Teaching Gender in Social Work - MailChimp

citizens have achieved so much, the new reproductive and genetic technologies
are promising to eliminate their kind – people with Down Syndrome, spina
bifida, muscular dystrophy, sickle cell anemia and hundred of other conditions”;
and some couples have a desire to use technologies to predetermine a baby’s sex
and some researchers warn about the effect on society concerning that desire, for
example in India, China, Bangladesh and Taiwan many couples abort when they
learn the foetus is a girl – in one study of 8000 abortions in India, 7999 were
female foetuses, and this is a clear sign of “gyne”cide. 42
It is necessary to encourage discussions in social work education concerning
the manner in which ART may be both liberating and oppressive. For
example, medical personnel reinscribe “normative” family and marital statuses
by not accepting single or lesbian women as candidates for the procedure, but
only married heterosexual couples. Although infertility may be experienced by
women of minority and poorer women at higher rates than white middle-class
women, it is the latter group that has access to infertility treatments by virtue
of their insurance benefits or personal income. Surrogacy, especially, can be
criticised as a way for men to retain a biological connection to their child, while
paying for the reproductive services of a woman who is typically of lower class
status and often of a minority background.
Teaching Human Reproduction
Topics on human reproduction issues can be integrated into teaching and
learning about human rights, social work ethics, child and family social work,
and gender in social work within the social work curriculum. Learning and
teaching about human reproduction issues may sensitise social work students
to, and raise their awareness of, the socio-cultural aspects of reproductive health
in contemporary society. The following classroom activities and accompanying
case examples should facilitate student interaction with the subject matter.
Classroom Activity One: Ask students in the classroom to write down
their free associations and some key words about human reproduction, reproductive
justice, women’s reproductive rights, forced sterilisation and assisted
reproductive technologies. Suggest that they discuss their findings in small
groups of 2-3 persons.
42
Jones, 1992, cited in Andrews, 2006.
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