Julie Gillis thinks birth control and reproductive rights are men’s issues as much as they are women’s.
I love fiction. I love science. I love science fiction. It would be easy to love science fiction because it shows us a world that could exist (aliens! dystopias! interstellar travel!), but I love science fiction because it actually shows us what we are really anxious and concerned about NOW, here, in our current world.
Science fiction authors are fantastic at picking up on the fears and dreams of a current culture and either manifesting them in an alternative world much like ours, or creating mirror narratives in worlds completely different (but with those same dynamics at play).
Something we’ve been anxious about for about 100 years?
Reproduction, the role of the state, control of the body through science such as pharmaceuticals, eugenics, but also through religion.
I saw this post, What Does Science Fiction Tell Us About The Future of Reproductive Rights, over at Jezebel, read it, and due to the interesting and very intense commentary on posts like We Are Pregnant and Once A Babysitter Always A Babysitter and felt it might be a good blog post for us here at GMP.
With examples from male and female science fiction authors, times ranging from turn of the century to recently, and foci on both pro-life and pro-choice, the range of books is stunning and I see a theme.
Reproduction causes intense anxiety. Who gets to control it? Who gets controlled by it? And this is a theme in all the books listed in the article. But the author poses an interesting and compelling question on top of the theme of reproductive rights anxiety:
“All the stories I’ve discussed up to this point focus on reproductive rights as an issue that centers basically on conception. Mostly, they ask: Who controls how we have babies, and who says what kinds of babies we can have?
But I would argue that the real issue lurking beneath the surface of those questions is a single, stark query: Who is responsible for raising children?”
Who indeed. Certainly we at GMP are struggling with issues of parenthood, rights, equity, and more. And the books throughout the article show us mirrors of those fears, wrestling matches, and concerns. This is a men’s issue as much as women’s. We share DNA, we need to share parenting. Given the acceptance of LGBT families, it’s a human issue.
I’m certainly curious to see what fiction is created our reality, but I’d far rather make sure our reality finds a way to deal with these issues with collaboration and peace. Is that science fiction, my dream? Maybe. But I’ll live in reality and support finding those happy endings where I can.
What can we learn from them as they are fiction? Can we learn to avoid dystopic endings? Can we find ways to write new stories in our real lives that have happier endings? Do we write these books to help us avoid the bad endings?
Photo Courtesy of brains the head
The Following is a letter I sent to Mr. Richard Wolf of Wolf Films I know you will understand the importance of it’s message Thanks for reading it. I am seeking a national spokesperson for this issue. Dear Mr. Wolf; First, let me say congratulations for the success of “Law and Order” television and over 22 years of the best TV crime drama ever. The double strike tone is the icon for script TV and now is as memorable as the sweaty hand that concluded “Dragnet” every week. Who will ever forget Jerry Orbach as Det. Briscoe and Sam Waterston… Read more »
One of my favorite SF books on the subject is Ursula Le Guins “The Left Hand of Darkness”. So many things in that book inspire further thought. Speaking of Le Guin, this blog post http://www.feministlab.com/reproductive-rights/an-ode-to-ursula-le-guin/ has a nice Le Guin quote from a talk she gave 30 years ago. As someone living in Scandinavia It’s odd to follow the current US debate about right to abortion and now also contraception. Here, you would not be able to find a single serious politician who would be willing to argue against right to abortion. The public would laugh at the idea. For… Read more »
Speaking of advances in technology, I’m so thankful for recently approved non-hormonal copper IUD. The insertion is painful and intrusive (and it’s pretty expensive), but it’s worth it. Hormonal birth control did numbers on my body. Throughout the course of my experiences with it, I had nausea, weight gain and loss, loss of sex drive, leg pains, gall bladder problems, breasts getting too big…I’m beginning to sound like the warning announcement in a commercial now. It’s amazing how far birth control has come in just the past 10 years, and I expect it to get even better. I can’t wait… Read more »
I’d be first in line at the pharmacy if that happened, she doesn’t need to be embarrassed. I’d be there asap if she and I both agreed. If she didn’t agree then I’d probably be hella scared and annoyed unless it was a longterm partner and we were financially stable.
