Have feminists forsaken the future? - A SentDev Classic

Wow, I thought I had lost this article forever. I wrote it back in 2002 and misplaced every copy I had of it. I recently found it and am now reproducing it here.
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It’s hard to decide which is more frustrating, the proposal or the lack of uproar from women’s groups.

On November 1, 2002, the World Congress of Bioethics will conduct a special session in Brazil entitled "Towards an International Ethical, Social and Political Accord on Human Cloning and Human Species-Alteration."

A memorandum sent out to conference attendees in advance of the session explicitly targets women’s groups. "Supporters of women’s health and reproductive rights have particularly pressing reasons for concern over human cloning and inheritable genetic modification (IGM).1 Human cloning and IGM could not be developed without unethical experimentation on women and children," it notes.

"These technologies would diminish women’s control over their reproductive decisions, and subject them to pressures to produce the ‘perfect baby,’" it goes on. "Some advocates of cloning and IGM are attempting to appropriate the language of reproductive choice, blurring the critical difference between the right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy and the selection of a future child’s genetic makeup."

After reading the memorandum, I was flabbergasted. Are the authors—Richard Hayes, executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society, and Rosario Isasi, of the University of Toronto—actually suggesting that strict limitations and moratoriums on inheritable genetic modification will help women retain the rights necessary for reproductive choice and autonomy?

Few Feminists Fight

As far as I’m concerned, this is another affront to women’s entitlements to control their body’s reproductive processes. So why have so few women spoken out?

After seeing little feminist reaction to the Hayes and Isasi memorandum, I’m forced to acknowledge a dangerous vacuum in Transhumanist [one who believes human beings can be improved by science and technology] and progressive bioethicist circles: there are very few vocal feminists fighting for women’s rights to control the genetic makeup of their offspring.

The most well-known Transhumanist feminist I can think of is Donna Haraway, who in 1984 famously wrote "A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s." In the manifesto, Haraway proposed that women use technology to further liberate themselves from limited and constraining biological processes. But only a few people jumped on board—such as Gill Kirkup, Linda Janes, Kathryn Woodward, Fiona Hovenden and Anne Balsamo.

Why such little interest in feminist bioethics? After thinking about the problem, I propose three possible reasons:

1. Techno-culture: Transhumanism and other future-oriented movements tend to be dominated by educated white males that have been immersed in computer and related technology cultures. The dearth of women pursuing science and technology careers has contributed to this situation.
2. Naturalistic focus: Contemporary feminism has been quite hostile and suspicious of futurists in general, preferring to celebrate naturalistic womanhood and female biological processes.
3. Inadequate outreach: Perhaps most significantly, progressive bioethicists have done an inadequate job of reaching out to the feminist community. In many ways it is our fault—and not the fault of the feminists—that the use of future reproductive technologies has not become a feminist issue.

So, what should feminist bioethicists be concerned about? A quick run-through of the World Congress of Bioethics letter reveals several important issues and misconceptions that should be immediately addressed.

The Perfect-Baby Fallacy

The first is the perfect-baby fallacy. With human cloning and inheritable genetic modification, Hayes and Isasi are concerned that women will be compelled to have "perfect babies." In their mind, this would decrease women’s reproductive control and choice. In my mind, women should be more concerned about pressure from governments and misinformed special-interest groups that force them to reject progressive and beneficial health technologies. Through the extension and development of reproductive technologies, women will have more control over their bodies, not less.

Not only that, trying to achieve "perfect babies" is something women have always done, adapting new methods and technologies as they become available. Before and during pregnancies today, for example, women take folic acid to reduce the chance that their baby will be born with spina bifida. In addition, most women have prenatal screening, stop drinking and smoking, strive to eat a healthier and more balanced diet, take prenatal exercise classes, rest their bodies as much as possible and often take early maternity leave.

And even after babies are born, most women don’t stop wanting the best for them. They will read about the latest in parenting—in everything from psychology books to parenting magazines. They will also make efforts to socialize children as responsibly as possible, aiming to place their kids in the best available daycares and schools. And they will most likely have their kids vaccinated, see a doctor regularly for a checkup and see a specialist for any cognitive or physical problems.

