Body Talk: Rhetoric, Technology, Reproduction (review)

Body Talk: Rhetoric, Technology, Reproduction. Edited by Mary M. Lay et al. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000. Pp. xiii+308. $60/$24.95.

This book grew out of a conference on "Women, Gender, and Science: What Do Research on Women in Science and Research on Gender and Science Have to Do With Each Other" that was held at the University of Minnesota in 1995. Although the participants came from a variety of disciplines, most of the contributors to Body Talk come from literature, rhetoric, and philosophy. Two are historians, three anthropologists. The emphasis is on rhetorical criticism and analysis--that is, an examination of word choice, arguments, warrants, claims, motives, and other purposeful, persuasive features of language, visuals, and artifacts--in order to understand how such discourse not only creates social conceptions of women's bodies and reproduction but also defines policies and knowledge systems that are available to women and men. Most of the authors are much more interested in theory than in history or technology. The implication is that technology was what enabled men to dominate medical control of women's bodies.

This is demonstrated by Jeanette Herrle-Fanning's examination of two British midwifery texts from different periods in the eighteenth century. Martha H. Verbrugge shows how American physical education instructors in the first four decades of the twentieth century both accepted and rejected many of the medical concepts of menstruation. Influential in disseminating information about developments in reproductive technology were the women's magazines, eleven of which are examined by Chloé Diepenbrock for the period between 1977 and 1996.

The last half of the book concentrates on the development of contraception, on breast implants, on the understanding of fetal development, and on treatment of infertility. There is nothing new here about technology. Rather, the authors attempt to look at how policy was made and is being made from a feminist viewpoint. Much is ignored. For example, Mary Lay's article concerns the legal status in the United States of direct-entry midwives. Such a descriptor distinguishes them from nurse midwives, but the differences between the two are not always clear. While it is implied that nurse midwives are more influenced by the medical model, matters are not so simple. Lay would probably agree that the topic needs more discussion but does not see this as her purpose here.

Robbie Davis-Floyd defines the central theme, that in any discussion of reproduction language that appears to be gender-neutral, even compassionately humanistic, disguises hidden patriarchal agendas. The contributors believe that gender bias pervades the design, application, marketing, and implementation of reproductive technologies. This certainly was true in the past, but I am increasingly reluctant to regard women as victims of technologies in which they now play an increasing developmental role. Politically oriented books such as this one have been a major factor in changing attitudes, and certainly I agree on the importance of a fully informed public, both female and male, in order to make better informed choices.

Vern L. Bullough

Dr. Bullough is professor emeritus at the State University of New York and clinical professor of nursing at the University of Southern California.

Permission to reprint a review published here may be obtained only from the reviewer.

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