The quantum leaps in technology in the twentieth century have provoked a profound shift in the way we think about our bodies. Genetic engineering, reproductive technology, the advent of virtual reality all fundamentally affect basic categories of 'self' and 'gender'. The future can look bright or apocalyptic, depending on where you stand - and, crucially, who is selling that vision to you. Carol A. Stabile argues that the two traditional responses of technophobia or technomania are simply inadequate for the choices facing us today. She charts the development of these two responses across a wide cultural terrain: from ecofeminism's uncritical celebration of women and nature to foetal imaging, struggles over women and the military, and the advent of cyborg politics.

The quantum leaps in technology in the twentieth century have provoked a profound shift in the way we think about our bodies. Genetic engineering, reproductive technology, the advent of virtual reality all fundamentally affect basic categories of 'self' and 'gender'. The future can look bright or apocalyptic, depending on where you stand - and, crucially, who is selling that vision to you. Carol A. Stabile argues that the two traditional responses of technophobia or technomania are simply inadequate for the choices facing us today. She charts the development of these two responses across a wide cultural terrain: from ecofeminism's uncritical celebration of women and nature to foetal imaging, struggles over women and the military, and the advent of cyborg politics.

The term "technological fix" should mean a fix provided by technology--a solution for all of our problems, from medicine and food production to the environment and business. Instead, technological fix has come to mean a cheap, quick fix using inappropriate technology that usually creates more problems than it solves. This collection sets out the distinction between a technological fix and a true technological solution. Bringing together scholars from a variety of disciplines, the essays trace the technological fix as it has appeared throughout the twentieth century. Addressing such "fixes" as artificial hearts, industrial agriculture and climate engineering, these essays examine our need to turn to technology for solutions to all of our problems.

With attention to the ways in which new reproductive technologies facilitate the gradual disembodiment of reproduction, this book reveals the paradox of women's reproductive experience in patriarchal cultures as being both, and often simultaneously, empowering and disempowering. A rich exploration of birth appropriation in the West, New Reproductive Technologies and Disembodiment investigates the assimilation of women's embodied power into patriarchal systems of symbolism, culture and politics through the inversion of women's and men's reproductive roles. Contending that new reproductive technologies represent another world historical moment, both in their forging of novel social relations and material processes of reproduction, and their manner of disembodying women in unprecedented ways - a disembodiment evident in recent visual and literary, popular and academic texts - this volume locates the roots of this disembodiment in western political discourse. A call to feminist political theory to re-remember the material dimensions of bodies and their philosophical significance, New Reproductive Technologies and Disembodiment will appeal to scholars of sociology, gender studies, political and social theory and the study of science, technology and health.

Feminism Confronts Technology provides a lively and engaging exploration of the impact of technology on women's lives from word processors to food processors, and genetic engineering to the design of cities. Comprehensive and critical, this book surveys the sociological and feminist literature on technology, highlighting the male bias in the way technology is defined as well as developed. Wajcman sets the scene with an overview of feminist theories of science and technology: encompassing the technologies of production and reproduction as well as domestic technology. The author challenges the common assumption that technology is gender neutral, looking at whether technology can liberate women or whether the new technologies are reinforcing sexual divisions in society.

There has been little attention to feminism and gender issues in mainstream philosophy of technology and vice versa. Since the beginning of the so-called »second wave feminism« (in the middle of the 20th century), there has been a growing awareness of the urgency of a critical reflection of technology and science within feminist discourse. But feminist thinkers have not consistently interpreted technology and science as emancipative and liberating for the feminist movement. Because technological development is mostly embedded in social, political, and economic systems that are patriarchally hierarchized, many feminists criticized the structures of dominance, marginalization and oppression inherent in numerous technologies. Therefore, the question of defining and ascribing responsibility in technics and science is essential for this anthology – regarding for instance the technological transformation of labor, the life in the information society, and the relationship between humans and machines.

A trailblazing look at how the law regulates women’s bodies as reproductive sites and what can be done about it. At the center of the “war on women” lies the fact that women in the contemporary United States are facing more widespread and increased surveillance of their reproductive health and decisions. In recent years states have passed a record number of laws restricting abortion. Physicians continue to sterilize some women against their will, especially those in prison, while other women who choose to forego reproduction cannot find physicians to sterilize them. While these actions seem to undermine women’s decision-making authority, experts and state actors often defend them in terms of promoting women’s autonomy. In Governed through Choice, Jennifer M. Denbow exposes the way that the notion of autonomy allows for this apparent contradiction and explores how it plays out in recent reproductive law, including newly enacted informed consent to abortion laws like ultrasound mandates and the regulation of sterilization. Denbow also shows how developments in reproductive technology, which would seem to increase women’s options and autonomy, provide even more opportunities for state management of women’s bodies. The book argues that notions of autonomy and choice, as well as transformations in reproductive technology, converge to enable the state’s surveillance of women and undermine their decision-making authority. Yet, Denbow asserts that there is a way forward and offers an alternative understanding of autonomy that focuses on critique and social transformation. Moreover, while reproductive technologies may heighten surveillance, they can also help disrupt oppressive norms about reproduction and gender, and create space for transformation. A critically important analysis, Governed through Choice is a trailblazing look at how the law regulates women’s bodies as reproductive sites and what can be done about it.

Feminist Anthropology surveys the history of feministanthropology and offers students and scholars a fascinatingcollection of both classic and contemporary articles, grouped tohighlight key themes from the past and present. Offers vibrant examples of feminist ethnographic work ratherthan synthetic overviews of the field. Each section is framed by a theoretical and bibliographicessay. Includes a thoughtful introduction to the volume that providescontext and discusses the intellectual “foremothers” ofthe field, including Margaret Mead, Ruth Landes, Phyllis Kaberry,and Zora Neale Hurston.

Abortion Politics: Public Policy in Cross Cultural Perspective focuses on current abortion policy and practice in the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan and aims to provide a comprehensive, stimulating and balanced picture of current abortion policy in a cross-cultural perspective. The contributors deal with comparative abortion policy including recent developments in Ireland, Germany and Eastern Europe.

With contributions from some of the most important current feminist thinkers, Transformations traces both the shifts in thinking that have allowed feminism to arrive at its present point, and the way that feminist agendas have progressed in line with wider social developments. A thorough reassessment of feminism's place in contemporary life, the authors engage in current debates as diverse as globalization, technoscience, embodiment and performativity, taking feminism in fresh directions, mapping new territory and suggesting alternative possibilities.