Once more technologies are available to ensure healthy children, women using them will not be bowing down to social pressures to create "perfect babies." Rather, they will do what they have always done: they will endeavor to have the healthiest and fittest children as is medically possible.

Finding Little Difference Between Termination and Selection

The second thing feminist bioethicists should be concerned about is the distinction between termination and choice. Hayes and Isasi claim that there is a critical difference between the right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy and the selection of a future child’s genetic makeup. I am having great trouble trying to understand what this "critical" difference is.

Currently, couples have very little control over the makeup of their offspring. A child’s genetic characteristics are fixed at the point of conception, and prospective parents pray that he or she will be strong and healthy and won’t have genetic diseases.

If an embryo does show signs of disease, women can terminate a pregnancy. It seems only logical then that we should extend this right to the prevention of diseases in the first place—giving couples the control they have always sought but that to date has only been available in a crude form.

So despite what Hayes and Isasi claim, there is very little difference between termination and selection. They are on the same spectrum, and in some ways selection is merely a more proactive approach.

The Risks of an Outright Ban

Now, all this isn’t to say that I’m in favour of rampant cloning and genetic modification. As Hayes and Isasi rightfully point out, human cloning and inheritable genetic modification could lead to unethical experimentation on women and children. Also, both are grossly underdeveloped and even dangerous today.

But this is no reason to ban them outright. It is a reason for proper monitoring and development. An outright ban would only drive cloning and genetic modification underground, where it may hurt women in the same way as clandestine abortions.

Unless feminists get involved, however, a ban may very well be what we get, as conservative bioethicists use the veil of women’s rights to implement their agenda. The lack of vocal opposition gives the impression of agreement and support. Is this really in women’s best interest?

Footnotes

1. Human cloning involves the replacement of the DNA in a female egg with the DNA of another person. When this egg is implanted into the womb of the mother, as in in vitro fertilization, the embryo develops into a fetus and is born after nine months, just like any other baby. The cloned baby shares the same exact DNA as the person whose DNA was injected into the egg cell, not unlike identical twins. A couple that is unable to conceive and does not want to use the DNA of another person might choose to use the DNA of one parent; thus producing an identical twin of that parent. No case of human cloning has yet been officially documented. IGM alters the genes in early embryos. Parents who choose IGM may hope to prevent their child from inheriting a debilitating or deadly disease or perhaps even determine their child’s physical attributes such as hair or eye color.

Rosemarie Tong: "Feminist Reflections on Looking Better and Living Longer" [CFI conference on biomedical enhancement]

Rosemarie Tong, Professor of Philosophy at UNC-Charlotte, discussing Feminist Reflections on Looking Better and Living Longer.

Betty Friedan's perspective: rejects the idea that to be old is to be spent. She instead presents an integrating process, an opportunity to live properly and make peace with oneself. No longer feeling the need to outdo others, to prove onself, "what does it really matter?"

Cosmetic anti-aging is big business and demand is through the roof.

But there are also biogerontologists. (1) They're working to prolong healthy lifespan; to extend quality of life until shortly before the moment of death, (2) They're looking to increase human lifespan significantly.

One practice is caloric restriction, but it's not likely to catch on. Another approach is in genetic manipulation.

A third group of biogerontologists are looking to halt the aging process altogether.

What do feminists have to say about this? But the problem of feminists is that they're are so many varieties. But for the most part they support the notion that we should improve and extend quality of life into old age. We should also work to ensure that the marginalized have access to these interventions, namely poor people, black people and aboriginals.

Any life-extension breakthrough that is not accompanied by attempts to improve socio-economic disparities is deficient. Also risk that women's caregiving responsibilities will only increase. Far fewer jobs for far fewer people. Perennial beauty trap.

Cosmetic surgery for women now has been so normalized that it's expected. Women are asked, "Why don't you want to look better?"

Tong makes the case that radical life extension may compel people to live indefinitely long lives for fear of what lies in the hereafter. [never heard that argument before]

Repudiation of the body is a repudiation of women. This especially holds true of women and childbirth. Thus, feminists are suspicious of transhumanism. They may "get lost in the translation."

Women's Bioethics Project Closes

After six years of ground-breaking and influential blogging, the Women's Bioethics Project has come to an end. Kathryn Hinsch made the announcement on June 11.

