Managing multiple masculinities in donor insemination: Doctors configuring infertile men and sperm donors in Taiwan
Journal
Sociology of Health and Illness
Journal Volume
33
Journal Issue
1
Pages
96-113
Date Issued
2011
Author(s)
Abstract
This article investigates how doctors configured infertile men and sperm donors in the development of donor insemination (DI) in Taiwan. In the initial stage (1950s-1970s) doctors adjusted clinical procedures to repair the deformed gender identities of infertile men. To expand DI in the late 1970s and early 1980s, doctors stressed the positive eugenics of DI by spotlighting the high intelligence of donors, playing down biological patrilineage and re-emphasising the contribution of men of higher rank in society. In the mid-1980s, when donors came to be seen as potential carriers of fatal diseases like acquired immune deficiency syndrome, doctors managed to associate risky donors with socially stigmatised men, and therefore perpetuate the conventional hierarchy of masculinities. As the intracytoplasmic sperm injection emerged in the early 1990s doctors quickly presented infertile men as universally longing for biological fatherhood and hence devalued DI in an attempt to augment paternal masculinity. These diverse configuration activities come together to create a socio-technical network of DI that most of the time perpetuates the reigning gender order, rather than destabilising it. I argue the importance of incorporating various types of participants in analysis to understand the changing dynamics of multiple masculinities along with the development of DI. ? 2010 The Author. Sociology of Health & Illness ? 2010 Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness/Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Subjects
Configuration; Donor insemination; Infertility; Masculinity; Taiwan
Other Subjects
article; artificial insemination; cultural anthropology; doctor patient relation; donor; gender identity; high risk behavior; human; intracytoplasmic sperm injection; male; male infertility; masculinity; methodology; perception; psychologic test; psychological aspect; retrospective study; sex difference; spermatozoon; Taiwan; Anthropology, Cultural; Gender Identity; Humans; Infertility, Male; Insemination, Artificial, Homologous; Interview, Psychological; Male; Masculinity; Physician-Patient Relations; Retrospective Studies; Risk-Taking; Sex Factors; Social Perception; Sperm Injections, Intracytoplasmic; Spermatozoa; Taiwan; Tissue Donors
Type
journal article