University of Warwick

Department of Sociology

2013-14

Module Transformations: Gender, Reproduction and Contemporary Society

Lecturers Caroline Wright and Maria Do Mar Pereira

& Tutors

Introduction

This module examines the significance of gender in shaping, and being shaped by, contemporary human reproduction. Based on feminist perspectives, the module challenges taken-for-granted assumptions and highlights the ways in which reproduction is being transformed. The module has a predominantly UK focus, though it seeks to incorporate global perspectives. We begin by asking ‘why do we have children?’ (and why do we not?), and ‘who needs children?’. We then explore the links between parenthood and gender identity and the diverse patterns of biological and social reproduction and parenting that characterise the contemporary era, including step-parents, disabled parents, single parents, gay and lesbian parents, and, later in the module, adoptive parents. Throughout the module attention is paid to the way in which narratives of class, ‘race’/ethnicity, age, sexuality and (dis)ability, as well as gender, inform ideas about who’s ‘fit’ to be a parent in the 21st century. We examine women’s embodied experiences of pregnancy and birth in a technological age and consider whether and how they differ from those of the father-to-be. Particular attention is paid to the institution of motherhood and definitions of the ‘good’ mother, including contemporary debates about breastfeeding. In considering the timing of parenthood, it becomes clear that tighter social boundaries govern the ‘right time’ to become a mother than they do the ‘right time’ to become a father. Technologies of reproduction that seek to limit fertility by breaking the link between heterosex and reproduction are explored, such as contraception and abortion. We also consider the phenomenon and experience of infertility, and reproductive technologies that are designed to overcome or bypass it, such as IVF. The module concludes by considering the politics and ethics of the new genetics of reproduction that IVF has partly enabled, including gamete donation, saviour siblings and full surrogacy.

Autumn Term

Week 1 Introduction: Defining the Terms

Week 2 Why Do We Have Children?

Week 3 Who Owns Women’s Bodies? Who Needs Children?

Week 4 Femininity and Motherhood: Towards an Uncoupling?

Week 5 Masculinity and Fatherhood: Beyond the Breadwinner Role?

Week 6 Reading Week

Week 7 Beyond the Nuclear Family: Can Parenting ‘Be’ What Parenting ‘Is’?

Week 8 Embodied Experiences of Pregnancy in a Technological Age

Week 9 Giving Birth to Children and Mothers

Week 10 The Feminist Politics of Infant Feeding: Is ‘Breast Best’?

Spring Term

Week 11 Social and Cultural Politics of Adoption

Week 12 Timing Parenthood

Week 13 Who Manages Fertility? The Politics of Contraception

Week 14 Whose Body Is It Anyway? The Politics of Abortion

Week 15 Reproductive Disruptions: Infertility

Week 16 Reading Week

Week 17 Group Presentations Week

Week 18 IVF and Gamete Donation

Week 19 Genetics: Our Reproductive Futures?

Week 20 Surrogacy: Just Any Other Contract or the Dehumanisation of Women’s Reproductive Labour?

Summer Term

Two weeks of revision workshops and seminars.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the module students should have an understanding of:

  1. The significance of gender in shaping contemporary human reproduction, and being shaped by contemporary human reproduction.
  1. The diversity of gendered reproduction across time and space and the ways in which it is cross-cut by other social variables and identities such as social class, age, (dis)ability, ‘race’/ethnicity, sexuality.
  1. Key concepts in approaches to the politics and theory of generational reproduction in interdisciplinary feminist scholarship, in its engagement with sociological and political theory and popular culture.
  1. Key controversies in social life about who should reproduce, when and how, together with women’s and men’s own experiences of reproduction and parenting in diverse contexts.
  1. Constructions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ parenting, and how they are gendered.
  1. The main constraints and incentives that impinge on reproductive practices and the gender division of labour within them, and the changed forms that have emerged in the face of changes in reproductive technology, in women’s education, and women’s and men’s participation in labour markets in modern society, in comparative perspective.
  1. The fragmentation of parenthood, such that we can distinguish the genetic, gestational and social mother, and the genetic and social father, and the social and cultural implications.
  1. The complexities of reprogenetics, including the ethical tensions between seeking to enhance quality of life and erasing disability.
  1. The complexities of sharing reproductive capacities, including surrogacy and gamete donation.
  1. The interconnections between generational reproduction and ‘social reproduction’ in the more extended sense – the reproduction of social hierarchies and relations of power, and the formation and boundary-maintenance of social identities such as those based on class, ‘race’, ethnicity and nation.

