Man-Made Women - How New Reproductive Technologies Affect Women

In the early 1980s the new reproductive technologies available supposedly offered infertile women a chance to have children. However, there was growing concern that the determination of scientists to dominate nature, their disregard for women's well-being, and the financial gains to be made from these technologies would together result in the increased modification of all women's lives and the loss of even more control over our own bodies.
Originally published in 1985, the essays in Man-Made Women describe the technologies being used and researched in the areas of in vitro fertilization ('test-tube babies'), sex-predetermination and embryo transfer at the time. They discuss the practical application of the technologies on an international scale and draw attention to the racist and classist assumptions on which they are based. There is also information about the international action that feminists had begun to counter these so-called benevolent and therapeutic technologies.
Man-Made Women hoped to encourage women to start questioning the 'miracle' of these new reproductive technologies and to become involved in crucial decisions about their bodies and their lives.

List of contents

Notes on Contributors. Preface Janice Raymond 1. Prenatal and Preconception Sex Choice Technologies: A Path to Femicide? Helen B. Holmes and Betty B. Hoskins 2. The Continuing Deficit of Women in India and the Impact of Amniocentesis Madhu Kishwar 3. The Reproductive Brothel Gena Corea 4. Sex Choice: Survival and Sisterhood Roberta Steinbacher and Helen B. Holmes 5. What's 'New' about the 'New' Reproductive Technologies? Renate Duelli Klein 6. Motherhood, Patriarchal Power, Alienation and the Issue of 'Choice' in Sex Preselection Robyn Rowland 7. Transforming Consciousness: Women and the New Reproductive Technologies Jalna Hanmer.

About the author

Gena Corea, Renate Duelli Klein, Jalna Hanmer, Helen B. Holmes, Betty Hoskins, Madhu Kishwar, Janice Raymond, Robyn Rowland and Roberta Steinbacher

Product details

• Authors: Corea Gena, Hanmer Jalna, Holmes Helen B., Betty Hoskins, Kishwar Madhu, Renate Duelli Klein, Janice Raymond, Rowland Robyn, Roberta Steinbacher
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 02.02.2026
• EAN: 9781032850948
• ISBN: 978-1-032-85094-8
• No. of pages: 108
• Series: Routledge Library Editions: Women in Society
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Education > Social education, social work; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology; Sociology, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / General, MEDICAL / Public Health, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Women's Studies, HEALTH & FITNESS / Women's Health, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Disease & Health Issues, MEDICAL / Reproductive Medicine & Technology, Personal & public health, Illness & addiction: social aspects, Women's health, Women’s health, Reproductive Medicine, Gender studies: women, Gender studies: women and girls, Medical Sociology, Personal and public health / health education, Health, illness or addiction: social aspects