For years, the WBP provided a crucial channel for female bioethicists to voice their concerns and support for key biotechnologies at the dawn of the transhuman era. Virtually no topic was off limits, whether it be voluntary euthanasia or the potential for exosomatic wombs. The WBP perspective was a breath of fresh air in a sea littered with bioconservatives, anti-technological feminists and religious conservatives. Not to mention overzealous male techno-optimists.

But it wasn't always this way. Back in 2003 I spoke at Yale about how feminists seemed to be forsaking the future, unwilling to engage in bioethical and biotechnological discourse. It seemed absurd to me at the time that the only people talking about such topics as human trait selection, reproductive technologies, genomics, and stem cell research were geeky white males (myself included). All feminists, it seemed to me at the time, were anti-technological ideologues who were unwilling to discuss the possibilities and what it might mean for women. Donna Haraway's legacy, I thought, had been all but abandoned.

It was with great relief, then, that the Women's Bioethics Project was launched a year later, featuring such writers as Linda MacDonald Glenn, Kristi Scott, Kelly Hills and many others. Indeed, as the blog header proclaimed, "This is not your typical blog. We have recruited scholars and public policy analysts from around the world to provide daily news and commentary on the implications of bioethical issues for women." And as Hinsch noted in her farewell post, "we developed innovative programs, policy recommendations and research on ethical issues pertaining to women’s health, reproductive technologies, and neuroethics. We made a difference: our work brought these important issues to new audiences and encouraged women to participate in policy development around bioethics questions."

And that they did. Their work will be missed, but thankfully many of the WBP alumni will continue to contribute to the IEET.

Well done, WBP!

Sorry ladies, the male birth control pill is not about you

There's been considerable media attention surrounding a recent breakthrough in the development of a male birth-control pill (MBCP).

Fact of the matter is that it's still about 5 to 10 years away. It's taking forever for a men's pill to come to market.

What's taking so long?

Well, the issue is not as simple as it might first appear. Sure, there are still some technical hurdles to overcome, but the delay in developing a MBCP has definite political, economic and even discriminatory aspects to it.

Barriers to entry do in fact exist for the male pill—disempowering barriers that men should most certainly be aware of—including those set up by sexist women who belittle male reproductive accountability, unfair gender biases, self-serving feminists who refuse to relinquish reproductive power, and a risk averse Big Pharma.

And men themselves are also to blame. Far too many guys have gotten comfortable over the idea that birth-control pills are exclusive to women. Most men have not yet realized the implications of having access to a pill of their own.

Consequently (and quite disturbingly), conversations about the male pill have migrated outside the sphere of male interests. Women tend to frame the issue as it pertains to their concerns and their needs, while politicians and pharmaceutical companies neglect the issue, unsure as to what it means to them.

Ultimately, however, this is about men. It's about men gaining fair and equal access to a powerful contraceptive that will finally allow them to have the same control over their reproductive processes as women—an outcome that will greatly benefit male interests.

How the male pill works

An international consortium of physicians recently revealed a formula for "safe, effective and reversible" hormonal contraception for males.

The breakthrough involves progestin, which is found in women's birth-control pills and the male sex hormone testosterone. Progestin helps suppress ovulation when used in an oral contraceptive and it appears to function in the same way for men, suppressing the rate and extent of sperm production. The developers claim that this contraceptive will be as effective as a vasectomy.

Men will have to take the pill for about 2 to 3 months to deplete their sperm. It will take a similar amount of time to restore normal levels of fertility once off the pill.

Bring it

For the most part, both men and women appear to be in favor of the MBCP.

Trouble is, most men and women don't truly understand why it's so important. Particularly women.

Now, I don't mean to begrudge women their reasons for welcoming the male pill. It's all good.

I think it's great that couples will finally be able to share the burden of birth control.

And it will undoubtedly be a welcome alternative for those women who cannot take the pill or other contraceptives (of which there are many).

There's also the issue of accessibility. A 2004 report from the Reproductive Health Technologies Project calls contraceptive availability an "unfinished revolution." Indeed, we need more contraception and more options.

But this is fundamentally an issue of male reproductive control

This is a male issue about male reproduction.

And all that it entails.

The pill will resolve a number problems that men typically face.

