In the early 1980s the new reproductive technologies available supposedly offered infertile women a chance to have children. However, there was growing concern that the determination of scientists to dominate nature, their disregard for women’s well-being, and the financial gains to be made from these technologies would together result in the increased modification of all women’s lives and the loss of even more control over our own bodies.Originally published in 1985, the essays in...

Originally published in 1984, when new reproductive technologies were just beginning to become part of the public discussion, this edition was published with a new preface in 1989. The Editors wanted to look carefully at how much real choice reproductive technologies offered to women. Genetic engineering, sperm banks, test tube fertilization, sex selection, surrogate mothering, experimentation in the so called ‘third world’, increased technological intervention in childbirth – were we taki...

Women’s Studies investigates the world from women-centred perspectives which cross the boundaries of traditional academic disciplines. Thus every issue, every question is material for Women’s Studies. The worldwide development of Women’s Studies during the 1970s and 1980s presented a radical challenge to the male-centred bias which dominated knowledge-making at the time.Originally published in 1983, in this book feminist scholars discuss the assumptions and aims of Women’s Studies,...