Cognitive Skills

In the process of developing an advanced understanding of the substantive aspects of generational and social reproduction, students will also acquire the ability to:

  1. Assess critically competing identifications of and perspectives on the diverse forms of contemporary social and cultural relations of generational and social reproduction and parenting.
  1. Reflect critically on taken-for-granted assumptions about gender and reproduction.
  1. Locate, retrieve, process and evaluate a wide range of materials about parenting and social reproduction in (post)modern societies.
  1. Evaluate competing explanations and perspectives on the processes and outcomes of modes of reproduction and parenting, drawing on the above range of materials, including cultural representations, using appropriate argument and evidence.
  1. Make scholarly presentations verbal and written, on the social and cultural relations of generational and social reproduction and the issues surrounding them.

Teaching, Learning and Assessment Methods

The following learning and teaching methods are designed to equip students with an advanced understanding of substantive knowledge and cognitive skills relevant to generational and social reproduction:

  1. A framework of 18 lectures that establish the module’s outer limits and internal logic.
  1. Weekly seminars for structured discussions, including student-initiated and collaborative short presentations, on specific topics.

3. A group project running from mid-Autumn term, focussing on a chosen theme, to be presented during week 7 of the Spring term.

4. One formative, non-assessed essay and one formative piece of group project work.

  1. Self-directed individual and collaborative study in the library and on the internet, in preparation for seminars, projects and written work.
  1. Two weeks of teaching and learning dedicated to revision in Term 3.

Lectures

Lectures have been designed to provide an introduction to each week’s topic and an overview of some of the key concepts and issues at stake. They are intended to stimulate your interest and orient you for the core reading, and are certainly not all you would need to know about a topic. A handout for each lecture will be available from the module home-page from the weekend prior, for you to print out and bring to the lecture or access electronically during the lecture. This will include key ideas in order to limit the amount you have to write down at speed during the lecture; the intention is that you are then freer to listen to the lecture and annotate your handout with additional material in order to make it work for you. Transformations lectures have also been designed to include regular student participation, in order to engage and maintain your interest and to prevent the lecture becoming a passive transfer of information. Some students will choose to read the core reading/viewing/listening in advance of the lecture, and then perhaps return to them after the lecture for a second reading. Others will prefer to leave the core readings until after the lecture. If you miss a lecture for any reason then you can access the ‘bare bones’ from the online handout. It is important that lectures start on time so please be prompt.

Seminars

Seminar attendance is a compulsory requirement of your course and if you are unable to attend a seminar for any reason then you should e-mail your seminar tutor in advance to explain. Seminar registers are kept and form part of the University-wide procedures for monitoring student attendance (see Undergraduate Handbook for more details). Preparation for seminars is essential and comprises attending the lecture, completing the core reading, making notes on the core reading/viewing/listening and making notes in relation to the seminar questions posed. For particular seminars and as arranged in advance students may also need to prepare presentations before the seminar to give during the seminar, or complete other exercises. Seminars are designed to be highly participatory and you need to be prepared to play a full role. The seminar tutor serves as a guide to particular issues and to structure activities, but not to provide the main content. Students are reminded that they will need to bring to each seminar the relevant lecture notes, core reading and notes, and their module handbook. It is important that seminars start on time so please be prompt.

Summative Assessment Methods

(which measure learning outcomes and determine the final mark)

Taking account of any upper limit imposed by the University on the proportion of a student’s work that may be formally assessed outside conventional examinations, students on this module may choose one of the following:

  1. Answering three questions in a 3-hour, closed-book, written examination;
  1. Answering 2 questions in a 2-hour-closed-book, written examination AND submitting 1 piece of assessed work of 3000 words developed from the group project;
  1. Submitting 1 assessed essay of 3000 words AND 1 piece of assessed work of 3000 words developed from the group project.

