The Politics of Reproduction

253 Pages·1983·16.502 MB·English

by  Mary O'Brien

The Politics ··
of Reproduction
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Mary O'Brien
The politics of reproduction
HQ
1206 O'Brien, Mary.
024 The politics ox reproduction I Mary
1983 O'Brien. -- Boston : Routledge & Kegan
I Paul, c1983. -
x, 240 P• ; 21 cm.
Bibliography: P• 227-233.
Includes index.
117934 Gi:ft
ISBN 0-7100-9498-1 (paperback)
1. Feminism. 2. Reproduction. 1.
Title
28 NOV 88 10797324 NEWCxc

Mary O'Brien
Women's Research and Resource Centre
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
The politics
of reproduction
Routledge & Kegan Paul
Boston, London and Henley
First published in 1981
by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd
39 Store Street, London WC1 E 7DD,
9 Park Street, Boston, Mass. 02108, USA and
Broadway House, Newtown Road,
Henley-on-Thames, Oxon RG9 1EN
First published as a paperback 1983
Reprinted 1983
Printed in the United States of America
© Mary O'Brien 1981
No part of this book may be reproduced in
any form without permission from the
publisher, except for the quotation of brief
passages m criticism
British Library Cataloguing in Publicatilm Data
O'Brien, Mary
The politics of reproduccion.
I. Women - Political aspects
2. Political science
I. Title
320'.01 '1 JAY1
ISBN o 7100 9498 I
To my aunts - Bertie, Eleanor, May -
who taught me that women are strong

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 The dialectics of reproduction 19
2 Sorry, we forgot your birthday 65
3 The public and private realms 93
4 Creativity and procreativity 116
5 Production and reproduction 140
6 Alienation and integration 185
Notes 211
Bibliography 227
Index 235

Acknowledgments
The possibility of this book emerged at its most fundamental level from
feminist political practice, and my debts to hundreds of women are
incalculable. Most directly, Cath McNaughton is number one midwife
to the ideas expressed here, and has nurtured both them an1.. me with
patience, generosity and lived sisterhood. To Frieda Forman, who
unifies theory and practice with vision, energy and endless grace, I owe
not only criticism and ideas, but the great satisfaction of feminist
working relations. To all the women struggling to found the Feminist
Party of Canada I owe the crucial experience of realized feminist
politics and the excitements of making history hour by hour.
My second debt is to students, at York University and most
particularly in Atkinson College, where I was fortunate enough to be
able to try out the analysis of reproduction presented here on bright and
caring minds quite a few years ago. I also want to thank students in
Integrated Studies at the University of Waterloo and, currently, in the
Department of Sociology in Education at the Ontario Institute for
Studies in Education. To OISE, too, I owe the rare blessing of a
feminist working environment, and the stimulation of having
departmental colleagues like Margrit Eichler and Dorothy Smith, whose
work is exciting, ovarian feminist scholarship. I also owe much to male
colleagues who transcend stereotypes in a respect and support for
feminist studies which is as genuine as it is rare.
For those who taught me and were prepared to walk out on some
quite fragile limbs for a doctoral dissertation which was hardly
conventional I have lasting regard. My debts to Christian Lenhardt, a
ix