ The Guardian, 23 March 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/23/genderfluid-generation-young-people-male-female-trans68. Delmar, p.5.

  69. Spelman, p.130.

  70. Gillian Howie, ‘Sexing the State of Nature: Firestone’s Materialist Manifesto,’ in Further Adventures.

  71. Mia Fahlén and Gertrud Åström, ‘Women’s bodies aren’t simply containers,’ The Local, 5 March 2015, http://www.thelocal.se/20130305/46492

  72. Victoria Ward, ‘Louise Brown, the first IVF baby, reveals family was bombarded with hate mail,’ The Telegraph, 23 November 2016, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/11760004/Louise-Brown-the-first-IVF-baby-reveals-family-was-bombarded-with-hate-mail.html

  73. Penny, p.46.

  74. Toby Helm and Rowena Mason, ‘Leadsom told to apologise,’ The Guardian, 9 July 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/09/andrea-leadsom-told-to-apologise

  75. Jessica Valenti, Why Have Kids: A New Mom Explores the Truth about Parenting and Happiness (Las Vegas: Amazon Publishing, 2012).

  76. Eva Wiseman, ‘We need to talk about egg-freezing,’ The Guardian, 7 February 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/07/life-on-hold-with-frozen-eggs

  77. See Franklin, pp.47–8 on IVF and its intensification of women’s reproduction; and also for an introduction to some of the feminist literature on IVF.

  78. HFEA website, http://www.hfea.gov.uk/46.html

  79. EggBanxx website, https://www.eggbanxx.com/egg-freezing-costs

  80. Sarah Marsh and Guardian readers, ‘Are you worried about your fertility? Young people share their stories,’ The Guardian, 20 April 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/20/are-you-worried-about-your-fertility-young-people-share-their-stories

  81. Viv Groskop, ‘“Social” egg-freezing is a hideous fertility gamble,’ The Guardian, 9 February 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/09/social-egg-freezing-fertility-infertility-parents-children

  82. The term “pre-pregnant” was coined in 2006 by the Washington Post in response to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issuing advice to all women of childbearing age to protect their pre-conception health through behavior and diet, regardless of whether or not they planned to become pregnant. For critical perspectives on this, see Valenti, Why Have Kids, and Georgetown University professor Rebecca Kukla (quoted in Valenti, and in Amy Williams, ‘Warning: you could be pre-pregnant,’ Ms Magazine blog, 26 January 2011, http://msmagazine.com/blog/2011/01/26/warning-you-could-be-pre-pregnant/)

  83. ‘Expensive IVF add-ons “not evidence-based,”’ NHS website, 28 November 2016, http://www.nhs.uk/news/2016/11November/Pages/Expensive-IVF-add-ons-not-evidence-based.aspx

  84. See for example, comments by fertility specialists Professor Robert Winston: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2007/may/31/medicineandhealth.health; and Professor Charles Rodeck: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2007/jul/15/health.medicineandhealth

  85. Michael Safi, ‘Baby Gammy’s twin can stay,’ The Guardian, 14 April 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/apr/14/baby-gammys-twin-sister-stays-with-western-australian-couple-court-orders

  86. Suzanne Moore, ‘The case of Baby Gammy,’ The Guardian, 4 August 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/04/baby-gammy-thailand-surrogacy-repulsive-trade-pattaramon-chanbua

  87. Divya Gupta, ‘Inside India’s surrogacy industry,’ The Guardian, 6 December 2011, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/06/surrogate-mothers-india

  88. I am taking the idea of ‘moral climate’ from my colleague, Bob Brecher. Brecher suggests that the institutionalization of surrogacy could constitute a ‘morality-affecting harm’: in other words, although it is conceivable that none of the individuals directly involved in a particular surrogacy agreement is harmed by it, that the agreement nonetheless causes harm by reinforcing wider social acceptance of ‘people’s making use of each other,’ and particularly of women’s treatment in terms of commodity. Bob Brecher, ‘Surrogacy, Liberal Individualism and the Moral Climate,’ in Moral Philosophy and Contemporary Problems, ed. J. D. G. Evans (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p.195.

  89. ‘Trump abortion row: Republican front-runner changes stance,’ BBC News website, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-35931103

  90. ‘Trump abortion row: Republican front-runner changes stance,’ BBC News website, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-35931103

  91. The choice of which words to use in discussing these situations is difficult, since there is no neutral language. “Embryo,” “fetus,” “baby” and “child,” all incline toward one moral and political view over another. Likewise for “woman” or “mother.” I will use “fetus” in relation to a pregnancy beyond 11 weeks and until 42 weeks, except where the sense of the sentence requires ‘baby’ or ‘child’ since that is what is being claimed.

