Woman Studies: Reproduction Policies and Practices

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Masculine ideologies and impairment of our understanding of reproduction as a biological process

Masculine ideologies about gender have incredibly impaired people’s understanding of reproduction as a biological process. As Mikkola notes, “most people ordinarily think that sex and gender are coextensive: women are human females while men are human males” (Para.1). Over the years, feminists have either contended or widely failed to strike a common goal in matters to do with sex and gender. Literally, the term gender, as often used in the social contexts, means either women or men. On the other hand, sex, as categorically deployed in the biological perspectives, refers to men or women. Some biological determinists such Geddes and Thomson are to the opinion that metabolic states are chiefly responsible for behavioral, social, and psychological differences observed among people.

They argue based on how “Women supposedly conserve energy (being ‘anabolic’), which makes them passive, conservative, sluggish, stable and uninterested in politics” (Mikkola Para.6). On the other hand, they argue, “Men expend their surplus energy (being ‘katabolic’), which makes them eager, energetic, passionate, variable and, thereby, interested in political and social matters” (Mikkola Para.6). These arguments exclude gender determination from biological process. They rather look at the issue from masculine perspectives. Because of the identified masculine characteristics, men stand out right and capable to execute political roles based on the intrinsic biological construction of this trait within them. As Mikkola posits, considering this frame of reasoning, “It would be inappropriate to grant women political rights, as they are not worth getting such rights. It would also be futile since women, based on their biology, would not show interest in exercising their political rights” (Para. 8). This masculine ideology, based on metabolic differences, substantially deter people’s perceptions about gender characteristics as being a result of biological processes.

Feminists’ research on conception and sex differentiation, however, has led to the creation of better paradigms and models for each biological process of reproduction. According to Wassrman, “In humans, it is the presence or absence of Y chromosome that determines manliness” (Allen 2). This perhaps gives, a better explanation of how a male or a female offspring comes about from biological perspectives, the paradigm saw the female development as a byproduct of passiveness of the Y chromosome. In fact, as Allen observes, “A 1973 biology textbook discusses sex determination without mentioning the possibility of femaleness” (3). People viewed female development as a passive process. Hence, the genetics of development never bothered about it. “Rather, it seemed logical and easier to try to identify the gene for manliness from the Y chromosome since it conferred an attribute that was easily measurable” (Allen 4). Consequently, conducting studies concerning the masculine gender (man), development stood as a more appealing and crucial endeavor.

Early 1990s saw the discovery of SRY. Allen points out how “…the discovery of SRY gratified the expectations created by the dominant Y model…reinforcing it substantially” (5). The written bundles of articles indicated a breakthrough in the sex determination and differentiation studies. However, all these studies recorded and detailed the masculine gender development while negating to provide any information on the ‘passive gender’. Based on arguments, this breakthrough only served to reinforce the earlier model of metabolic states differentiation of genders. Was there nothing to learn about female development?

Despite the existence of masculine-focused paradigms for explaining sex development and differentiation process, a growing body of knowledge documents developmental pathways for both genders in an active way. With the inputs of the research on gender differentiation and determination from feminists, these pathways stand out as parallel. However, the late 1990s biology textbooks retain an earlier version of masculine ideologies in gender determination and differentiation. As a way of example, Raven and Johnson stipulates, “if the embryo is a male, it will have a Y chromosome with a gene whose product converts the indifferent gonads into testes. In females, who lack a Y chromosome, this gene and the protein it encodes are absent…the gonads become ovaries” (Allen 7). Emergence of femaleness revealed here lacks a certain trait that is present in the masculine gender. Consequently, one can describe females based on accounts of absence of such traits in the masculine gender. Hence, the study of their developmental process was not necessary.

Modern paradigms postulate that the observable differences among different gender solely rely on the evident differences in the male and female gametes. These differences are evident right from the onset of the fertilization process. Priory, sperms appeared as, not only active, but also competitive as compared to eggs, which people viewed as passive. Examining the roles of the eggs and the sperms reveals the vitality of an active involvement of the two cells for successful fertilization (Allen 8). According to Keller, “feminists biologists have recognized how rigid cultural distinctions between male and females can interfere with scientific objectivity by layering cultural expectations about masculinity and feminist onto biological data concerning sexes, or even onto biological systems seen as analogous to sexes” (30). In fact, it proves hard to raise alarms that every person has certain intrinsic constructions about his or her preconceived perceptions about gender and sex. Those biologists who predominantly live in a world with systems embedded on gender associations or sex, therefore, have the task of incorporating subtle strategies to ensure the elimination of such preconceptions. A more rigorous approach would entail absolute elimination of the perceptions of masculinity dominance while people approach issues entangling gender and sex. As the feminists claim, existence of one gender is equally essential for the purpose of the existence of the other.

Population control and eugenics

Population control policies and eugenics ideologies in both pro- and anti-natalist forms have a close connection in the states that promote and practice each. The United States between 1910 and 1930 and Singapore in 1984 practiced eugenics as a methodology that proved vital for the improvement of the society through science. Petchesky defines eugenics as “the concept of selective breeding in humans to achieve improved genetic qualities that will strengthen and improve the gene pool” (23). Eugenics concerns itself with the prevention of transmission of negative genes thought as a grand threat to the existence of the human race. Most of its proponents concur that the most crucial human trait is intelligence that they can control through selective breeding of human beings. However, protagonists who are essentially antiracists of this method of population regulation claim that it bases itself on racist grounds.

