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Bodies of Technology. Women's Involvement with Reproductive Medicine, edited by Ann Rudinow Saetnan, Nelly Oudshoorn, and Marta Kirejczyk. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2000. 461 pp. $75.00 cloth. ISBN: 0-8142-0846-0. $26.95 paper. ISBN: 08142-5050-5.
Bodies of Technology: Women's Involvement with Reproductive Medicine is a collection of essays that sets out to address the culturally and historically specific ways that reproductive technology and gender interact to reshape one another and the implications of these interactions for the "lay-end users" (primarily women) of these technologies. The common ground connecting all the essays is the premise that gender and technology co-construct each other, thus both are given social meaning simultaneously through the same social actions. The writers consider key questions: how local cultural appropriation of technology impacts users in specific and concrete ways; how technology itself is reshaped as it is implemented in new cultural environments; and how users are involved and represented in different areas of discourse (i.e., technology development, healthcare clinics, the media). Another central concern of the collection is the tension between the liberatory or oppressive potential of reproductive technologies for those users whose bodies reap the benefits or suffer the consequences of this technological harvest.
One of the main strengths of the collection is the cross-cultural breadth that the essays provide. While not all of the essays are equally persuasive in terms of methodology or clarity of argument, in general the chapters provide compelling discussions of women's involvement in the development, implementation, and use of reproductive technology. The essays are grouped into three main sections, logically following the chronology of fertility: contraception, fertilization, and fetal diagnostics. Introductory essays at the beginning of each section provide valuable insights into the primary questions and concerns...