The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World Hardcover - 2009

by Michelle Goldberg

In this groundbreaking work of investigative journalism by theauthor of the New York Times bestseller Kingdom Coming, MichelleGoldberg exposes the global war on women's reproductive rights andits disastrous and unreported consequences for the future of globaldevelopment

Women's rights are often treated as mere appendagesto great questions of war, peace, poverty, and economicdevelopment. But as networks of religious fundamentalists,feminists, and bureaucrats struggle to remake sexual and childbearingnorms worldwide, the battle to control women's bodieshas become a high-stakes enterprise, with the United Statesoften supporting the most reactionary forces.

In a work of incisive cultural analysis and deepreporting, Michelle Goldberg shows how the emancipation ofwomen has become the key human rights struggle of thetwenty-first century. The Means of Reproduction travels throughfour continents, examining issues such as abortion, femalecircumcision, and Asia's missing girls to show how the battleover women's bodies has been globalized and how, too often,the United States has joined sworn enemies such as Iran andSudan in an axis of repression. Reporting with unique insightfrom both the rarefied realm of international policy and fromindividual women's lives, Goldberg elucidates the economic,demographic, and health consequences of women's oppression,which affect more than half the world's population.

As The Means of Reproduction reveals, the conflictbetween self-determination and patriarchal tradition hascome to define pressing questions of global development.Empowering women is the key to retarding the progress ofAIDS, curbing overpopulation, and helping the third worldclimb out of poverty, but attempts to improve women's statuselicit fierce opposition from conservatives who see women'ssubmission as key to their own national or religious identity.

From the anticommunist genesis of America'sattempts to stem population growth in poor countries to thecurrent worldwide attack on women's rights as a decadentWestern imposition, Goldberg explores the interplay betweenthe great issues of our time and the politics of sex and childbearing.Finally, The Means of Reproduction shows how women,strengthened by a solidarity that transcends borders, are fightingfor freedom.