It will be dramatically less invasive and severe than a vasectomy—a procedure that can be reversed, but one that's quite involved and not always possible.

The male pill will also prove to be much more reliable than condoms or withdrawal which can have worst-case failure rates of 15 and 27 percent respectively (!!!).

Also, the male pill will have a profound sociological impact similar to what happened after the advent of the female birth-control pill. This will prove to be a seminal event as far as the men's movement is concerned.

In fact, a strong case can be made that the delay in the male pill has been caused by an underdeveloped male social movement. The sense of urgency to develop a MBCP has been quelled by the dissenters and the disconnected. Men need to be aware of those forces that work to prevent the advent of not just the male pill, but a cohesive and powerful men's rights movement itself.

Negative male stereotyping

The possibility of a male pill has caused a number of women to pause and reflect on the implications.

Should a woman believe a guy who says, "Trust me, baby, I'm on the pill."?

Most women would likely say no. It's doubtful that women would put faith in men to stick to a strict schedule of birth-control pill popping. Men are supposed to be untrustworthy and irresponsible, right? After all, they're not the ones who would have to deal with a pregnancy.

Aside from what this says about negative male stereotyping, this complaint neglects three fundamental issues.

First, people must take control over their own reproductive processes and not rely on the other person. This goes for both men and women. The MBCP will finally help men know for certain that they have virtually no chance of impregnating a partner.

Which immediately brings to mind the problem of trust that many men are confronted with today. Should men trust women when they make the same claim? How many times has a man been duped into fatherhood by an opportunistic woman?

Well, according to a Cornell University study, over a million American births each year result from pregnancies which men did not intend. What does this say about female reproductive accountability?

The male pill, will at the very least, help men avoid this risk.

Second, the MBCP strictly deals with contraception. It will do nothing to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. The advent of a male pill will not eliminate the need to wear a condom as far as STDs are concerned.

And third, most men do in fact deal with a pregnancy and the introduction of an unexpected child -- be it parental or fiscal responsibilities. There are more accountable single dads who have joint custody of their children than ever before in history.

An unwelcome power shift

As Glenn Sacks has said, "Power is the reward which comes with responsibility."

Indeed, because women have had to bear the burden of contraception, they have gained control over an integral component of human life, namely reproduction. The MBCP threatens to wrest that control from women to men.

Quite understandably, some feminists are concerned about this possibility.

And, I'm sorry to say, that's too bad.

Men are currently at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to the choice of reproduction -- but this is now set to change.

As an example, according to the 2004 National Scruples and Lies Survey (which polled 5,000 women in the United Kingdom), 42% of women claimed they would lie about contraception in order to get pregnant, regardless of the wishes of their partners.

Wow.

Other evidence suggests that over 10% of children turn out not to be the offspring of the expected father when DNA tests are done, suggesting that many men obliviously help in the raising of children who are not actually theirs.

This is no laughing matter. Child support rates are increasing, with some fathers giving their ex's as much as 15 to 25% of their take home pay per child. And it's widely known that fathers are second class citizens in the courts. For example, in some U.S. states a father cannot present DNA evidence to disprove paternity.

For those men who truly don't want to have children—something that is completely within their rights—the MBCP will help them achieve that level of control.

And again, female claims that this will allow men to forever shirk their paternal responsibilities and live in perpetual adolescence are not just gross generalizations, but sexist statements of the highest order.

The Man is holding men down

Quite surprisingly, Big Pharma has dragged their feet in developing the MBCP. Despite over 20 years of research, they claim that there's little money to be made.

In fact, that's one of the main reasons that the pharmaceutical firms Bayer and Organon abandoned their male pill programs last year.

This is because men are not demanding it

Men are clearly not showing Big Pharma that they want a male pill.

Research shows that most males are not ready for personal birth control. A recent MSN-Zogby poll revealed that only 14% of Americans would definitely take it or insist that their partner take it. And tellingly, the study indicated that women are slightly more excited about the prospect than men.

While at the same time other studies show that men do in fact want alternative contraception options.

What's going on here, guys?

Perhaps confusion has something to do with it. There's a very underdeveloped sense of a male collective consciousness. It appears that men, for the most part, don't yet realize the importance of reproductive control—something women have, for obvious reasons, been very aware of for quite some time now.

