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The Means Of Reproduction: Sex, Power, And The Future Of The World (2009)

by Michelle Goldberg(Favorite Author)

4.08 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1594202087 (ISBN13: 9781594202087)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Penguin Press HC, The

review 1: Tired of hearing about the magic sperm rejecting powers of women's bodies? Want to smack people who simply say "she should keep her legs closed"?Read this.A few months ago, my local NPR hosted a radio program about proposed changes to PA's abortion law. These changes would've included a vagina ultrasound as well making the woman carry around a picture from said ultrasound. The woman on the NPR show pointed out that in countries where men control reproduction that abortion is not really an issue of debate, and it's not because abortion doesn't exist in those places.Abortion is a complicted topic if only because of what everyone brings to the table. Both Pro-Choice and Pro-Life are valid points; however, taking about sperm killing powers of women's bodies during rape is ... morenot (and is what I have an issue with). Goldberg's look at the issue of reproduction covers abortion in terms of population control as well as the woman's right, but she also looks at other sorts of control over women and thier reproduction. It's a must read simply because it forces a closer look at the issue (like, more recently, NPR's Being program).
review 2: A first rate book covering the population crisis, women, sex, and reproduction from the 1960's to the present. Reporting from around the world - North, Central and South America, Africa, Asia, Europe. Topics covered include birth control, abortion, sterilization, female "circumcision", women's rights etc etc. Chronologically Goldberg reports from the 1960's to the 2000's - the involvement of the US and the UN; the politics and the changing social conversation within the US and around the world. She covers the HIV-AIDS crisis, which is especially devastating among women in Africa. And a chapter on "missing girls" in Asia and even among immigrants from Asia living in the US and Canada.I'm pretty familiar with the topic having studied Population Planning, as the department was called, at the U of Michigan School of Public Health in the late 1960's and then perinatal epidemiology at Columbia U in the 1980's. Nonetheless, I learned a lot and got to know some of the internal politics and personnel relationships in some of the big institutional actors - USAID, Ford Foundation, Population Council, Planned Parenthood in the US and internationally. less

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