Details of assessed project and essay work will be provided by week 10 of the Autumn term at the latest, on the module web-site. Please note that summative project and essay work is submitted anonymously; make sure your name is not in the document, or document file name.

Your attention is drawn to departmental procedures on submission, deadlines, penalties and extensions – see the Undergraduate Handbook for details. Please follow the full guidance in the Undergraduate Handbook and PSP about presentation, referencing etc.

Formative Work (used to provide feedback on your progress, completion is compulsory)

Please note that all formative work should be submitted to your seminar tutor at the start of your seminar in the week it is due. If you have a problem meeting the deadline then you must contact your seminar tutor about this before the deadline.

1)  Due in at the start of your seminar in week 7 (week beginning 11 November 2013):

A class essay of 2,000 words, the title to be chosen from the list below:

a)  Why should sociologists who are interested in gender also be interested in human reproduction?

b)  Critically evaluate explanations given in sociological, feminist and popular accounts of why women and men have children.

c)  What claims, if any, do the following groups make over women’s reproductive capacities, and how valid are their claims: male partners; extended family members; the nation-state?

d)  To what extent does femininity rely on motherhood and to what extent does masculinity rely on fatherhood?

e)  How is the prevailing concept of the good parent gendered?

You are encouraged to go beyond the UK where possible in answering your chosen question, and should always specify if your discussion is specific to a particular location.

A hard copy of your essay should be submitted to your seminar tutor, pages numbered and stapled and with your name on. The full title of your essay should be reproduced accurately and in full at the start. Please follow the full guidance in the Undergraduate Handbook and PSP about presentation, referencing etc.

In line with the University’s policy of providing feedback on formative work within 20 working days of receipt, work that is submitted on time will be returned with a mark and comments before the end of the Autumn term.

2)  Due in at the start of your seminar in week 17 (week beginning 18 February 2013)

A group submission of your project work (ie. one submission per group). If you use Powerpoint then submission is a hard copy print-out of your group’s slides with your notes, stapled and with your group members and topic named on the front. Note that time constraints may prevent you presenting all of your group work, but you should submit it all for comments. One person in the group needs to take responsibility for making the submission.

In line with the University’s policy of providing feedback on formative work within 20 working days of receipt, work that is submitted on time will be returned with group feedback before the end of the Spring term.

Core Reading/Viewing/Listening

Core readings are identified for each week and need to be read before the relevant seminar, and for some weeks there is also core viewing and/or listening. All the core readings are available electronically as well as in hard copy in the Library. During the seminar you should have access to your notes and to a printed or electronic copy of the core reading or, if that is not possible, very detailed notes. There are three types of electronic readings that are accessed via the Library: scanned in extracts from books; e-journal articles; and e-books. Other resources can be accessed directly from the internet using the link provided.

You will need Adobe Reader to access resources electronically, and you can download it free if you don’t already have it on your machine:

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html?promoid=DAFYK

Scanned in Extracts

These are chapters of books available via the Library’s dedicated site for e-resources for this module: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/search/extracts/so/so231

You will need to ensure that you are registered for the module via eMR in order to have access to electronic extracts, and you must also complete Web Sign-on. Then you simply look for the reference you require (they are arranged alphabetically by author’s surname). It will open as a pdf and the chapter follows on from the Copyright Notice. You can read it on screen but you will also need to print a copy to bring to the seminar or have screen access during the seminar, and you might also want to save a copy (for your own personal use only).

E-journal articles

The link provided will take you to the Library’s catalogue site for that e-journal. You will then need to select a database to access it through, checking that it has the relevant year. You will need to be logged in and then the database archive will open and you need to select the Vol. and/or No. of the journal and page down for the article. You can click to open the pdf, which may take a few seconds, but the interface and reliability does vary. It is recommended instead to save the pdf to your hard drive or data-stick (right click, select ‘save target as’, then choose a directory and give the file a meaningful name). You can then open the saved document, print it, search it etc.