Some men, for example, dismiss the male pill on account of their fear that it would transgress their masculinity.

This is exactly the mentality that has to be abandoned and replaced by some more forward thinking ideas that will work help equalize not just reproductive options, but other gender issues that set men at a disadvantage or limit biological potential.

Times they are a changin'

Perhaps I'm understating the fact that 14% of men are ready to use the pill. That's a significant number unto itself. Maybe it's a positive sign that attitudes are changing and that broader acceptance is on its way.

In all likelihood, demand will probably increase once the pill is finally made available. It will become real for men once it becomes a real option.

And hopefully it will wake men up to the possibilities. Issues of gender, sexuality and reproduction are not just women's issues. They're a vital element of the collective human condition.

Overcoming gender

Your gender is a constraint. This is an inalienable truism, regardless of whether you’re a man or a woman.

We can no longer deny that males and females are profoundly different. The hallucination is over. Scientists and behaviorists are discovering that men and women differ not just physically, but cognitively and emotionally as well. These differences are not merely the result of gender-specific socialization; they are innate—the result of thousands of years of sexual competition and selection.

Your gender assignment and sense of sexual identity is an imposition. Like many of your other characteristics, you are largely the result of a genetic lottery that happened beyond your control. Consequently, you are in no small way predetermined. Your physical and psychological capabilities are very much constrained and dictated by your genetic constitution.

Sure, the environments that we find ourselves in and the ways in which we are socialized play a contributing factor to our health, personalities and broader perspectives. But let’s not fool ourselves, each and every one of us has characteristics that are forever limited by our genetic code.

Barring the application of enhancement biotechnologies, I will never be able to conceptualize music as profoundly as Beethoven, nor will I ever be able to visualize numbers like Pierre de Fermat. No amount of studying, hard work or dedication will ever change this. I am physiologically incapable of acquiring these capacities.

Similarly, my gender plays an integral role in determining who I am, what my preferences are, and ultimately what I’m capable of.

And that bothers me.

Gender is a disease

Like the work being done to bring about a radical life extension revolution, and whose proponents argue that aging is a disease, we likewise need to change our perceptions about gender. There are a number of areas where we can see how our genders work to our disadvantage and why we would want to do something about it.

Men have the double-edged sword of being, in general, physically advantaged. While this tends to contribute to male dominance over women, it has also placed men in dangerous situations and environments. Males are conventionally the members of society who are sent into combat and are expected to perform hazardous—and sometimes sacrificial—work.

Aside from the overtly obvious physical dimorphism that separates men from women, there are also a number of cognitive and behavioral differences that work to stratify humans along gender lines.

Threats, physical assaults and homicides are an indelible male feature across all cultures and typically the result of male-male competition over resources that work to increase reproductive fitness. Males tend to have more accidents than females across their entire life spans. For every girl that is injured on a playground, four boys are likewise injured. Boys burn themselves more than girls. Roughly twice as many females across all ages suffer from significant levels of anxiety and depression than their male counterparts; women are more prone to suffer from eating disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Looking at latent cognitive abilities, boys and men have slightly higher average IQ scores than girls and women. Females across all ages consistently outperform boys and men on tests that assess the speed of matching arbitrary symbols to numbers. In measures of sensitivity to verbal cues, females almost always outperform males.

Needless to say, these gender differences are general tendencies. Men and women do not all fall within these parameters. But what these statistics reveal is that across the entire population males and females are stratified in a non-trivial way.

Sex differences also impact on occupational interests and achievement—differences that contribute greatly to the wage and social status advantage that men enjoy in most (if not all) industrialized nations. The acquisition of the educational credentials required for a lucrative career in a field such as engineering – a math intensive field – is made easier for men by virtue of cognitive factors that are less pronounced for women.

And of course, as long as women carry, give birth, and nurture their offspring, they will be set at a social disadvantage and even face subjugation. As cyberfeminist Donna Haraway noted in her Cyborg Manifesto,

"...control strategies applied to women's capacities to give birth to new human beings will be developed in the languages of population control and maximization of goal achievement for individual decision-makers. Control strategies will be formulated in terms of rates, costs of constraints, degrees of freedom. Human beings, like any other component or subsystem, must be localized in a system architecture whose basic modes of operation are probabilistic, statistical."

