CentreLGS Health and Masculinity Workshop

Author Meets Readers: Cynthia Daniels’ Exposing Men: the Science and Politics of Male Reproduction (OUP 2006)

Friday 9 November 2007 @ University of Westminster

Centre members Julie McCandless, Sally Sheldon and Michael Thomson, along with Imogen Goold, Jonathan Ives, Emily Jackson and Therese Murphy responded to key themes underpinning Cynthia Daniel’s 2006 monograph Exposing Men: The Science and Politics of Reproduction (OUP). There were 19 participants involved in this event, which addressed the issues of how legal concepts may be transported or understood between jurisdictions, the methodologies employed in masculinities research (with a particular focus on empirical and ethnographic work) and the engendering of gametes.

The workshop stimulated plans for a further workshop on reproduction and regulation which will consider the impact of the new Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, to take place at Keele in Spring 2009 organised by Marie Fox, Sally Sheldon, Michael Thomson and Stephen Wilkinson.

Download Programme

Abstract by Cynthia Daniels:

The focus of my talk will be to explore the ways in which ideals of masculinity inform science, policies and laws related to male reproduction. Such ideals, I argue, distort our understanding of men’s relationship to human reproduction and have led as well to a profound neglect of men’s reproductive health.  I advance a concept of ‘reproductive masculinity’ as a paradigmatic set of assumptions about men’s relationship to human procreation.  These consist of four interrelated beliefs: that men are secondary to women in biological reproduction; that men are inherently virile; that the male reproductive system is less vulnerable to the harms of the outside world; and that men are more distant from the children they father. This paradigm functions as a ‘cultural lens’ through which we perceive both male bodies and male reproductive health.

Gender equity requires a questioning of these core assumptions and a concurrent rethinking of the concept of masculine privilege to recognize the price men pay for such privilege.

Questions for Collective Discussion:

• How do we understand ‘sexual difference’ in the context of reproductive biology? How does the exploration of masculinity dislodge, disrupt or transform assumptions regarding the reproductive division of labor between men and women?
• What theoretical concepts might be central to a rethinking of reproductive rights and responsibilities for both men and women?
• How might concepts such as bodily integrity, self-sovereignty, autonomy, commodification and choice travel across national boundaries and legal systems?
• How does the inclusion of men in political struggles around reproductive rights change our understanding of reproductive rights and responsibilities?
• What methods are most appropriate to the exploration of issues of male and female reproduction and the achievement of gender equity?
• How do we think about the concept of masculine privilege?
• How does work in the field of reproduction impact our understanding of gender equality in other spheres of life?

CYNTHIA R. DANIELS

Associate Professor, received her Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (1984). In addition to Exposing Men, she is also the author of At Women's Expense: State Power and the Politics of Fetal Rights (Harvard University Press, 1993) and co-editor of Homework: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives on Paid Labor at Home (University of Illinois, 1989).

She has also authored: "Shifting Gender Paradigms: Johnson Controls, Fetal Rights and the Politics of Protectionism," Policy Studies Review (Winter 91-92), "Fetal Interventions: Biomedical Issues in Maternal/Fetal Politics," Medicine Unbound: The Human Body and the Limits of Medical Interventions, R.Blank and A. Bonnicksen, eds., Vol. III in Emerging Issues in Biomedical Policy series. (Columbia University Press, 1993), "No Place Like Home," Feminist Frameworks: Alternative Theoretical Accounts of the Relations Between Men and Women, 3rd edition, Jaggar & Rothenberg, eds. (McGraw Hill, 1992), "Gender Difference, Fetal Rights and the Politics of Protectionism," and From Abortion to Reproductive Freedom, M.Fried, ed. (South End Press, 1990) ,

Professor Daniels has previously taught at Harvard University (Social Studies) and at the University of Hawaii (Women's Studies and Political Science) and at Northeastern University (Political Science). She has been the recipient of fellowships from the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College, the American Association of University Women and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation.