The Business of Fertility

Until reading Outsourcing the Womb by France Winndance Twine I thought surrogacy was a generally accepted way to have a child; I never even considered how corrupt it could be. This got me thinking about all the options people with fertility problems have to get pregnant. I do not know much about fertility treatments but Outsourcing the Womb has made me develop an interest in the world of fertility. The book gave some background on the process of surrogacy and in this discussed briefly the role of sperm donors and egg donors. I discovered that about 7.3 million Americans are infertile, which makes up around 12 percent of the population. The role of different social classes gives a lot of background to what fertility treatments certain people can get. Although everyone is looking for the most effective fertility treatment, only some can truly afford them. I am interested in examining how affordable and effective different treatments are.

Surrogacy: The role of a surrogate is to carry a baby for an intended parent. In vitro fertilization, which is when fertilization happens outside of the womb, is most common in our modern culture. The egg and sperm often belong to the intended parents if possible, but sperm and egg donors can be involved too. Surrogacy is typically a very costly process and therefore is more common among the upper-middle class. The problem with this is that the option of surrogacy is not available to everyone, leading to the outsourcing of surrogacy. Many countries, and some states in America, have banned surrogacy, but some that have not present opportunities for cheaper surrogates. Many people will travel to countries such as India, where women are willing to be surrogate mothers for a much lower price and where the medical care is respectable.

Fertility Drugs: I have heard of fertility drugs before but did not know what they were specifically for or how well they worked. These drugs can come in pill form or can be injected and they help to induce ovulation. They are typically pretty low cost and are sometimes effective, making them a good first choice for people with fertility problems. The problem I see with fertility drugs are the possible side effects. The shot produced some of the worst side effects including premature deliveries and formations of ovarian cysts. Although the shots are a bit more effective than the pills, the side effects, in my opinion, seem to outweigh benefits.

Egg and Sperm Donors: Donor sperm and eggs are used in a few different fertility treatments. For treatments requiring donor sperm, the price is typically low, whereas treatments using donor eggs can cost anywhere from $15,000 to $30,000. It is also a more invasive process to donate eggs than to donate sperm. Egg and sperm donations can be used in surrogacy, in vitro fertilization, and artificial insemination. Artificial insemination is when donor sperm is injected directly into the woman’s uterus. It is fairly inexpensive but usually requires multiple tries to actually work. Not just anyone can be a sperm or egg donor, there are certain guidelines and requirements to donate. I found a website that gave me a lot of good information on sperm and egg donation and all its uses, which can be found here.

All of these treatment options come at a cost whether it is a monetary cost or a lasting physical effect. We also see that many of these fertilization treatments increase the chances of having multiple births, such as having twins, or triplets. The controversy over fertility treatments is immense. In terms of surrogacy, there was a huge lawsuit over Baby M. This was a case that happened in New Jersey in 1986. In this instance the surrogate was the biological mother of the baby, and she had signed a contract agreeing to give up the baby to its biological father and intended mother. The problem came when the child was born and the surrogate decided she wanted to keep the baby. The trial was over who would get custody of the baby, the biological mother, or the biological father. A different case involving in vitro fertilization had to do with issues of age discrimination. A couple was seeking in vitro fertilization after failing to get pregnant for three years. The woman was 37 years old, and national guidelines state that women up to the age of 39 should be funded for this treatment. However when she tried to get funding, her local primacy care trust (PCT) refused to pay saying they do not fund women over the age of 34. Issues like this are not uncommon because despite national guidelines, local PCT are in fact allowed to set their own restrictions.

Another major issue we see with fertility treatments is involving money. People can be paid good money for being a surrogate or for donating eggs or sperm. If someone is really struggling for money and they are offered double their salary to be a surrogate it is difficult for many women to refuse. There are surrogates out there who claim to do it just because they love being pregnant and think everyone should be able to have their own child, but some are in the business because they ran out of options and need the money. The monetary incentive for donating eggs and sperm is just as enticing, and although it pays less than surrogacy, it is an easier process, especially for sperm donation. 

The problem I am seeing is that the fertility revolves around money. If you have enough money you have better chances of getting the fertility treatments that would best suit you. But what if you desperately want a child of your own and just can't afford the treatment options? People will go to desperate measures for something as important as having a child that is your own, even if it means someone else is getting ripped off along the way. Other people are going to extreme lengths just to make money and they may turn to doing something that they are not fully comfortable with doing, such as being a surrogate or donating eggs/sperm. The option of fertility treatments is very necessary, and we should be doing more to help people afford the proper treatment for them. 

The Plight of the Modern American Mother

Mothers in America are put under a great deal of pressure to do whatever is best for their children, an expectation that seems impossible to meet. In our patriarchal society, women, especially mothers, have less opportunity than men to accomplish any goals they may have. Mothers are expected to balance a job and housework and every single responsibly that comes with having kids. Single mothers are under even more pressure because they can be the sole provider and caretaker for their children. Despite how hard these mothers may work to better their children, society never believes they are doing enough. On top of that, non-white, poor, single mothers are the most likely to be criticized and deemed as careless parents, and in our society they are seen as criminal. So why can’t these poor mothers just get jobs so that their children can live comfortably?

                Raising a child can easily be a full time job, and without help from a spouse, single mothers do not have time for much else. Imagine not being able to afford childcare, a reality for many Americans, and without childcare you cannot get a job because your children cannot be left home alone all day. Even with a job, most, if not all, of your income will be going towards feeding your children and sending them to school, along with the countless other expenses.  You still probably could not afford the childcare you need. It is a vicious, endless cycle. The article “How to End the Criminalization of America’s Mothers” gives some shocking examples of the struggle many mothers face. Sanesha Taylor is an example of one mother who simply ran out of options and did what she felt she had to get out of the situation she was in. She was homeless and struggling to support her children so she went in search of a job. When she went in for the interview, she had no one to take care of her children so she left them in the car. She was arrested with charges of child abuse. If not for the support of certain strangers her charges most likely would not have been dropped.

                Hopefully the difficulties of motherhood are becoming more undeniable. To add to the problem mothers face in finding employment, if they do succeed it comes a price. That price is the wage gap, and it is very relevant to every female looking for work in this country. Statistically speaking, a woman in the workplace, compared to a man with the same job, is only making $.77 for every $1 that man makes. Even working a full time job, a single mother is unlikely going to struggle to support their children due to their low pay. The low wage can partially be attributed to the fact that women have the possibility of getting pregnant, and therefore may have to take a leave period. Businesses see this as an unnecessary expense and to compensate, the women they do hire, receive lower pay. 

Societies Solution:

                Instead of offering more welfare options for single, poor mothers, our nation chooses to point fingers and throw these moms in jail. They watch and wait for a mother to mess up and if and when she does, they call her unfit to be a parent and often attempt to take her children away from her. They tell her she should just get married and then somehow all her problems will go away. Our nation simply turns there back on the mothers out there that just need a bit of assistance.

The poverty rates in single mother families in America are shockingly high in comparison to other countries. What makes our rates so much higher is the lack of a welfare program for mothers in need. Most European nations have some sort of welfare plan in place to help mothers be able to support their families. These plans can provide childcare for working women, they can provide jobs for single mothers, and have other benefits such as child allowances. The effects of this aid are clear in the low poverty rates of these countries. Women are not given the same benefits in America as they are in many European countries. Earlier I brought up the issue of maternity leave, and here we see another area where our country is lacking. In our country women are typically given 12 weeks of unpaid maternity leave, whereas other nations provide at least 12 weeks of paid leave, and some nations provide almost a full year of paid leave. An interesting article about how our nation’s high rate of single mother poverty compares to other nations, and how they have nearly ended their poverty problems, can be found here.

The Reform:      

                Our nation needs to realize the flaws in our system, whether it be our eagerness to criminalize mothers, or our inability to help those mothers in need. The implementation of a welfare program for poor mothers will go a long way. If we help mothers get jobs and give them childcare then they can better provide for their children and avoid the harsh judgment of society. Women also need to bring more attention to the wage gap and push for equal pay. We are discriminated against for our potential to get pregnant, and that ability is something all women are born with, not a choice we make. Along the lines of pregnancy, America needs to mend the maternity leave offered to pregnant women. Women should not be discourage from having kids because they fear they will have difficultly providing for a newborn while not being paid for 12 weeks. The best option is to ensure paid maternity leave, and potentially extend the leave for mothers who need time to find proper childcare. Most importantly, we need to collectively learn to commend mothers for the hard work they do and stop blaming them for every little mistake they might make.

Freak vs Human Marvel

Before reading excerpts from Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness and Liberation, by Eli Clare, I did not know much about freak shows besides for what I had seen on television. I never stopped to think about who could be considered a “freak” or why these individuals would want to get involved in freak shows. For these reasons, I was in utter shock after reading Exile and Pride. It exposed what types of individuals were involved in freak shows, and I immediately did not understand how all these people were considered freaks. In my opinion, freak is an outdated term that should not be used anymore, but in this case I am going to use the term in reference to individuals involved in freak shows.

                What I found out is that freaks were determined as a result of racism and ableism. What this means is someone who was not considered a white, able-bodied individual (usually male) was classified as a freak. Clare discusses of one of the freaks named William Johnson, who to me was one of the most shocking cases. William was an African-American man who happened to be cognitively disabled; in the freak shows he was referred to as the “Monkey Man”. As if this was not bad enough, he was dressed as an ape and meant to shock people because of his animalistic characteristics. In addition to William, freak show owners went to Africa and brought back Congolese men and women who wore large piercings in their mouths as part of their culture. In the freak shows these individuals were dressed in primitive clothing and referred to as “Genuine Monster Mouthed Ubangi Savages World’s Most Weird Living Humans from Africa’s Darkest Depths”. This clearly displays that freak shows were based off of racism and ableism in reference to both of the freaks mentioned above. It is true that freak shows were common in the 1800’s and early 1900’s, a time when white, able males held all the power and racism was a commonly accepted viewpoint, but I was shocked to find so many references to “freaks” in our modern society.

                I came across a website (which you can visit here) called Human Marvels which displays these individuals that we may see as atypical or once considered freaks. The website itself is very current; it was updated just a few days before I came across it. The website was very conflicting in how they viewed and referred to these people. The headline when I opened the website said “Freaks, Geeks, and Human Oddities!”, and then in smaller writing just underneath that it said “Some may call them freaks and human oddities, but they are truly human marvels”. By first openly referring to these people as freaks I was disappointed in the fact that our nation has not come very far since the time of freak shows. I think human marvels, although it may not be the best term, is a much kinder term than freak. Had they left out the first headline I think this could be a more acceptable website, referring to these people instead as human marvels and inviting you to observe how unique and special these individuals are.

                Freak shows bring up the basis of Rosemary Garland-Thompson’s book Staring. Garland-Thompson discusses the reasons why we are taught not to stare at others; she cites various books of etiquette which tell the dangers of staring. The whole purpose of a freak show is to stare, particularly to point out the differences between the viewers and the so-called freaks. If we saw those deemed as freaks on the streets in everyday life, instinctively we would resist staring. Staring goes against the way most Americans were raised, being told that certain bodies are not to be looked at and therefore you should always avert your eyes to unfamiliar sites. This makes me wonder when it is appropriate to stare, and why we find it acceptable to stare at freaks in freak shows.

This comic represents how our nation views staring as a problem and how we assume that men only stare at women because they are good-looking.

                Freak shows bring up the concepts of both power and shame related to staring. By making a spectacle of the freaks, and encouraging the audience to stare, gives power to the viewers. On the other hand, it could present the freaks a sense of power in that they have the ability to present their unique characteristics and ask to be observed, or stared at. The problem is that freaks in these shows only can hold power if they choose to. Typically freaks participated in freak shows because there was nothing else for them to do. It was nearly impossible for someone who was mentally or physically disabled to get a job in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, so sometimes freak shows were the only option for those individuals to make money. Other times they were kidnapped or coerced into joining the shows. In these cases, the freaks have no power and by them being exposed on stage the way they are is a way of shaming their differences. I spent a long time looking for an online forum where people who are born with atypical characteristics can post pictures and offer advice to others, but I could not find one. I mostly only saw forums where people posted pictures of human oddities, often ranking them by how “gruesome their deformity”, in hopes that people would stare and be repulsed by the subject, rather than present an opportunity to look without passing judgment.

                Garland-Thompson believes that we should change the way our culture avoids staring, and I must say I find this idea interesting but conflicting. I, like many others, was taught that it is wrong to stare, and I have lived my life thinking that way. Garland-Thompson believes that opening yourself up and asking for people to stare at you gives you power and eliminates the shame that you or the other person would normally feel. This idea makes a lot of sense to me but I cannot really imagine it happening. It is hard to be stared at and not feel self-conscious. As much as I would like to feel comfortable being stared at on a regular basis, it is so engrained in our culture not to stare that it would take years before we could make the change. I also have a difficult time considering the benefits. She claims it is a benefit of power and confidence, but I don’t think this would be the case for a lot of people. Some people will still stare with judgment and I think it would be very difficult to eliminate that in our society. Of course if we could, this country would be a better place for everyone.

Understanding Fat in America

In the American culture, we often view fatness as undesirable or unattractive and idealize thinness. Kathleen LeBesco, in Revolting Bodies, made her argument about fat and beauty and how she wants to redefine the way we view fatness in Western societies. In Chapter One she discussed how body fat has been portrayed in art in the past. Being in an art history class, I have seen so many examples of what LeBesco is trying to say. In art, the women who are being depicted as wealthy and beautiful are shown having full, curvy bodies. She uses the example of the “Venus of Willendorf”, one of the oldest pieces of art showing the female body. The Venus has a rather exaggerated bosom and hips; she is thought to display fertility. I included a picture directly below.

 In those times being fat was a sign that you could afford to eat and did not have to labor, as well as showing that a woman was fertile. Other cultures and other time periods had much different opinions about fat than Americans do now. LeBesco talked about how the Annang women of Nigeria still go through a fattening period before they are married. In their culture “women of substance” are desired and viewed as being wealthy. Also, in Pacific societies, fat is almost a necessity. Having fat provided protection against the cold and because of the irregular food supply in the area, body fat could keep you alive. I think it is very interesting how in our modern culture being fat can often be a sign of a lower socioeconomic class rather than show wealth.

                In a recent study it was discovered that eating healthy foods costs on average $1.50 more per day which adds up to over $500 a year. It is easy to skip the health store and instead get all the fast food you want for much less money and in half the time. It is much easy to get fat by eating cheap, filling food than eating healthy food that may not fill you up as long. The director of the center for public health nutrition at the University of Washington, Adam Drewnowski, found in his study that “a 2,000-calorie diet would cost just $3.52 a day if it consisted of junk food, compared with $36.32 a day for a diet of low-energy dense foods”. These numbers are shocking to me. What this makes me think is that the body type that depicts wealth in a certain area is the body type that is more desirable.

                

What is absurd to me is that some people do not recognize the blatant fact that everyone has a different body type. We are not all destined to be the same size as one another which can be seen in the fact that there are three major body types: ectomorph, endomorph, and mesomorph. Depictions of these three body types are shown in the image above. People who have the endomorphic body type are naturally larger for a number of reasons. They have larger bones and slower metabolisms, making it much harder for them to lose weight. If every different body is naturally occurring how can we say one is better than the others? With society constructing the idea of what body type is the most sought after, our nation needs to be more educated about bodies in general.

