Assisted Reproductive Technologies and the Gender Politics of Development in Singapore

• In Event: 30409 - Sociology of Development

Abstract

This paper examines the gender politics of development in Singapore through the lens of public debates on assisted reproductive technologies. Specifically, it compares the discourses on egg freezing and in-vitro fertilisation, and how these discourses develop in relation to the patriarchal culture of Singapore, advocacy for active fatherhood, the state’s intensive pronatalist strategy, as well as a recent political commitment to advancing women’s status in society. In doing so, this paper demonstrates how different categories of citizens are assimilated into a regime that, while deeply patriarchal and pronatalist, is also becoming more receptive to egalitarianism and feminism. Single women’s rights to elective egg freezing and married women’s rights to IVF are associated with the idea of responsibility for population building, with both groups shouldering the blame for having to use reproductive technologies owing to delays in marriage and childbearing. Following calls for more egalitarian gender relations to resolve the work-life issues of women and complement single women’s usage of egg freezing, various actors have also called on husbands to be more active and responsible in sharing the emotional labour of IVF which remains largely borne by women. Thus, the public discussion on reproductive rights becomes entangled with stubborn yet shifting ideas about reproductive responsibility – ideas which are politically, socially, and scientifically organised. This paper contributes to the literature on gendered nation-states by considering the empirical domain of assisted reproductive technologies and its role in facilitating changing cultural constructions of gendered citizenship.

Author

• Gracia J. Lee, Yale University