Yeah, hormonal birth control sucks. I have yet to find one that doesn’t make me depressed and/or moody. Really, it’s just a matter of finding which pill makes me the LEAST depressed. I like not having to worry about condoms, but I hate feeling sad every day.
I have been seriously considering the copper IUD, but my friend got the the non-copper one and was in pain for a year, she had these periods from hell, it was terrifying. So I’m a little scared to do that. :/
Great article…and you ask great questions! I was involved with a man a long time ago who was a scientist, who was performing cutting edge research…we discussed various currents topics at the time: the discovery of the AIDS virus, sexual promiscuity in the NYC bar/club scene, ways of transmission of the virus, and methods of prevention…. And yet, his own sexual behavior was like something written out of some outdated medieval text…he was controlling and abusive towards me…he never used condoms and refused when I brought it up…he was always suspicious of me no matter what assurances I gave him…in… Read more »
Currently, a child has 2 parents. Parenting should be shared equally by both, unless the parents voluntarily come up with a different plan.
In the future, a child will have N parents, where N may be smaller or greater than 1. In that case, all parents will equally share in parenting.
Oops, I meant smaller or greater than 2.
I thought that article on scifi was very interesting too, I really enjoyed it. I’m more of a fantasy than scifi reader, but scifi does have this tendency to play into society’s fears unlike any other genre. It’s really cool. Once I started having sex, I realized how weird it is that my options for birth control were the pill, the ring, the shot, IUD, diaphragm, implanon, the patch, Plan B, the female condom and that men’s options were … the condom, or depending on their partner to be doing on of those. Has birth control become a mostly women’s… Read more »
Easier to trick the body to believe it is pregnant and stop ovulation since it’s part of pregnancy, vs disabling sperm production that is pretty much go from puberty onwards without really stopping.
I wonder what the risks are with condom + pull out method/manual/orally stimulate till orgasm?
Yeah, that’s what I pointed out above. Every so often you hear about people working on a male birth control pill, but it never seems very likely. It just seems like it would be best for both partners to be on birth control, that way they don’t have to rely totally on someone else to prevent babies they don’t want. Women can mostly choose what they want, though if they don’t want to be on birth control, they do have to rely on condom use by the man. But men can only choose condoms, and a lot of guys don’t… Read more »
Well when I say pullout I mean stimulate the last stretch by hand or mouth BUT use a condom before that whilst inside, so there shouldn’t be much risk of spillage or broken condom with a lot of semen inside the condom, inside her.
Last I saw of the male pill was that it stopped testosterone production which is a big problem, it’s quite tricky to stop sperm maturing and keep the rest of the system functioning, much easier to just hijack the pregnancy response and stopping ovulation since 1 hormone I think is mainly at play there.
People forget that more contraceptive choices for straight women mean more sex for straight everyone! Its a win win situation 😀 My grandmother had nine kids and a couple more pregnancies that didn’t last. I would say that this has more than a little to do with the fact that she died almost a decade ago while my grandfather is still alive. Over christmas he told me that they’d absolutely have used contraception if they did it over again. That wasn’t unusual, or even excessive for a woman of her generation. My friend’s grandmother had 19 kids. The first two… Read more »
Well I love sci-fi, so I will always love an article that mentions it. 🙂 I do think it’s interesting that conversations about reproduction tend to focus on preventing conception, or what should be done immediately after conception. Very rarely does anyone discuss how reproductive rights affect what happens after birth. (Or if they do it becomes a discussion about how women have more maternal rights than fathers do paternal rights). Personally I’m pro-choice, and pro-contraception (of all kinds), mostly because I believe in bodily autonomy. But one of the reasons I’m not pro-life, is because I ask myself what… Read more »