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Article Discussing The Increasing Use and Societal Acceptance of Surrogacy

30 replies

UtopiaPlanitia · 16/03/2023 16:07

I found this to be a fascinating article and thought I would share it.

Surrogacy and the rise of the female patriarch
thecritic.co.uk/issues/march-2023/surrogacy-and-the-rise-of-the-female-patriarch/

‘If a single act could exemplify the one per cent woman treating a less-privileged woman just as badly as men have treated women throughout history, it is this. No other form of exploitation is so sex-specific, so central to the distortion of male-female power relations. If there is such a thing as a female patriarch, it is the rich woman who outsources and appropriates female reproductive labour…

…patriarchy is not about policing sexual mores; it is about the control of resources.
This understanding ought to be basic feminism. However, a combination of new reproductive technologies and calls for gender liberation have turned the analysis on its head. It is as though there was never anything wrong with patriarchy’s objectives, just with its methods.’

OP posts:
CryptoFascistMadameCholet · 16/03/2023 22:08

This is really is an excellent piece.

I think we’ve had threads on both the pro surrogacy articles cited?

nepeta · 16/03/2023 17:01

UtopiaPlanitia · 16/03/2023 16:46

The language I’ve seen used in newspaper articles etc around surrogacy is very depersonalised, shockingly so to my mind. I presume this is to reduce any potential discomfort or guilt the person(s) paying for the baby might feel and perhaps to try and reduce any chances of the surrogate mother developing an attachment to the child (to keep it present in her mind at all times that she’s considered to be providing a service).

I have seen some similar takes on prostitution and OnlyFans etc. where a journalist writes about those who work in these fields in sex-neutral terms and even tries to post an equal number of examples of men and women selling their bodies (which hugely distorts the numbers of men and women who are selling their bodies).

The commercialisation of the female body is necessary in both surrogacy and prostitution, but remembering that it is the female body makes that difficult, so now we are sold the idea that both activities are empowering for women etc.

But, in fact, both of those activities are directly useful for the male sex. Yes, rich women can exploit poor women for surrogacy, but so can rich men, as we have read in recent years.

BernardBlacksMolluscs · 16/03/2023 16:52

The idea of an economic class of women who have to sell their babies (and regardless of genetics, if a woman gestates a baby, it’s her baby) is so dystopian

Original poster
UtopiaPlanitia · 16/03/2023 16:46

The language I’ve seen used in newspaper articles etc around surrogacy is very depersonalised, shockingly so to my mind. I presume this is to reduce any potential discomfort or guilt the person(s) paying for the baby might feel and perhaps to try and reduce any chances of the surrogate mother developing an attachment to the child (to keep it present in her mind at all times that she’s considered to be providing a service).

OP posts:
BernardBlacksMolluscs · 16/03/2023 16:20

Such a good article

To elevate women — to grant them true equality — one must disassociate them from pregnancy and birth, activities for the lower orders. Feminists are no longer compelled to defend women as a group uniquely vulnerable to reproductive exploitation because such a definition of women no longer exists. And yet, the exploitation still happens. The babies are still born, to someone whose name denotes neither personhood (woman) nor a relationship (mother).