One of my favorite hypothetical trains of thought to board is the idea of “what would maternity wards look like if men gave birth?” My first thought is different. The “why” is always clear to me, because of patriarchy. The “how” is always more illusive. Maybe things would be more comfortable, more private or maybe you wouldn’t give birth in a hospital at all but at home instead…who really knows. But, what I give less thought to is the notion that nobody should have to give birth.
The idea of fusing technology and reproduction is incredibly controversial, even as it is becoming more commonplace (See Dolce and Gabbana’s comments about in vitro). But even as processes that help womyn conceive become easier, cheaper and regular, it still places womyn in the position to carry a fetus in their uterus for 9 months. Even surrogacy, which allows one womyn to not carry a baby, still necessitates another uterus holding body to do the carrying. As Shulamith Firestone states on page 6 of the first chapter in The Dialectic of Sex, “procreation-is at the origin of (gender) dualism” and “the biological family is an inherently unequal power distribution.” Both of these concepts are at the heart of a very meaningful critique of modern feminism. While biology itself may no longer be the greatest deciding factor of gender identification within our culture, we cannot ignore or overlook the fact that womyn have a uterus and it is meant to have a fetus develop inside it. The existence of this organ and the function it serves has made womyn unable to escape the role of a second-class citizen within patriarchy. Womyn must carry children and there is currently no way around this. This acceptance of nature and duty has been woven into feminist rhetoric as being an unchangeable fact of life. While gender is fluid, biological disposition is not. The uterus and child bearing have taken on the identity as being the one universal, as being an essential element of womynhood that cannot be changed. Shulamith Firestone, on page 8, beautifully challenges the laziness and complicit nature of many feminist writers with her charge that “We are no longer just animals. And the kingdom of nature does not reign absolute. Thus the ‘natural’ is not necessarily a ‘human’ value. Humanity has begun to transcend Nature.” Much of existence as humyn beings is lived and improved upon in the idea of a framework. We consistently impose humyn ideology on to nature as an abstract concept of the non-humyn and cast it in stone, as if our knowledge of the world can only be influenced by preexisting patterns. Just as long held beliefs of nature are being dissected and recast (see how ecosystems don’t exist), our relationship to our bodies should begin to mimic the scientific advancements and seeming otherworldliness attached to it.
So, how would this happen and what would it look like? For Shulamith Firestone, as described on page 9, the only way to balance the biological inequality of giving birth would be “…by the elimination of labor altogether…” She proposes doing this through “artificial reproduction” and “cybernetics”. For many, this seems like a pie in the sky never-going-to-happen idea at best and deeply offensive at worst, robbing womyn of the “joys of motherhood”. For me, this is the only way. To accept the imposition of “the natural” on to a body already so deeply integrated into the realm of technology is crass and offensive. I am not interested in a feminism that has ends. If we are to be truly represented by our ideology, it must be comprehensive and it must be destructive. Having our critique stop short of the most severe as well as striking element of our identities as womyn is a disservice. The very fact that womyn still have to carry children in their womb is a testament to the power of patriarchy. Going back to my original thoughts about what maternity wards would look like if it were men who gave birth, I’ve come to assume that if it were men who were giving birth, we would have had artificial reproduction already. It is only a condition of womyn to suffer needlessly and painfully, dying to give birth.
