Robyn Rowland – författare

First published in 1984, Women who do and women who don’t join the women’s movement asks a variety of women – some of whom chose to align themselves with the women’s movement, others who chose not to – to write about their lives and the reasons for choices they have made. Where do the differences lie in the experience of feminists and antifeminists? Can clear dividing lines be drawn which place two groups of strong, intelligent women on opposing sides in the battle to survive in a ‘man’s world’? In tackling these questions, the contributors create a diverse pattern of women’s interpretations of ‘being female’, with, surprisingly, similarities emerging between the two groups, particularly in terms of their experience of ‘self’. This book will be of interest to students of women’s studies, gender studies and sociology.

First published in 1984, Women who do and women who don’t join the women’s movement asks a variety of women – some of whom chose to align themselves with the women’s movement, others who chose not to – to write about their lives and the reasons for choices they have made. Where do the differences lie in the experience of feminists and antifeminists? Can clear dividing lines be drawn which place two groups of strong, intelligent women on opposing sides in the battle to survive in a ‘man’s world’? In tackling these questions, the contributors create a diverse pattern of women’s interpretations of ‘being female’, with, surprisingly, similarities emerging between the two groups, particularly in terms of their experience of ‘self’. This book will be of interest to students of women’s studies, gender studies and sociology.

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 Man-Made Women describe the technologies being used and researched in the areas of in vitro fertilization (’test-tube babies’), sex-predetermination and embryo transfer at the time. They discuss the practical application of the technologies on an international scale and draw attention to the racist and classist assumptions on which they are based. There is also information about the international action that feminists had begun to counter these so-called benevolent and therapeutic technologies.

Man-Made Women hoped to encourage women to start questioning the ‘miracle’ of these new reproductive technologies and to become involved in crucial decisions about their bodies and their lives.