Consequently, Haraway saw true female liberation occurring through the application of cybernetics and the subsequent alleviation of biological pressures on women. As Haraway famously noted, "I'd rather be a cyborg than a goddess."

The end of immutable sexual characteristics

While reproductively necessary, the ongoing presence of gender has proven problematic over time. Humanity is far removed from its evolutionary heritage and environment. Moreover, evolution makes for a poor moral compass. We value fairness, non-arbitrariness and egalitarianism -- even in the genetic sphere; the ongoing presence of gender should therefore trouble us. We should strive for a post-Darwinian condition.

We are, often at a subconscious level, working to become postbiological. Most of us are in denial about or in opposition to this, but the level of control that we seek over our minds and bodies is in tune with this goal. We are perpetually working to transcend our biological vulnerabilities and constraints. This will eventually get us to the oft spoken and quasi-mythological posthuman condition.

Most efforts to achieve a postgendered state have largely focused on non-biological solutions, namely through social, educational, political and economic reform. While environmental strategies can be effective and important in their own right, they will continue to experience limited results on account of their inability to address the root of the problem: human biology.

Transhumanist postgenderism, as differentiated and further elucidated from mainstream feminism and postmodern/deconstructionist cyberfeminism, calls for a more equitable distribution of gendered traits across the two sexes and the elimination of those gendered characteristics that are deemed disadvantageous. Postgenderism in this form calls for actual reproductive and medical interventions for the achievement of these ends.

People deserve access to biotechnologies that will help them control their morphological, cognitive and reproductive characteristics. In a postgendered world, individuals will have the option to remain gendered, to experiment with their sex and sexuality, to mix and match gendered characteristics, or to reject gender altogether. The idea is to exact control over our bodies and minds. A postgendered condition does not necessarily imply the end of all gendered characteristics, it merely signifies the end of fixed and traditional gender assignments wrought by evolutionary processes. In this sense, persons who have undergone sexual reassignment surgery are humanity's first postgenderists.

There are other postgender biotechnologies in existence today. Birth control pills are a well established method that thwarts our reproductive natures, and menstruation suppression has all but arrived. Other physiological factors, such as hormonal influences and neurotransmitters, will soon be addressable.

Looking ahead to the future, there's the possibility for male pregnancy and neurological interventions to normalize male and female cognitive functioning. More radical solutions to help persons become truly postgendered include the advent of artificial wombs, virtual reality and whole brain emulation.

At the social level, the broader suppressive and controlling social megastructure that exists and thrives on gender differences will be undermined by the postgenderist agenda. It will mark the end of sexual politics.

Thus, it is through the application of substantive and real biological interventions that the problem that is gender will most meaningfully be addressed. Postgender-tech will be an integral component to the larger collaborative struggle to achieve a genetically egalitarian, posthuman, and postbiological condition that works to the betterment of both individuals and society in general.

Science & Spirit: Will men and women ever agree?

The latest edition of Science & Spirit takes a look at modern gender politics and potential future sociological and medical issues.

Topics:

The Gender Debate: Timing is Everything
by Beryl Lieff Benderly
The way that science talks about male and female has dramatically changed over the past twenty years, leaning toward equality today, as told in the adventures of our correspondent, then and now.

Biology May Be Our Destiny
by Steven E. Rhoads
For all the power academic “gender studies” have today, evolution and biology may have the final word in why men and women are different and why society should take this to heart.

The End of 'Man'
by Pat Craig
Although some scientists say the Y chromosome that produces boys may evolve out of existence, others don’t see the curtain dropping yet, if at all. The Y may have the remarkable power of self-repair—and ‘man’ will survive.

'Is It a Boy or a Girl?'
by Milton Diamond
The intersex child, born with sexual ambiguity, is a heart-wrenching issue glossed over by society until now. A new medical view urges letting the child, guided by science, decide future sexual identity.

Q&A: On Doing the Math
David C. Geary
For all the debate on how boys and girls compare in math and science, these differences are small compared to the gap between Americans and other countries. One expert on the brain, evolution, and math offers his views.

Male and Female Mystics
by Carol Lee Flinders
Religious mystics have always been creative in their male and female images of God and their own gender roles in society. They show that although roles and traditions exist, they are transcended as well.