Motherhood on Ice: The Mating Gap and Why Women Freeze Their Eggs
By Professor Marcia Inhorn
Published by New York University Press
ISBN-10: 1479813044, ISBN-13: 978-1479813049
Buy this book from Amazon UK
Since the removal of the 'experimental' label in 2012, egg freezing has become an increasingly hot topic. Digging through the avalanche of publications and media portrayals of the kinds of women who turn to egg freezing, Professor Marcia Inhorn centres the lived experiences of over 100 egg freezers, to successfully dispel the inaccuracies of prevalent stereotypes.
As the title suggests, egg freezing is motivated primarily by a mating gap, referring to women's difficulty in finding a (suitable) partner. Indeed, almost all those interviewed were either single or in a tenuous relationship, with this leading these highly accomplished women to pursue 'a stopgap measure' to preserve their chance of motherhood.
In her book, Inhorn argues that contrary to the stereotypes of egg freezers as 'postponing, deferring, or delaying' their fertility, egg freezing is an attempt to 'save, preserve, and extend' fertility. Split into two parts, Part I describes the expressed motivations for egg freezing, including relationship-related reasons and medical reasons. Part II focuses on egg freezing experiences, exploring the difficulties in entering a couple-oriented space and the egg freezing web of care. After discussing feminist thoughts on egg freezing, Inhorn discusses the stark reality of outcomes.
Inhorn reiterates consistently that the most important motivator is the mating gap. She describes the 'gender laments' expressed by women who were 'literally missing men', blaming their own decisions and choices (eg their 'type' or their career choice) for how difficult it was to find a partner.
Inhorn meticulously describes how egg freezing was a technological solution to the mating gap, allowing them to 'preserve their fertility and dignity' while waiting for a partner – essentially 'holding on' to their reproductive potential while 'holding out' hope for partnership. In Chapter 2, Inhorn delves into relationship failures as a major motivator for egg freezing, rendering it a 'technology of despair' and 'technology of repair', used as a restorative 'first step' for breakup wounds and a means of imagining 'novel pathways to motherhood'.
Chapter 3 discusses the 'fertility paradox', referring to how racialised women's increased educational potential is met with a paradoxical decrease in their chances of marriage and parenthood. These women experienced 'fertility shame' for not getting pregnant 'correctly' (without technology). Comparing underrepresented (Black, Latina, and Middle Eastern) women's decisions and their shaping by economic pressures and religion, with the pro-reproductive technology stance seen in overrepresented racialised (Asians and Jewish) women's experiences, Inhorn points to the commonality between the groups: egg freezing performs 'triple labour' of preservation: self-presentation, cultural, and community preservation.
Rounding off Part I, in Chapter 4, Inhorn discusses medical motivators for egg freezing, succinctly demonstrating the blurry boundary between medical and non-medical egg freezers.
Throughout Part I, there is an intent focus on the difficulties the egg freezers experienced when looking for suitable partners. However, it would have been helpful to have more discussion on how a different technology – dating apps – have disrupted and marketised personal relationships, as this clearly played a role. In fact, as I read through the book, I became increasingly convinced of how both egg freezing and dating apps could be similarly described as technologies of despair, repair, and choice.
Part II centres the experience of egg freezing, demonstrating how inaccurate (clinic) portrayals are of the procedure. Notwithstanding its designation as 'an insurance policy for the empowered woman', women reluctantly underwent these invasive procedures. Chapter 5 reveals the inherent challenges with the process, even when egg freezers were relatively satisfied. That these women were partnerless at IVF clinics added insult to injury, with the 'needlework' undertaken accentuating their singledom.
Drawing on factory farm imagery to describe their routinised and impersonal encounters, egg freezing was experienced as a 'money-making venture' and the opposite of patient-centred care. Luckily, 'no woman is an island in the world of egg freezing', with all participants surrounded by an 'egg freezing web of care' to lean on during their difficult journeys.
Chapter 7 shifts to discussions on 'egg freezing activists' upset with media misrepresentation of egg freezing and aiming to make the technology more available for certain (privileged) demographics. Inhorn discusses the contemporary egg freezing debate, providing a cursory overview of the 'four major strands of feminist thought' on egg freezing, revealing pro-choice liberal feminism as the most supportive of the technology. Inhorn describes how structural feminism's worry that egg freezing is merely a 'quick fix' solution for underlying structural conditions did not resonate with her participants, who had frozen their eggs due to the mating gap.
Ultimately, she concludes that egg freezers are 'reluctant feminists', giving them the three 'e's: enthusiasm, endorsement, empowerment'.
Chapter 8 begins with the ideal egg freezing journey, where after eggs are frozen, a partner is found, a baby had, and the frozen eggs are future 'egg babies'. However, egg freezing rarely provides such happy endings, and as this final chapter progresses, Inhorn plainly presents the difficulties in getting enough eggs, storage costs, and the more likely outcome of single motherhood by choice, or alternatively, disposal.
Inhorn concludes by reiterating the importance of the mating gap as the motivator for egg freezing, with this contributing to a (frustrating) state of 'reproductive waithood', the unintentional and undesired delay experienced when wanting to partner and parent, and egg freezing remaining a 'techno-medical solution to fundamental gender inequality' due to this 'mating gap redux'.
Though Inhorn focuses on American experiences of egg freezing, her findings are applicable to the British context, due to similar reproductive healthcare landscape: egg freezing is a primarily commercial and capitalistic endeavour. Clinics across both sides of the Atlantic are clearly profit-oriented, with many clinics cryptic about costs and success rates.
With storage limits extended (see BioNews 1111), British fertility clinics ramped up their marketing and leant into the (mistaken) 'empowerment' angle, rather than focus on delivering patient-centred care. While the mating gap is undoubtedly a motivator for egg freezing, the existence of this gap is merely another in an onslaught of relationship issues emerging from capitalism. In fact, when I finished the book, I wondered why there hadn't been more discussion on how egg freezing and the mating gap could be traced back to wider societal trends.
Egg freezing, like dating apps that 'gamify' relationships, using addictive, game-like features to encourage compulsive use, may be taken as preying on vulnerabilities inherent in today's capitalist society, rather than addressing the structural issues that have resulted in these circumstances. As mentioned above, this overlap between dating and fertility specifically accounting for today's hyper-capitalist society though not the topic of Motherhood on Ice, definitely seems like an interesting follow-on to Inhorn's well-researched and eloquently written book.
Buy Motherhood on Ice: The Mating Gap and Why Women Freeze Their Eggs from Amazon UK.
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