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Studies of consensus-based groups have historically focused on decision making processes as the defining attribute of a collective structure. Such organizations are typically analyzed as critical alternatives to capitalist bureaucratic hierarchies. This study of a small business, collectively owned and operated by women, expands the understanding of collective process by analyzing the relationship between democratic participation and the nature of the organization as socially constructed through the claimsmaking activities of its members. Tensions arising between the normative value of claims-making, the empowerment of women, running a sustainable business, and the use of consensus decision making are raised with examples from the business.

Sterilization is endorsed as a method of family planning by international governmental organizations; abortion is not. Focusing on policy development for these two issues in a single country, Peru, we ask how power and inequality operate under conditions of global consensus or dissensus. The case of sterilization unfolded the way many previous research studies would predict, with Peruvian state actions corresponding to a global diffusion process. We find that global consensus provided cover for top-down actions that violated the human rights of indigenous women in the country, who were predominantly poor, non-Spanish speakers, and residents of the mountainous, sparsely populated parts of the country. With respect to abortion in Peru, in the absence of global consensus, the state resisted calls for change, advocacy networks have worked at cross-purposes, and a powerful local actor, the Catholic Church, has effectively blocked liberalization efforts. As with sterilization, however, marginalized indigenous women and their interests were rendered invisible.

Is medically assisted fertilization (with the use of in vitro technology) about “reproductive rights” or about white women's privileges? What is “choice” for white and rich women seems to become a further commodification of the body for women of color and economically disadvantaged women.

Several feminists define reproductive rights by demanding social justice and a type of support for the mothers that does not include expensive technologies, which have a problematic outcome, that of generating a divide between women in the north and women in the south of the world. Some authors also talk about a “division of labor” in reproduction.

The first part of my chapter offers an outline of the historical feminist debate over gender and technology, looking at different positions regarding biotechnologies, and reproductive technologies in a specific way. The second part presents an investigation around the (often racialized) international market of eggs and surrogate mothers in the United States, India and Eastern Europe.

The third part consists of an analysis of few recent studies about the health of women who undergo ovarian hyper-stimulation in order to give eggs as “donation” (under payment); women who offer themselves as surrogate mothers and the children who have been conceived with in vitro fertilization, specifically with heterologue forms (egg donation or surrogate motherhood).

Given the growth in use of Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) in reproductive medicine, most fertility clinics have developed websites describing the benefits of PGD. This chapter examines the media frames employed on 372 U.S. fertility clinic websites marketing PGD to consumers and how these frames promote biomedicalization.

Evaluation of website discourse was conducted with the use of frame analysis, a research methodology for examining the way media frames bind together claims, judgments, and value statements into a narrative that guides readers’ interpretation of an issue.

Findings show that website discourse frames PGD in terms of the attainment of reproductive normality, the management of reproductive risk, and the achievement of technological progress. These discursive frames contribute to the ongoing biomedicalization of reproduction by re-naturalizing conception as a choice rather than a natural fact, by promoting preoccupation with biomedical risk, and by affirming new forms of technological power and expertise.

Examination reveals the ways in which PGD has developed its own system of representations, notions of exchange, and epistemic forms, and highlights the important ethical issues leveraged on fertility clinic websites marketing PGD.

As one of the first attempts to systematically analyze media frames that depict PGD on fertility clinic websites, this study contributes to medical sociology by advancing theoretical and empirical understanding of the media processes shaping accounts of reproductive technologies. Findings also provide a foundation for further analysis of the social norms and bioethical standards arising from consumer marketing of reproductive technologies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of a dialogical approach, associated with the Russian literary critic and philosopher Bakhtin, in understanding the portrayal of managerial identity in management narratives. In particular, it applies these ideas critically to understand how managers' identities are partly shaped by the dominant discourse or idea about what a manager should “be.”

The paper draws on three written narratives of managers. It applies a dialogical approach to consider how they position themselves interactionally in the narratives in such a way as to highlight a managerial identity based on being “enterprising” and “for change,” while simultaneously voicing alternative identities negatively. The use of the written narratives of managers and the application of a dialogical approach is an important contribution to the literature.

The findings suggest that managers, when reflecting on organizational events through narrative, assume a managerial identity that reflects current dominant discourse about what a manager should “be.” In doing so they reject other possible discourses that offer alternatives, not only to managerial “being,” but also to what management and organizations might reflect and represent. The paper also, however, recognizes that some managers reject this identity and its implications for organizational activity.