                When I saw that our nation’s connotation of fat is socially constructed, I realized there has to be a way to change it. It pains me how often I hear people making derogatory comments about others based on the shape of their bodies. Still, every time I hear one of those comments, I make a point to question the person who said it and ask why that body type offends them so much. When it comes down to it, most people do not know why they view fat as a flaw. It is just so ingrained in our culture to see fat as a bad thing that we hardly even question why it is that way. The United States has the second highest rate of obesity in the world, but if you flipped through an American magazine you would never know that. When researching opinionated articles about fat I found something that literally made me gasp. The article, by Christopher Freind, is called “Solve America’s Obesity Problem with Shame”, which you can read here if you are not already completely turned off by the title. The article is a very drastic suggestion of how we can help end obesity, but makes the point that everyone should have the desire to be skinny. It does not account for people who are plumper and perfectly healthy, but it shames them equally. I found another article that shows examples of fat shaming ads that I cannot believe are real (link here). The most shocking part about this article could possibly have been the comments; one saying how much she loved the ads and how funny she thought they were. With all this being said, I can somewhat see where Freind is coming from. I do not believe we should in any way idealize thinness over being plump or curvy, but there is a point where being fat can become very harmful or even detrimental to one’s health. I think we have to keep this in mind when we attempt to make fat more acceptable in our nation. We cannot simply say it is good to be morbidly obese, because it is just not the truth. However, we should be saying it is equally acceptable to be plump or fat as it to be thin.

The Feminist Movement: For Men and Transgender Alike

                Julia Serano, author of Whipping Girl, grasped my attention when she pointed out certain problems pertaining to trans women caused by pseudofeminists. Serano herself is a trans women; someone “who was assigned a male sex at birth, but who identifies as and/or lives as a women” (11). She has experienced firsthand discrimination from being a sexual minority, and was shocked about how much of this was coming from women who claim to be feminists. Serano is setting out to try and put an end to the degradation of trans women, and I think a huge part of this movement involves the need for feminism to progress even further. It is most likely very difficult already for a trans woman to come out and openly identify as a women, but without the support of other people it can be nearly impossible for some.

About a year ago I read the book She’s Not There by Jennifer Finney Boylan. This book was one of the first things to really open my eyes to what transgender means. Like Whipping Girl, it was written by a transsexual about the difficulty of her situation and how people reacted to her transformation. To anyone who does not know much about what it means to be transgender or who is quick to dismiss transgender individuals as being legitimate, this book can really change one’s mind. The problem with transgender discrimination is that people do not understand the issue and cannot relate, but hearing a real life example in this way makes a huge difference. In the book Jennifer talks about when and how she realized that she did not feel right as a boy and instead identified as a female. She was already married with children by the time she came out, although she secretly identified as a girl since she was just a kid. She shows how people treated her different when she came out, and how many did not quite understand why she changed her sex. Seeing all the hatred Jennifer experienced made me realize how in the dark most people are about transgender individuals.

In discussion of transgender individuals, Serano brought up the term oppositional sexism, or “the belief that female and male are rigid, mutually exclusive categories” (13). Simply put, it says that men and women are opposites. This type of sexism leaves out anyone who does not exactly match the definitions of feminine or masculine, especially gays, lesbians, transgender people, and so on. This is an interesting concept to me because although I was assigned as a female at birth and still identify as one, I do not feel that I fit the definition of feminine. A large portion of my wardrobe is made up of men’s clothing, and I do not always act proper and submissive like many people expect of a woman. It goes to show that there are no set characteristics unique to only men or women, but that either gender can have any variety of feminine and masculine traits. Putting an end to oppositional sexism is something that the feminist movement is making progess in doing.

For a while I have been thinking about what it really means to be a feminist, so when I read parts of Whipping Girl, I felt like my questions were brought to the surface. I often hear people saying that feminists hate men but also look down on women who appear too feminine. After reading portions of Whipping Girl I came to relate this definition with the term ‘pseudofeminism’. So what is feminism really? I found Bell Hooks to have the clearest and most concise definition for this term. She claimed that “feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexual exploitation and oppression”. Feminists should not only support women who were assigned as female at birth and have continuously self-identified as female. Anyone who is against sexism, regardless of how feminine or masculine they appear or what gender they identify as, has the support of true feminists.

