Gender Disparity In Family Planning Initiatives

Gender in Science The female gender is significantly victimized and segregated compared to the men on quite a number of aspects. Society often portrays women as inferior beings that have to rely on the support of men and cannot work or survive independently. The same case applies when it comes to technological developments and more specifically reproductive technologies that are mostly developed for the benefit of men and with little consideration for the welfare and well-being of the women. These reproductive technologies help to treat the inability to reproduce using technological procedures and also in family planning through contraceptives. The society has left most efforts to attend to infertility issues and to persons of the female and therefore most fertility drugs and contraceptives revolve around them disregarding the fact that men too are plagued by infertility and that their efforts are also required in family planning. The essay intends to examine various materials and articles that showcase the gender disparity in family planning initiatives and contraceptive usage and highlight how the technologies involved are almost entirely controlled by men, applied and withheld in the interest of men, with dire consequences for women. The use of handmaids in The Handmaid’s Tale for reproductive purposes is the earliest form of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART). The forced surgeon in the book is a practice imposed on the handmaids by the Gilead society in their efforts to reproduce. The handmaid’s Tale centers on the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian state and one where increased pollution and chemical spillage resulted in declining fertility rates. Hence, and in efforts to counter that fact, the government in the Republic prohibited women from working or holding any property so that they focus solely on reproduction. It branded the fertile women as “handmaids” whose purpose was to assist the elite couples where the wives were experiencing problems conceiving to bear children. These handmaids became primary assistants to the couples they were assigned to and their duties extended from the normal house chores to occasionally “lying” with the husbands, so as to produce children for the infertile couples. This is defined as traditional surrogacy and involves the fertile woman offering her egg and uterus for potential pregnancy to the infertile couple. The law enforcers in the Republic of Gilead have used the technological methods to curb infertility in their societies selectively and all in the interest of powerful men. The handmaids are taken through what can be seen as fertility training then attached to houses of powerful men in the Republic of Gilead. The protagonist for example was attached to the house of the powerful commander and his wife. The women in Gilead are obligated to have monthly checks done on them by specialists. The author notes “I am taken to the doctor’s once a month, for tests: urine, hormones, cancer smear and blood tests”. These tests are aimed to enhance their capabilities for conception. There is however no mention of any such procedures being done on those from the male gender. The tests were also done to check on infertility whereby those found to be barren would be outcaste and branded ...