The paper suggests that managerial identity is partly a product of a dominant discursive/ideological formation rather than individual choice. Although managers may reject this interpellation creating an alternative is constrained by the regime of truth that prevails about what management is at any given time. The approach might be considered overly deterministic in its view of managerial identity.

The paper extends the understanding of managerial identity and how it is portrayed through narrative by using a dialogical approach to interpretation.

The connection between women’s empowerment and health has been a growing concern among demographers and other social scientists, who theorize that empowering women – or enhancing their ability to define and make strategic life choices – will improve their reproductive health (Kabeer, 1999). The importance of empowering women became a central theme at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) held in Cairo in 1994. The Cairo policy document codified the notion that women must be empowered in order for them and societies as a whole reach their reproductive health goals, including lowering fertility and population growth, stemming the spread of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and HIV/AIDS, and ensuring healthy pregnancy and delivery (Hodgson & Watkins, 1997; Sen & Batliwala, 2000).

This study examines liberal second-wave feminists’ writings about cooking. Most scholarship of liberal feminism has focused on the attempts to integrate women into previously male-dominated public spaces such as higher education, the professions, and political office. Less attention has been paid to how these feminists politicized feminized spaces such as the home. A longstanding tension between the housewife role and feminist identities has led many to theorize that feminists avoid or resent domestic tasks. However, I argue that some liberal feminists in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s suggested engaging with cooking in subversive ways that challenged patriarchal institutions and supported their political goals.

I analyze 148 articles about cooking in Ms. magazine between 1972 and 1985. I also analyze the copy and recipes within four community cookbooks published by liberal feminist organizations.

I find that liberal feminists suggested utilizing time- and labor-saving cooking methods, encouraged men to cook, and proposed that women make money from cooking. These three techniques challenged the traditional division of domestic labor, supported women’s involvement in the paid workplace, and increased women’s control of economic resources.

This study turns the opposition between feminism and feminized tasks on its head, showing that rather than avoiding cooking, some liberal feminists proposed ways of cooking that challenged patriarchal institutions. I show how subordinate populations can develop ways of subversively engaging with tasks that are typically seen as oppressive, using them in an attempt to advance their social position.

This chapter examines men’s involvement in birth control from a feminist political-economic perspective. Fertility, and hence women’s body, is still a focus of political struggles today. In the late 1990s, the international community of population policy recognized a concept of women’s reproductive rights and adopted a rights-based discourse in place of a language of economic efficiency. At the same time, they advocated for men’s participation in family planning and burden sharing between couples. This gender-sensitive new policy was effective in achieving more successful contraception in patriarchal societies where men are decision-makers in many aspects of social life. Yet, from a feminist perspective, such a policy could threaten women’s reproductive rights if gender relations remain patriarchal. A close examination of Turkey’s fertility decline suggests that the process was led by men who increasingly aspired to have small families which they could manage to look after as wage-earning fathers. In other words, it was realized without women’s empowerment. A case study of Kurdish women conducted in Eastern Turkey where fertility rate was significantly higher than the national average indicates a positive impact of men’s involvement on effective birth control. Yet this study also suggests a risk of undermining women’s empowerment and autonomy. The promotion of men’s involvement in family planning can reinforce men’s control over women’s bodies and endorse birth control without women’s empowerment again, unless it is consciously designed in the context of reproductive rights.

Purpose – This chapter addresses the interconnections between the development of feminism and the role of the nation-state, with particular reference to Canada. The general trajectory of Canadian feminism has much in common with the rest of the world, but it also has unique features that relate to Canada's proximity to the United States and to its lingering ties to the European colonial powers of Britain and France.

Approach – I cover the emergence and development of feminism in the academy in the context of Canadian political structures in two time periods; the period from the 1960s to the 1980s, which I see as a period of growth and promise, and the period of setbacks and challenges from the 1980s to the present.

Findings – Despite the setbacks, the challenges that confront feminism today, both nationally and globally, present opportunities to advance the goal of gender equity that has historically energized feminist actions in all arenas of social life.

Value of the chapter – The chapter contributes to the historical archives dealing with feminist activity in Canada in the second half of the 20th century.