Sperm and Egg: A Love Story

Allow yourself to mentally fast forward into the future. You are 30 years old and married, you and your partner have steady careers and money to spend. After much contemplation, you both agree that it is time to start having children. Two weeks later you are staring at a computer screen, laughing giddily with your partner as you both pick out characteristics for your “Designer Baby”. It is just perfect, a baby that is free of disease, physical imperfections, and looks just the way you always imagined a baby of yours would look. After all, you deserve it right?

                Although the science of legitimate designer babies still has a long ways to go, reading Outsourcing the Womb by France Winddance Twine has led me to believe that the impending phenomenon is not too far off in the future. The author’s discourse on the ever-growing reproductive marketplace inspired me to contemplate concepts such as surrogacy and reproductive material donation like never before. It is something that has never made its’ way to the forefront of my mind and yet I can’t say I wouldn't be tempted to cheat the reproduction system myself. I can confidently predict both advancement and turmoil when it comes to the future of the commodification of reproduction. The evidence is all there. The reproductive market place is booming, and where there is money to be made you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be strenuous efforts toward scientific advancements in the field. Not only can you buy eggs and sperm but Twine informs us that, “class, education, gender, and sexual orientation play a role in the valuation of eggs.” (Twine, 32) Individuals looking to buy can select genetic materials based on, “age, skin color, height, hair color, eye color, body shape, and perceived racial or ethnic origin.” (Twine, 33) Parents can also choose to screen embryos created via in vitro fertilization (IVF) for sex or diseases, a process known as pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. All that seems to be left is to figure out how to determine what genes are needed to create a super smart, beautiful, athletic baby. What I failed to realize, at least at first, is that skin color is a form of symbolic capital that has exchange value. Colorism and racism are undoubtedly at work in this new marketplace, yet solutions do not seem to be in sight. Designer babies are representative of a very stigmatized cultural mindset, yet allow couples to choose race. That seems like a pretty open-ended opportunity. 

Speaking of choice, today, women don’t even have to carry their own pregnancies. In fact they can outsource their pregnancies to other countries! Surrogacy, the love child of capitalism and utilitarianism, is on the fast track to becoming the next symptom of the American Dream. Little girls in impoverished nations around the World will look to their parents and say, “When I grow up I want to live in a big house in America and have nine children and not have to give birth to a single one.” A dramatic scene, but one that is supported by Twine’s case study on India and its involvement in the surrogacy market. Cheap, legal, and supervised: reproductive laborers in India are oppressed and highly useful in this growing market. Twine implores the reader to think about why surrogacy generates anxieties, controversy, and ambivalence, yet remains legal. The answer lies in the history of this country. From the very beginning the United States’ middle name has been commodification. Consider the demise of the Beaver thanks to the Fur Trade, the American Bison, water supply in the Midwest, the Timber industry, Mountain Top removal; these are just a handful of examples that associate themselves with a country that has always been focused on moving forward and making money. Conservation movements have been but ants under the heavy boot of America’s capitalist one track mind. The reproductive market is no different. In a world where women sell sex for money and people sell their organs, it is only logical that we have started to rent out our wombs. This has led to me to conclude that surrogacy and the “designer baby” craze are here to stay; and one has to admit it is undeniably a remarkable medical achievement.

The problem stems from the ethics. There are a lot of unanswered questions both morally and socially when dealing with the reproductive marketplace. This is highly understandable seeing that it just started to gain momentum in the last two decades. Twine efficiently calls our attention to class and racial controversies. Class and colorism matter in consumer choice, and the women who participate as surrogates tend to be ethnically diverse or lower class. As it is with any major market, there are those who benefit and those who are oppressed.

In addition, problems are arising that were never there before. There are cases of sperm donors fathering dozens of children and babies that are starting to grow up and demand to know who their biological parents are. There is even a new series on MTV all about this new generation of offspring: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/11/25/generation-cryo-mtv-s-new-show-about-sperm-donor-babies-finding-half-siblings.html

As time progresses, there is going to be a lot of tough decisions made about where to go next with this growing market. Should donor offspring have the right to information or should donors be allowed to forever remain obsolete in the child’s life? For a long time the problems that arise are going to have to be addressed case by case. Twine tells the reader about the controversy surrounding “Baby M”: biological child of a surrogate and William Stern who was simultaneously the adoptive father as well. When the surrogate refused to relinquish the baby for adoption, trials ensued. “Prior to this high-profile custody battle, few Americans were aware of this technology and it was relatively uncommon.” (Twine, 5) The “Baby M” Trial is just one in a series of controversies that are sure to continue to develop as the reproductive marketplace continues to expand.

Twine digs deep into the implications of race and class and their connection to the reproductive global market. Perhaps another vehicle for oppression and tension, it also provides a window of opportunity. No one knows the future of our society, but I believe it lies with the creation of the super baby. As time goes on society is bound to become more aware of the controversy that surrounds this new field of discovery and hopefully appropriate action will be taken. I implore those who read this to integrate surrogacy and the reproductive marketplace into conversation, for it is only with discourse that one can raise awareness and create change. Perhaps society can create opportunity and equality in places where there is room for controversy. 

