Assisted reproductive technology (ART) makes babies and parents at once. Drawing on science and technology studies, feminist theory, and historical and ethnographic analyses of ART clinics, Charis Thompson explores the intertwining of biological reproduction with the personal, political, and technological meanings of reproduction. She analyzes the "ontological choreography" at ART clinics -- the dynamics by which technical, scientific, kinship, gender, emotional, legal, political, financial, and other matters are coordinated -- using ethnographic data to address questions usually treated in the abstract. Reproductive technologies, says Thompson, are part of the increasing tendency to turn social problems into biomedical questions and can be used as a lens through which to see the resulting changes in the relations between science and society. After giving an account of the book's disciplinary roots in science and technology studies and in feminist scholarship on reproduction, Thompson comes to the ethnographic heart of her study. She develops her concept of ontological choreography by examining ART's normalization of "miraculous" technology (including the etiquette of technological sex); gender identity in the assigned roles of mother and father and the conservative nature of gender relations in the clinic; the naturalization of technologically assisted kinship and procreative intent; and patients' pursuit of agency through objectification and technology. Finally, Thompson explores the economies of reproductive technologies, concluding with a speculative and polemical look at the "biomedical mode of reproduction" as a predictor of future relations between science and society.

Making Parents: The Ontological Choreography of Reproductive Technologies

This revised and updated edition provides not only simple, one-line definitions, but also entries that discuss the issues involved in, and alternative approaches to, the central concepts, theories and writings of sociology. It is a comprehensive reference for students of school to university level. For this edition, many new definitions have been added and existing ones updated where necessary. The range of entries is wide, from advertising to critical theory, from epistemology to flexible specialization and from Saussure to working-class conservatism. There are also useful cross-references and an updated bibliography to enhance the balance to this book.

Penguin Dictionary of Sociology

This essay argues that the material conditions of capitalist patriarchal societies are more integrally linked to institutionalized heterosexuality than they are to gender. Building on the critical strategies of early feminist sociology through the articulation of a materialist feminist theoretical framework, the author provides a critique of contemporary sex-gender theory. She argues that the heterosexual imaginary in feminist sociological theories of gender conceals the operation of heterosexuality in structuring gender and closes off any critical analysis of heterosexuality as an organizing institution. ? . . every sociological concept and thesis, as well as the overall patterning of these concepts and theses, is potentially open for reconsideration . . . With the emergence of feminist sociological theory, the critical emphases in sociology are strengthened by an insistence that sociological work be critical and change-oriented ... in an intensely reflexive way towards sociology itself (Lengermann and Niebrugge-Brantley 1990:318). We must produce a political transformation of the key concepts, that is of the concepts which are strategic for us (Wittig 1992:30). Feminist sociology, once at the vanguard of academic feminism, is showing signs of

The Heterosexual Imaginary: Feminist Sociology and Theories of Gender*

Cleaning house - new perspectives on households and economic-development

Preface Introduction: (Re)constructing the Categories of 'Race' and 'Sex': The Work of a Precursor - Danielle Juteau Part I 1. The Specific Characteristics of Racist Ideology 2. The Idea of Race and its Elevation to Autonomous Scientific and Legal Status 3. 'I know it's not nice, but...': The Changing Face of 'Race' 4. 'Wildcat' Immigration 5. The Rapacious Hands of Destiny Part II 6. Race and Nature: the System of Marks 7. Women and Theories about Society: the Effects on Theory of the Anger of the Oppressed 8. Sexism, a Right-wing Constant of any Discourse: a Theoretical Note 9. The Practice of Power and Belief in Nature: Part I The Appropriation of Women Part III 10. The Practice of Power and Belief in Nature: Part II The Naturalist Discourse 11. The Question of Difference 12. Herrings and Tigers: Animal Behaviour and Human Society 13. History, Nature and 'Materialism'

Racism, Sexism, Power and Ideology

Preface. Notes on contributors. 1. Feminism and Annette Kuhn and AnnMarie Wolpe 2. Patriarchy and relations of production Roisin McDonough and Rachel Harrison 3. Structures of patriarchy and capital in the family Annette Kuhn 4. Church, state, and family: the women's movement in Italy Lesley Caldwell 5. Sexual division of labour: the case of nursing Eva Gamarnikow 6. Modes of appropriation and the sexual division of labour: a case study from Oaxaca, Mexico Kate Young 7. Women and production: a critical analysis of some sociological theories of women's work Veronica Beechey 8. Domestic labour and Marx's theory of value Paul Smith 9. Women, sex and class Jackie West 10. The state and the oppression of women Mary McIntosh 11. Education and the sexual division of labour AnnMarie Wolpe

Feminism and materialism : women and modes of production

Is there anyone here from education

Much sociological work on the position of women in the educational system has been taken up with the problem of accounting for the difference in levels of attainment between boys and girls within educational institutions. To this end, a number of accounts have been given of the causes of this differences. Direct action has followed as a consequence, mainly in the USA where publishers, for example, with the possibility of being sued under Title Nine, are making efforts to expunge any form of sexism from textbooks. While such actions are commendable, clearly these steps will not in themselves effect a change in women’s position vis-a-vis the educational system. Sexism in education is not simply derived from the way in which culture is transmitted, but is a far more complex process. In this paper AnnMarie Wolpe examines some of the conventional approaches which ‘explain’ differential achievement between the sexes, and suggests that such approaches are derived from a ‘subjectivist’ position and hence can do no more than describe the processes at work within the educational system. To propose an alternative materialist problematic within which to think the terms of the relationship between women and the educational system is immediately to encounter difficulties arising from the underdeveloped character of work in this area. A necessary prerequisite of a feminist and materialist approach to education must be a full consideration of the implications of the sexual division of labour and the uneven and contradictory nature of the reproduction of capital. Only then is it possible to understand either the ways in which the educational system relates to transformations of the division of labour or the 291mechanisms by which subjects are reproduced and allocated in that division of labour. And it is only then that the question of the specificity of the position of women with regard to the educational system can be raised. Because the initial groundwork for such a project yet remains to be undertaken, the parameters within which the precise question of women may be considered can at present only be drawn in outline.

AnnMarie Wolpe

Papers

Feminism and materialism : women and modes of production

Is there anyone here from education

Sexual division of labour: the case of nursing

Feminism and Materialism: Women and Modes of Production

Feminism and Materialism