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The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World |  | Author: Michelle Goldberg
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
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Seller: vana11
Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 223581
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 272
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6 x 0.9
Dewey Decimal Number: 363.46091724
ASIN: B002KAORXE
Publication Date: April 2, 2009
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Product Description
In this groundbreaking work of investigative journalism by the author of the New York Times bestseller Kingdom Coming, Michelle Goldberg exposes the global war on womens reproductive rights and its disastrous and unreported consequences for the future of global development
Womens rights are often treated as mere appendages to great questions of war, peace, poverty, and economic development. But as networks of religious fundamentalists, feminists, and bureaucrats struggle to remake sexual and childbearing norms worldwide, the battle to control womens bodies has become a high-stakes enterprise, with the United States often supporting the most reactionary forces.
In a work of incisive cultural analysis and deep reporting, Michelle Goldberg shows how the emancipation of women has become the key human rights struggle of the twenty-first century. The Means of Reproduction travels through four continents, examining issues such as abortion, female circumcision, and Asias missing girls to show how the battle over womens bodies has been globalized and how, too often, the United States has joined sworn enemies such as Iran and Sudan in an axis of repression. Reporting with unique insight from both the rarefied realm of international policy and from individual womens lives, Goldberg elucidates the economic, demographic, and health consequences of womens oppression, which affect more than half the worlds population.
As The Means of Reproduction reveals, the conflict between self-determination and patriarchal tradition has come to define pressing questions of global development. Empowering women is the key to retarding the progress of AIDS, curbing overpopulation, and helping the third world climb out of poverty, but attempts to improve womens status elicit fierce opposition from conservatives who see womens submission as key to their own national or religious identity.
From the anticommunist genesis of Americas attempts to stem population growth in poor countries to the current worldwide attack on womens rights as a decadent Western imposition, Goldberg explores the interplay between the great issues of our time and the politics of sex and childbearing. Finally, The Means of Reproduction shows how women, strengthened by a solidarity that transcends borders, are fighting for freedom.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 11
 Too important to be ignored October 25, 2009
Dr. Lorinda Sheppard
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
In this powerful book, Goldberg deftly weaves the accounts of individual women against the backdrop of nations, cultures, international law, and US policy as she illustrates the impact of women's rights in general, and reproductive rights in particular, on not only the women themselves, but on our global society. She argues convincingly that providing all women with reproductive freedom--including access to reliable birth control, safe abortion, and educational opportunities that enhance their economic potential and their ability to self-advocate--can be a powerful means for lifting both women and their families out of poverty. This book made me alternately angry and hopeful by outlining the successes and failures of numerous countries, including the United States, in ensuring that women's potential is achieved. Goldberg shows us what has worked, what has failed, what the threats are to continued progress, what the potential outcomes are if those threats are allowed to prevail, and what rewards we can anticipate if all countries would move forward in recognizing the valuable contributions and the basic human rights of women.
 Third World Feminists Rock! September 4, 2009
Josiah Kirby White (Rural Washington)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
When Goldberg waxes philosophical or talks about US feminism, she comes up with some ridiculous whoppers. Luckily, over 90% of the book is about her wonderful sisters elsewhere, and their struggles are actually real.
The whole book is full of dazzling gems. Examples: a funeral in Kenya for 15 fetuses (which were falsely planted evidence). And how the Catholic Church came within a whisker of permitting contraception. What a story! As usual, my church made the wrong decision for all the wrong reasons.
But my favorite gem is about the other pro-lifers: the Protestant Fundamentalists. I quote: "When Roe was decided, wrote Balmer, 'the vast majority of evangelical leaders said virtually nothing about it; many of those who did comment actually applauded the decision.' As the 1970's progressed, though, and the feminist movement became more powerful in the United States, abortion emerged as a tangible symbol of women's emancipation and the declining authority of the patriarchal family. The Protestant right developed a deep concern for fetal life and formed an alliance with Catholic conservatives that would shape American politics for the next three decades."
Wow! Who knew? But when I got to the word "patriarchal" in the above quote, my BS detector went off. And then I realized why the right wing suddenly developed an antipathy for all things feminist (and so became pro-life). It's not because they're too authoritarian (although they are). No, it's because American feminists were way over the top. E.g., Dworkin: "all intercourse is rape."
Modern American feminism got started when 60's radicals decided their sisters could best help the revolution by making coffee. Sometimes we create our own enemies, and we have nobody to blame but ourselves.
So talk about coming full circle! These feminists then created their own vicious enemies with rhetoric that makes Farrakhan seem tame by comparison. Three decades of GOP ascendancy followed as a result.
This book isn't bad, though. The man-hating rhetoric is almost non-existent. Spare yourself a little grief by skipping the introduction, and go right to the third world. These women really rock, in a way that reminds me of the pro-union free speech wars of America around 1900. These women are so brave they define what true courage really means. Read and be inspired.
Flawed but an interesting read... July 27, 2009
MotherLodeBeth (Sierras of California)
3 out of 9 found this review helpful
First off the author wrote Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, so she doesn't like conservatives much less Christians, so be forewarned. What troubled me about her newest book The Means of Reproduction is how she doesn't spend much time at all denouncing the lack of true reproductive freedom in China, but denounces other countries who want to deny abortion but do not deny birth control.
Thus I think she picks and chooses very carefully what liberal ideals she agrees with, while denouncing most of what the opposition believes in. And she seems to miss the idea that women of child bearing age often have a maternal instinct or 'gene' that makes suggesting the abort their baby an idea that goes contrary to womanhood.
She seems to not want to discuss much less push male contraception be it daily medication or vasectomies. And while it is true that Presidents Truman and Eisenhower supported Planned Parenthood creation, at the time abortion was NOT on the table and they did NOT support abortion, but did support family planning that permitted preventing fertilization in the first place. And thus allowing married couples to plan their families size better.
She also tends to not understand that the family unit for centuries has been the cornerstone of a civilized community. And she uses a broad brush to paint traditional women who are homemakers as being less than the woman who goes to a paying job. There is the saying that the woman who rocks the cradle rules the world. She ignores any data that notes that the less traditional women become the higher rates of divorce we have which means dysfunctional children that end up needing more and more government services. And I was disappointed that she rants on and on about problems but serves up few if any solutions.
Would be nice to know more about the author and her family background. In the end the book is actually an interesting read, and being a reader of all viewpoints I still want to recommend the book.
Compelling, well-argued -- and right July 2, 2009
William Brazell (Brooklyn, NY)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is an excellent and important book. When people think grandly about politics, women's rights often get short shrift -- if they get any shrift at all. But Michelle Goldberg argues persuasively, with thorough research and many great anecdotes, that a successful fight for women's reproductive rights would solve both over- and underpopulation -- that, in addition to being the right thing to do, winning that battle is also crucial to humanity's future.
Interesting & Important June 12, 2009
Sophia Linson (Tucson, AZ)
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
I highly recommend this book! The book is obviously meticulously researched and there is a lot of factual information, but it is never boring. It is very well written - the author addresses broad, complex issues and provides insightful analysis, but also brings in personal stories and descriptions of characters.
If you are interested in human rights, economic development, international politics or women's issues you will get a lot out of it.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 11
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