  92. Jessica Glenza, ‘Purvi Patel case,’ The Guardian, 2 April 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/02/purvi-patel-case-alter-reproductive-rights-indiana

  93. Jessica Glenza, ‘Purvi Patel case,’ The Guardian, 2 April 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/02/purvi-patel-case-alter-reproductive-rights-indiana

  94. Ed Pilkington, ‘Indiana prosecuting Chinese woman,’ The Guardian, 30 May 2012, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/30/indiana-prosecuting-chinese-woman-suicide-foetus

  95. Jessica Valenti, ‘It isn’t justice for Purvi Patel,’ The Guardian, 2 April 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/02/it-isnt-justice-for-purvi-patel-to-serve-20-years-in-prison-for-an-abortion

  96. Molly Redden, ‘Purvi Patel has 20-year sentence reduced,’ The Guardian, 22 July 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/22/purvi-patel-abortion-sentence-reduced

  97. Civil Liberties and Public Policy Hampshire website, https://clpp.hampshire.edu/leadership-programs/rrasc/host-sites/sistersong-women-color-reproductive-justice-collective

  98. Our Bodies Ourselves website, http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/2016/03/increased-numbers-of-black-women-dying-during-pregnancy-and-childbirth/

  99. Henry McDonald, ‘Northern Irish women who miscarry,’ The Guardian, 13 April 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/13/northern-ireland-women-miscarry-abortion-questioning-unite

  100. CNN website, ‘Nicaragua abortion ban “cruel and inhuman disgrace,”’ http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/07/28/nicaragua.abortion.ban

  Select Index

  Abortion, 2, 35, 121

  opposition to today, 126–134

  as a WLM demand, 8, 11, 17–18, 91, 126

  Alienated labor, 2, 12, 86–89, 98

  Androgyny, 78, 99–100, 107–109

  Artificial wombs, 1–3, 5, 41, 94, 126

  Beauvoir, Simone de, 5, 21–23, 39, 42–52, 54, 107

  Biological determinism, 37–38, 51–52

  Childbirth and pregnancy, 32–33, 38–39, 40–55, 108, 123

  ordeals of, 41–46, 54–55

  elimination of, 1–2, 92–94

  role in etiology of women’s

  oppression, 25–26, 52–53

  romanticization of, 19, 41–42, 55

  Childhood, 64–65, 69, 95–99, 102–104

  Contraception, 2, 25, 35, 73, 136,

  oppressive uses of, 72–73

  as technology, 23, 40, 77–78, 126

  in Trump era, 127–128, 131

  as a WLM demand, 8, 11, 16–17, 91

  Cyberna
tion, 2, 73, 85–90, 95

  Engels, Friedrich, 5, 27, 29–35

  Egg-freezing, 111–119, 124

  Feticide laws, 128–132

  Freud, Sigmund, 5, 56–64, 70, 100–102, 106

  Friedan, Betty, 11–12

  IVF, 111–112, 114–115, 117, 124

  Liberal feminism, 11–12, 14, 21, 27, 126

  Marx, Karl, 5, 23, 27–30, 34, 87

  Marcuse, Herbert, 59, 105–106

  Marxism, 12–13, 21, 27–36, 78, 86–87, 144 n.29

  See also Engels, Friedrich; Marx, Karl

  Mental illness, 59, 137–141

  Oedipus Complex, 60–64

  Piercy, Marge, 1, 3, 97

  Racism, 5, 52, 66–70, 133, 145–146 n.47

  Radical feminism, 4, 21, 126

  celebration of women’s

  reproductive role, 49–50

  critique of classical Marxism, 29, 32–33, 35

  early radical feminist groupings, 10, 139

  Firestone’s distinctive form

  of, 14–16, 37

  key concepts of, 13–14, 24, 56

  Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 19, 41, 107

  Science fiction, 4, 6, 84, 97, 110

  Sexuality, 14, 32, 57, 85, 99–109

  Socialist feminism, 12–14, 16, 21, 28–32, 37, 81

  Somatophobia, 51–52, 54, 108

  Surrogacy, 23, 112, 118–124, 150 n.88

  Technology, 19, 26, 85, 111, 135

  See also Artificial wombs; Cybernation; Egg-freezing; IVF and education, 97–98

  Firestone’s definition of, 22–24

  liberatory potential of, 71, 73–74, 78, 109

  oppressive character in a male-dominated culture, 72, 75–76, 79

  Technological determinism, 3, 77

  Universal Basic Income, 89–90, 147-148 n.61

  Utopianism, 1, 3–4, 6, 82–83, 99, 106, 109, 118

  Women’s Liberation Movement, 11–16, 40, 42, 68, 137

  See also Liberal feminism; Radical feminism; Socialist feminism

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