Politics and Gender Politics
Pregnancy and control of human reproduction have often been used as proxies for treating gender issues or broader themes of social control; works dealing with pregnancy and human reproduction have also been used to closely explore gender politics. For instance, "male pregnancy" has been used to comedic effect in mainstream literature and films such as Junior (1994 film, dir. Ivan Reitman), and has developed a following in fan fiction — the "m-preg" genre.
The genre of feminist science fiction has explored single-sex reproduction in depth, particularly parthenogenesis, as well as gendered control over the ability and right to reproduce. See also numerous dystopian stories about state-controlled reproduction, abortion, and birth control, such as Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, or her short story, "Freeforall". These works have often been analyzed as explorations of contemporary political debates about reproduction and pregnancy.
Read more about this topic: Reproduction And Pregnancy In Speculative Fiction
Famous quotes containing the word gender:
“Most women of [the WW II] generation have but one image of good motherhood—the one their mothers embodied. . . . Anything done “for the sake of the children” justified, even ennobled the mother’s role. Motherhood was tantamount to martyrdom during that unique era when children were gods. Those who appeared to put their own needs first were castigated and shunned—the ultimate damnation for a gender trained to be wholly dependent on the acceptance and praise of others.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)