Transformations: Gender, Reproduction and Contemporary

SocietyIntermediate Year

30 CATS3 Terms

Caroline Wrightc.wright@warwick.ac.uk

IntroductionTakes something apparently ordinary and routine –

having and bringing up children – and shakes it upReproduction generates anxiety and various

institutions seek to govern itMedia representations sensationalise reproduction Ordinary people are getting on with having and

raising children in increasingly diverse waysTransformations addresses changing practices and

discourses about reproductionMainly UK based but with some international

perspectivesInformed by feminist approachesOffers sociological insight into issues most of us will

deal with

Key QuestionsWhy do women have children? Why do men have children? Who needs children?Do we have a right to be parents? To adopt, to infertility treatment?How do narratives of class, ‘race’/ethnicity,

age, sexuality, (dis)ability inform ideas about who’s ‘fit’ to parent?

Why is late motherhood so frowned on?To what extent does femininity rely on

motherhood?What’s the dominant construction of ‘good

fathering’?Where does the ‘breast is best’ narrative leave

mothers who don’t want to or can’t breast-feed?

Parenting: GeneticGestationalSocialMitochondrial

Link between biological and social parenting can’t be assumed

Why does separation of the two generate such anxiety?

What do the new reproductive technologies mean?- are contraceptive technologies neutral or do they

re/produce wider social norms and inequalities?- what’s at stake in the abortion debate?- Is IVF a modern miracle or a usually unsuccessful

risk?- Does testing in pregnancy increase or decrease

pregnant women’s anxieties?- Is genetic testing a valuable application of science

or a Frankenstein-like horror?

PracticalitiesParticipatory style of teaching, including in

lectures, with structure and supportGroup project in term 2 culminating in 15-20

minute presentation to classGroup project is class work and lays

foundations for assessed work if you wantYou can choose how you are assessedAll core readings, viewings and listenings are

electronicHave a look online: http://

www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/sociology/staff/academicstaff/wrightc/home/teaching/transform

Ask current students

Thanks for listening…

Any questions?