Drawing on contemporary studies and oral history interviews, this article analyses psychiatric evaluations of heterosexual couples requesting donor insemination in Belgium in the 1970s. It contains two interrelated arguments. First, it reassesses the reason why mental health professionals were incorporated into fertility clinics. In response to negative assumptions about the mental stability of candidates seeking donor insemination, they had to act as gatekeepers. This finding contradicts earlier research, which linked the integration of mental health professionals in reproductive medicine to the growing awareness of the emotional consequences of infertility and to the exclusivity of in vitro fertilisation. Second, this article shows that psychiatric evaluations were influenced by both traditional gender roles and newer models of equality. As the mirror of a society that was changing at different speeds, they reflected both the transformation of traditional ideals of family, sex and marriage and the discomfort sparked by these changes.
...More
Thesis
Loe, Meika E.;
(2002)
(De) constructing the Viagra phenomenon: Claims, markets, and the science of sex
(/isis/citation/CBB001562539/)
Article
Rachel Louise Moran;
(2021)
A Women's Health Issue?: Framing Post-Abortion Syndrome in the 1980s
(/isis/citation/CBB930488513/)
Article
Arni, Caroline;
(2008)
Menschen machen aus Akt und Substanz: Prokreation und Vaterschaft im reproduktions-medizinischen und im literarischen Experiment
(/isis/citation/CBB000931583/)
Thesis
Nasser, Latif Shiraz;
(2014)
Spasms of the Soul: The Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic in the Age of Independence
(/isis/citation/CBB001567593/)
Book
Tsuge, Azumi;
(2012)
Seishoku gijutsu: Funin chiry to saisei iry wa shakai ni nani o motarasu
(/isis/citation/CBB001551354/)
Book
Nicole C. Bourbonnais;
(2016)
Birth Control in the Decolonizing Caribbean: Reproductive Politics and Practice on Four Islands, 1930–1970
(/isis/citation/CBB083480714/)
Article
Jennifer Fraser;
(2021)
Seizing the Means of Reproduction? Canada, Cancer Screening, and the Colonial History of the Cytopipette
(/isis/citation/CBB836159819/)
Article
Karissa Haugeberg;
(2018)
Nursing and Hospital Abortions in the United States, 1967–1973
(/isis/citation/CBB277198782/)
Book
Hannah Dudley-Shotwell;
(2020)
Revolutionizing Women's Healthcare: The Feminist Self-Help Movement in America
(/isis/citation/CBB446855800/)
Book
Sandra Bärnreuther;
(2021)
Substantial Relations: Making Global Reproductive Medicine in Postcolonial India
(/isis/citation/CBB296718154/)
Book
Mie Nakachi;
(2021)
Replacing the Dead: The Politics of Reproduction in the Postwar Soviet Union
(/isis/citation/CBB043150827/)
Thesis
Halfmann, Drew T.;
(2001)
Interests in Contexts and Institutional Democracy: The Politics of Abortion Policy in Liberal Welfare States, 1950--2000
(/isis/citation/CBB001562377/)
Book
Guilliland, Karen;
Pairman, Sally;
(2010)
Women's Business: The Story of the New Zealand College of Midwives, 1986--2010
(/isis/citation/CBB001033778/)
Article
Felitti, Karina A.;
(2007)
El debate médico sobre anticoncepción y aborto en Buenos Aires en los años sesenta del siglo XX
(/isis/citation/CBB000831361/)
Book
Diana Peschier;
(2019)
Lost Souls: Women, Religion and Mental Illness in the Victorian Asylum
(/isis/citation/CBB291963494/)
Article
Slijkhuis, Jessica;
Oosterhuis, Harry;
(2013)
“Paralysed with fears and worries”: Neurasthenia as a Gender-Specific Disease of Civilization
(/isis/citation/CBB001320323/)
Article
Whitlock, Tammy;
(1999)
Gender, Medicine, and Consumer Culture in Victorian England: Creating the Kleptomaniac
(/isis/citation/CBB000111803/)
Article
Morag Allan Campbell;
(2017)
‘Noisy, restless and incoherent’: puerperal insanity at Dundee Lunatic Asylum
(/isis/citation/CBB791023960/)
Article
Agata Ignaciuk;
(2021)
In Sickness and in Health: Expert Discussions on Abortion Indications, Risks, and Patient-Doctor Relationships in Postwar Poland
(/isis/citation/CBB543154930/)
Book
Sara Matthiesen;
(2021)
Reproduction Reconceived: Family Making and the Limits of Choice after Roe v. Wade
(/isis/citation/CBB740318677/)
Be the first to comment!