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Shortlisted for the Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness Book Prize 2021
Growing numbers of women around the world are now accessing social egg freezing: a fertility extension technology which is enabling some women to extend their fertility and reproductive timelines when faced with age-related fertility decline. This book explores the accounts and experiences of some of the pioneering users of this technology in the UK and the USA.
Drawing on theories and concepts across medical sociology and parenting culture studies, as well as literature from demography, anthropology, law, and bioethics, this book examines women’s motivations and experiences of social egg freezing in the context of debates surrounding reproductive choice and delayed motherhood. The book also delves into the broader sociological questions raised by this technology in relation to the gendered burden of appropriately timed parenthood, the medicalisation of women’s bodies in the reproductive domain and the further entrenchment of the geneticisation of society. It also considers the sexual politics underpinning the timing of parenthood, relationship formation and progression, and the way in which reproductive and parenting ideals, values and expectations can come in to conflict with the biological and relational realities of women’s lives.
Price: $33.99
Pages: 224
Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
Imprint: Emerald Publishing Limited
Series: Emerald Studies in Reproduction, Culture and Society
Publication Date:
05 September 2019
ISBN: 9781787564848
Format: Paperback
BISACs:
SOCIAL SCIENCE / Women's Studies, Medical sociology, HEALTH & FITNESS / Fertility & Infertility, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Disease & Health Issues
Baldwin's book draws from an exploratory sociological research study which explored the accounts of 31 female users of "social egg-freezing". Her cohort was comprised of women who were either about to undergo social egg freezing or had attempted or completed the process. The term "social egg freezing" signals the socially constituted nature of this technology and demonstrates how women's use of egg freezing as a form of fertility extension and genetic conservation was inherently socially situated. She investigates the way in which users of this technology determine and negotiate their mothering desires, which are mediated and constrained not only by wider socio-political and market contexts but also by their intimate encounters with (non)reproductive partners. Baldwin reveals pressures and burdens that reproductive technology can place upon women to draw upon and navigate these technologies in the pursuit of greater reproductive choice and control and in the process of family building.
Kylie Baldwin is Senior Lecturer in Medical Sociology at De Montfort University where she is part of the Centre for Reproduction Research. Her research explores the emergence and use of novel technologies concerned with fertility extension, fertility monitoring and genetic conservation. She has a particular interest in reproductive ageing and older motherhood.
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. Contemporary Debates in Social Egg Freezing
Chapter 3. Timing Motherhood
Chapter 4. Performing Parenthood
Chapter 5. Motivations for Social Egg Freezing
Chapter 6. The Experience of Freezing Eggs for Social Reasons
Chapter 7. Negotiating Parenthood: Men, Intimate Relationships and Childbearing
Chapter 8. Conclusion
