Workshop 2 - NRT and gender dynamics
Workshop 2
NRT and gender
dynamics
Workshop co-ordinators: Laurence Tain and Marie Lesclingand
The aim of this workshop is to shed light on the links between NRT
and gender: How does the gender system contribute to the shaping of
assisted reproductive technologies? And in turn, how does technical
innovation modify the gender system?
Gender is addressed here as a social system that can be seen as a
whole, or which can be broken down into several analytical
aspects: Sexuation of the body, link between sexuality and
reproduction, sexual division between the productive and
reproductive spheres, asymmetries, inequalities, domination and
resistance between masculine and feminine. While reproductive
techniques already have a long history, they are developing today
in the context of a globalized society, involving trans-national
dissemination of norms and practices. Discussion will therefore
focus on both the invariants and the variations observed over time
and space between gender and ART.
More specifically, the aim is to pinpoint rigidity and change via
users' trajectories, practices, norms and representations of
knowledge. Can we identify a dominant social framework of gender,
an individual and/or collective gender "contract" that distributes
sexual characteristics and institutes a mainstream mode of
articulation between sexuality and reproduction and a hierarchy
between the sexes? If so, how does it contribute to the shaping of
innovation? Can we identify convergences, tension or paradoxes
between norms and gender, biological arguments, references from
"nature", and technical procedures? Is this gender system
reinforced, amplified or destabilized by ART practices on a global
scale? How does gender tie in with other social relationships? Are
we witnessing coproduction, coformation, coextensiveness of
inequality?
Attention will focus on analysis in terms of gender, not only with
respect to social frameworks, but also in relation to experiences,
practices and representations of actors, women, couples and medical
personnel.