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"A forceful challenge to the supposition that reproductive health is a woman's domain. This sophisticated multilevel study of how knowledge is made—and not made—about men's reproductive health sets a new agenda for research on gender in medical knowledge."—Sarah Richardson, author of Sex Itself: The Search for Male and Female in the Human Genome
"Professor Almeling carefully documents historic neglect of male reproductive health issues by medical science and the media, and the consequent gaps in how the public understands the connection between a father's health and birth outcomes. A must-read for forward thinkers in the reproductive health community."—Dr. Jennifer L. Howse, President Emerita, March of Dimes
"It takes exceptional skill to account for an absence. In this fascinating investigation, Rene Almeling reveals how the science of men's reproductive health has gone missing in action—and shows just how much that vacuum of knowledge matters, for the lives of people of all genders."—Steven Epstein, author of Inclusion: The Politics of Difference in Medical Research and Impure Science: AIDS, Activism, and the Politics of Knowledge
List of contents
List of Figures and Tables
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Part I Medical Specialization and the Making of Biomedical Knowledge
1. Whither GUYnecology?
2. Andrology Again
Part II Circulating Knowledge about Men’s Reproductive Health
3. Making Knowledge about Paternal Effects (with Jenna Healey)
4. Reproductive Health for Half the Public
Part III Men’s Views of Reproduction
5. Sex, Sperm, and Fatherhood
6. Healthy Sperm?
Conclusion: The Politics of Men’s Reproductive Health
Appendix A: Methods
Appendix B: Interviewees
Notes
Bibliography
About the author
Rene Almeling is Associate Professor of Sociology at Yale University and the author of Sex Cells: The Medical Market for Eggs and Sperm.
Summary
What is healthy sperm or the male biological clock? This book details why we don't talk about men's reproductive health and how this lack shapes reproductive politics today.
For more than a century, the medical profession has made enormous efforts to understand and treat women’s reproductive bodies. But only recently have researchers begun to ask basic questions about how men’s health matters for reproductive outcomes, from miscarriage to childhood illness. What explains this gap in knowledge, and what are its consequences?
Rene Almeling examines the production, circulation, and reception of biomedical knowledge about men’s reproductive health. From a failed nineteenth-century effort to launch a medical specialty called andrology to the contemporary science of paternal effects, there has been a lack of attention to the importance of men’s age, health, and exposures. Analyzing historical documents, media messages, and qualitative interviews, GUYnecology demonstrates how this non-knowledge shapes reproductive politics today.
Additional text
"An engaging and informative read. . . . Almeling’s conclusion about what should be done with regard to male reproductive health and paternal effects is, happily, parallel to what many feminists have recommended with regard to women’s reproductive care: she believes that what is needed is a combination of broad research and attention to social and environmental structures of health and illness."
