Recreating Motherhood

Abstract

The science and technology that a society develops reflect the values of its culture. This is as true in what we call “reproductive technology” as it is in the “space industry.” Guides to the culture are most clearly found in the language used: as has often been noted, it is significant that we use words like “conquering” and “frontier,” and even the very word “space” as if it were empty without us. So it is with “reproduction,” a word that implies that making babies is a form of production—raw material transformed by work into a product.^†

This article is drawn from the author’s book Recreating Motherhood: Ideology and Technology on a Patriarchal Society, W. W. Norton, 1989