Population policies focus on the regulation of population through the provision or deprival of incentives such as extended maternity leaves, job preferences for those bearing children in accordance with the aims of an established population regulation policy among others. However, eugenics concerns itself with the production of better human species. Like many legalized child birth controls, it aims at ensuring the rationalization of population, concepts of eugenics deployed in Singapore and the United States had similar intents focusing much on ensuring the reproduction of more productive human population.

In the United States, the 1920s compulsory sterilization policy perhaps well portrayed “two-sided character of eugenics as a means of social sex control” (Petchesky 45). The law advocated for the sterilization of individuals found to possess a hereditary illness including insanity and feeblemindedness. Despite the hefty argument that the decision on which a candidate qualified for sterilization did not rely on racial foundations or economic status, scholarly evidence shows that wide and discriminatory perceptions on who qualified as insane or feebleminded. Taylor reckons that “economically dependent men and women were three times as likely to undergo sterilization as those who were more prosperous” (138). Higher-ranking members of the work force were rarely sterilized compared to the unskilled workers whom people regarded as insane and or feebleminded. Despite the argument that the number of sterilizations conducted among Latinos was in proportion to their numbers in terms of those who exhibited feebleminded traits, according to Taylor “Latinos were more likely as whites to qualify as feebleminded” (139).

With these disparities, it is arguable that the objectives of the population control policies and eugenics more often than not coincide in many ways. As Taylor notes, “during the depression, proponents of sterilization talked more about preventing the feeblemindedness from placing a burden on taxpayers than about preventing the transmission of genetic defects”(142). In addition, young girls, based on their enhanced sexual involvement in activities, their young age, and or poverty stood out as incompetent mothers, hence, subtle candidates for sterilization. This is directly congruent with population control policies, which encourage delayed marriages in an endeavor to reduce the number of births before menopause. The focus of population control policies determines the concepts of ethical parenthood. The poor people lie in the category of the bad parents. More often, they carry the blame of putting more pressure on national budgets. This is perhaps holds since the poor have more children than the rich even today. Similar to early 1930s American experience with eugenics approaches, population control policies target this group of the economically incapacitated people.

In 1965, Singapore had a population growth rate of 2.5 percent with a population amounting to 1887000 (Palen 3). There was, thus, the need for a remedy for bringing population growth to control. This saw the establishment of Singapore Family Planning and Population Board (SFPPBO). The government initiated the aims of attaining the goals of two child family as a strategy that would, by 2030, end up resulting to a zero population growth. Mass media campaigns so launched addressed the problem of rapid population growth, chiefly focusing on spreading the disadvantages associated with large families.

Palen posits, “To further reduce the population in 1970, the government introduced legislations to encourage virtually cost-free abortion and sterilization” (4). Equally crucial was the establishment of disincentives of fertility. The then prime minister linked the limitation to continued homogeneous existence of productive workforce to an appropriate eugenic combination of genes of parents who possessed the dual combination of the undesired traits- escalated fertility and low education. Genetics, in the prime minister’s view, “increasingly determined who will constitute the nation’s future leadership. To provide a dynamic and stable society, it was necessary for Singapore’s most educated women to have more children” (Palen 4). Arguably, these educated women emerged as the rich women in the island nation.

In 1983, the prime minister Lee Kan Yew placed a warning that “the eugenic quality of the nation was declining since less educated women were having more children than well educated mothers” (Palen 4). The repercussions of this warning were the enactment of two population control policies: “sterilization and graduate mums scheme” (Palen 7). The graduate mum’s scheme conferred educated women having three or more children immense state benefits including tax deductions and admission opportunities to institutions of higher learning among others. Mothers possessing “less than 0- level education (high school)” (Palen 7) could not enjoy such benefits.

The second eugenic reasoning: instigated population control policy introduced in 1984. It provided grants amounting to US. $ 4,400 for sterilization between the low-income earner and low educated family members. In case an individual reversed the sterilization decision, he/she returned this grant with an interest of 10% discounted on compound interest basis. This policy has suffered a massive downplay today. However, it depicts immense similarities with today’s population reduction policies, which have faced hefty scholarly criticisms like discriminatory in terms of economical endowment and social status of target groups. Therefore, based on the afore-made discussion, the issue of population control and eugenics stands out as a broad subject. While one can have as many children as he/she wished, ranging from zero to infinity, there is a need to regulate the rate of birth. Therefore, policies need to be in place to persuade people to give birth and or to limit the number of children that one can have based on the state of the country’s population from where he/she comes.

Works Cited

Allen, Caitilyn. Is It A Boy! Gender Expectations Intrude On The Study Of Sex Determination. Gender Expectations and Sex Determination 3.2 (1998): 1-10.

Keller, Francis. Reflection on Science and Gender. New heaven: Yale University Press, 1985. Print.

Mikkola, Mari. Feminist Perspectives on Sex and Gender:The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2008. Web.

Palen, John. Fertility And Eugenics: Singapore’s Population Policies. Population and Policy Review 5.3 (1986):3-14.

Petchesky, Rosalind. Abortion and Women’s Choice. Boston: North Eastern University Press, 1984. Print.

Taylor, Molly. Saving Babies And Sterilizing Mothers: Eugenics and Welfare Politics In The Inter War United States. Social Politics 1.1 (1997):137-152.

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Woman Studies: Reproduction Policies and Practices

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