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 women’s reproductive rights and its disastrous and u… More >>
The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
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.
Rating: 4 / 5
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.
Rating: 4 / 5
In the past, the extremists talked in terms of “overpopulation” in order to rationalize abortion. Now, in this boring piece that tries to pass itself off as journalism, another term, “liberation,” has been shamelessly adopted.
The agenda is to turn abortion into a “right,” of course.
The plea, written in numerous sections in rather hysterical tones, is constructed by an appeal to base and raw emotions: trying to make the association between tyranny and women’s defenseless bodies.
It doesn’t work.
This work merely presents another biased and extremely one-sided view to support a radical anti-life ideology of the abortion movement.
For example, as expected, the Pope is disparaged, even though he warned that tyrannical governments would exploit this type of thinking and fear to use in gaining more centralized power as they did in China.
This is simply another radical extemist feminist rant, in the name of “rights” (reproductive, of course) in order to acquire footing on new ground.
This book should be summarily trashed because it is….well… trash!
Rating: 1 / 5
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.
Rating: 5 / 5
Cultural analysis lends insight and depth to a guide recommended for high school to college-level collections strong in women’s issues in THE MEANS OF REPRODUCTION: SEX, POWER, AND THE FUTURE OF THE WORLD. The freedom of women has become the key human rights struggle of our times, and this surveys history and social issues on four continents to consider the wider, global issue.
Rating: 5 / 5