Transformations: Gender, Reproduction and Contemporary

SocietyIntermediate Year

30 CATS3 Terms

IntroductionTakes something apparently ordinary and routine

– having and bringing up children – and renders it strange

Reproduction generates anxiety and various institutions seek to govern it

Media representations sensationalise reproduction

Ordinary people are getting on with having and raising children in increasingly diverse ways

Transformations addresses changing practices and discourses about reproduction

Mainly UK based but with some international perspectives

Informed by feminist approaches

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: GeneticGestationalSocial

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?

PracticalitiesBe prepared for a lot of participation, in

lectures and seminars, with structure and support

Group project in term 2 culminating in 15-20 minute presentation to class

Group project lays foundations for assessed work

Standard choice of assessmentAll core readings 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?