              Feminists have made huge progress since the movement began. Especially in the past few years we hear more and more about feminism. In fact, just this past weekend Emma Watson delivered a speech on her feminist theory at the United Nations. The video I included above is just a brief segment of the speech, the whole speech and pictures can be found here. Watson is a well-known actress from the Harry Potter series, and a role model for many. What people do not usually know is that she is also a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador. In her speech she focuses on gender equality and shows that feminists are not man haters, but rather that they want to include men in the feminist movement. She discusses the idea of oppositional sexism in her own words by saying that men and women do not have distinct and opposite traits, using as example from her childhood of how she was assertive and in control, a trait general associated with masculinity. Watson wants to truly make a change in how feminism is poorly viewed, as well as show how important gender equality is. What this new view of feminism shows us is the no matter the gender, we should all be equal. If we take this to heart then we can end the misery for most transgender individuals, and allow for them to be openly accepted in society. We can also put an end to the bad reputation surrounding feminism by including every individual no matter what their gender identity.

Male or Female: Should we Choose?

Imagine you are about to become a new parent. You are awaiting the precious moment when the doctor returns with child and you are overwhelmed with love and content. The door opens and the doctor brings your baby to you but something he says throws you for a loop: the sex of the baby cannot be determined. The child seems to have a combination of both male and female sex organs, and the doctor wants you to decide what the next step is. You can either have the child undergo surgery to make their sex organs appear either male or female, or you can let the child grow up with the sex organs they were born with. Some would think this is an obvious decision and say you should just assign the child to a gender and raise them as if the kid was born that gender to avoid the child growing up confused and being discriminated against. I feel it is important that we avoid jumping to this conclusion and instead consider other options.

                The infant described above has a divergence of sex development, or DSD, a term coined by Elizabeth Reis in “Divergence or Disorder?: the politics of naming intersex” (541). Often we hear terms such as “hermaphrodite” or “intersex” to describe individuals born with both female and male sex organs. The problem is that these terms can be demeaning or have negative connotations, especially in a nation where we so desperately want to stick to the two gender binary. Few people realize just how common divergences of sex development are, when at least 1 in every 2,000 infants are born with this condition (Reis, 539). Chances are you know at least one person who was born with DSD, probably without even realizing it.

                The more I learn about divergences in sex development the more prominent two questions are in my head: How/why do we decide a gender for these individuals?  If you are a parent or a doctor and you determine someone else’s gender for them is that wrong? There is not one easy answer for these questions. If you let someone other than the intersex individual decide their gender there is no way of ensuring that the right choice is going to be made. Although doctors typically encourage parents of intersex children to get the surgery for their child many of these kids grow up never feeling right in their own body. No parent wants their child to feel uncomfortable being who they are.

               

 Not everyone fits in to one gender or another, as the dinosaurs in this comic show us

The only way to know for sure what gender the individual wants to be is to ask them. Now this is clearly a problem because you can’t just ask a newborn what gender it recognizes itself as. It is understandable that since our society tends to view divergences of sex development as something to be ashamed of, parents of these individuals often feel the need to have their children assigned to one gender or the other. They don’t want their child to grow up to be considered different and have a hard time fitting in or feeling accepted. This is completely understandable, but we also have to think of the consequences of letting a doctor choose a gender for the child. It can be more difficult for a child to grow up looking a gender that they don’t identify as if the doctor chooses wrong.                                                                                                                    

                The ideal situation would be one where people where accepting of others regardless of the gender they identify as and what sex organs they were born with, but having the freedom to choose their own gender if they so please. Although the United States only recognizes two genders on birth certificates and other legal documents, other countries are taking steps towards accepting intersex individuals as they are. In 2011 Australian government made a change to their passport, where individuals can choose from three genders: male, female, and indeterminate (CNN). Then in 2013 Germany declared that if a child’s gender is ambiguous, then the parents can leave the gender blank on the child’s birth certificate (Bendavid). Other countries are also taking action to try and stop discrimination against those with divergences of sex development and to have it be more widely accepted to not identify as either male or female. For more information on what other actions countries are taking to help DSD individuals look here. If we could show this kind of improvement in the United States then doctors and parents can feel more comfortable having their child grow up intersex.  

References

"Australian Passports Now Offer Gender Option "X" for Intersex People."LexisNexis Academic. CNN, 15 Sept. 2011. Web. 8 Sept. 2014.

Bendavid, Naftali. "Countries Expand Recognition for Alternative 'Intersex' Gender." Wall Street Journal Online. Wall Street Journal, 30 Oct. 2013. Web. 8 Sept. 2014.