The Hyper-Sexualized Female Athlete: Pros and Cons

http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=93

               The 1990s and beyond are years that sport consumer culture calls the post Title-IX demographic. Title IX protects people from discrimination based on sex in education programs and activities that utilize government funding. If you would like to learn more about Title-IX I provided the link above. Ultimately Title IX created a new demographic: a consumer culture that was entirely made up by women who wanted to go above and beyond gender stereotypes and limitations. Advertisers tapped this demographic by channeling sports and integrating athletic women into their promotional culture. Female athletes however are not depicted the same way that male athletes are; they are often hyper-sexualized and effeminized. However, just because these iconic females are often seen wearing a swimsuit rather than playing a sport, it does not mean that this method of advertising is inherently bad for feminism. I believe that marketing the female athlete in a sexual manner appeals to both male and female audience. Her (the iconic female athlete’s) naked body to me does not say, “Take me because I am weak”, it says, “look at me because I am strong”.

                In order to avoid appearing masculine, female athletes are often subjected to methods of advertisement that emphasize femininity. Lately that means the representation of female athletes in poses that could be labeled as pornographic. This “babe factor” not only calls attention to their sexuality, it calls attention to their heterosexuality. To me it seems that iconic female athletes often run the risk of appearing “dyke-ish”; for example attention can be called to the plethora of female athletes that often pose nude for articles in Sports Illustrated. The women in the picture below are all famous professional athletes and yet they are depicted in nothing but PAINTED ON swim suits. I do not know about you, but Alex Morgan in this picture doesn’t really look like she plays soccer for the US National Team.

The picture is definitely sexualized, but is it overtly wrong? Studies discussed in Built to Win by Heywood and Dworkin revealed that images of female athletes, when shown to fifth through tenth graders, inspired conversation that both, “reinforced and challenged traditional gender ideals.” (Heywood and Dworkin, 19) The authors suggest that, “perhaps it is now more possible for young boys to fantasize about the potential physical protection of women. Perhaps they can expect women to fight back by day on the school grounds, at frat parties, and at the dinner table someday.” (Heywood and Dworkin, 19) More studies reveal new common opinion is that athletic bodies are now perceived as more attractive than anorexic bodies. “Suddenly the athletic body has become an ideal for both sexes, problematizing traditional gender codes in the popular imagination.” (Heywood and Dworkin, 81) It seems to me that Americans are starting to respect and admire female strength, which is a big step away from the frail and powerless woman that has so defined the gender binary system for hundreds of years. This is important because if males and females are both considered attractive when they are strong, where is difference between men and women? This takes away from the binary, and that seems like a pretty revolutionary concept. Revealing the naked body of the iconic female athlete to the public is perhaps not as dis-empowering as some are inclined to think. Her muscular and fit appearance communicates strength and independence to the viewer. Perhaps it is through this method of advertising that female athletes are able to slowly change how men think about women but through a venue that men are unlikely to protest against.

Built to Win by Heywood and Dworkin introduces two parties of thought in regards to the hyper-sexualization of female athletes. They introduce camp one: the old-school feminists and camp two: the new age feminists.  “For camp 1 the position seems to be: the media is always bad, the product of evil capitalist patriarchy, and its representation of women is the worst” and camp 2 the position seems to be, “the media is the air we live and breathe, we manipulate it for our own ends, and aren’t we so clever and aren’t we hot babes?” (Heywood and Dworkin, 78)  Even though sexualizing female athletes in the media seems to make the baby boomer feminists uneasy, it is my generation, the “MTV generation”, that has embraced the naked athletic body. To me it seems that by advertising female athletes as (hetero)sexual, it has allowed them to be athletes and to gain attention for it. So many of these naked images can communicate, “power, self-possession, and beauty, NOT sexual access.” (Heywood and Dworkin, 80)

                The danger zone lies within the individualistic nature of the iconic female. It is the athlete who acts to further her own personal gain that threatens the nature of new age feminism, not the nude pictures. If SHE uses her fame and attention to empower women and give back to the activists who got her to that point, then she is powerful. However, I believe that if she does not do this then she has conformed, and it is within conformity that oppression exists. “Real Women” do not have the same opportunity to instigate social change that the iconic female has access to. “Iconic female athletes offer a sense of possibility and belonging to a world where women aren’t always on the sidelines cheering for somebody else, where they are active agents in the world and people are cheering them.” (Haywood and Dworkin, 24) This female athlete, if allowed to be, can be a resource in the “ongoing struggles for social justice.” (Haywood and Dworkin, 24)

I firmly believe that sexualizing the female athlete means sexualizing power, and when sexualizing power it is made accessible to everyone. “The athletic body, when coded as athletic, can redeem female sexuality and make it visible as an assertion of female presence, and make that presence amenable to a range of sexualities” (Haywood and Dworkin, 83) The strong iconic female cannot and will not be reduced to just “a piece of ass”. She owns her body and she knows what she is doing when she stands in front of the camera naked. She is not naïve, rather she is exhibiting control. She does not allow herself to be purely an object for men to fantasize over; she becomes an icon for women and men alike to strive to embody.