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Gender selection
Would you select the gender of your child? How far would you be willing to go to get the desired gender? Ignore financial reasons.
People having IVF can have pre-implantation diagnosis--it's usually only done for serious genetic disorders, but it can be used for gender selection.
There are techniques being developed to separate the female and male sperm and use the desired sample for fertilization by intrauterine insemination.
Amnio (and chorionic villi sampling, which is performed earlier in pregnancy) can of course be used to determine the fetus' gender, but this would involve abortion.
People having IVF can have pre-implantation diagnosis--it's usually only done for serious genetic disorders, but it can be used for gender selection.
There are techniques being developed to separate the female and male sperm and use the desired sample for fertilization by intrauterine insemination.
Amnio (and chorionic villi sampling, which is performed earlier in pregnancy) can of course be used to determine the fetus' gender, but this would involve abortion.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by wookie on -
Although I grieved when I found out my last was a boy, I wouldn't trade him for the world.
Would I have "selected" if given the magic want chance to have one over the other? Yes, probably. But magic wand would be about the only way I'd try it. I can't think of any specific diseases for which my husband and I are carriers that are gender specific.
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Permalink Reply by mcglory13 on -
I like the question that was introduced: why are girls so important to us? I think it's an interesting one and one I would like to discuss. :)
Some possible reasons for me:
I only had sisters and didn't know much about small boys AND it seems like girls are socially conditioned to stay closer with their parents than boys are (there's not nearly the stigma for being "Daddy's girl" as there is for being "Mama's boy") AND the clothes for little girls are so much more colorful and fun. It seems like boy's clothes for toddlers, middle schoolers, and grown men are fairly indistinguishable. Masculinity has so many more rules.
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Permalink Reply by hermit crab on -
I totally agree - I'm sad about the lack of models for good adult son-mother relationships. I haven't personally seen any.
Last night I was reflecting about how women and men have started to become more open about sharing the money-making work and the housework, but there has been no exploration of how women are still responsible for family relational work. Until there's more talk around that, that's one big gender role that won't shift.
mcglory13 said:I like the question that was introduced: why are girls so important to us? I think it's an interesting one and one I would like to discuss. :)
Some possible reasons for me:
I only had sisters and didn't know much about small boys AND it seems like girls are socially conditioned to stay closer with their parents than boys are (there's not nearly the stigma for being "Daddy's girl" as there is for being "Mama's boy") AND the clothes for little girls are so much more colorful and fun. It seems like boy's clothes for toddlers, middle schoolers, and grown men are fairly indistinguishable. Masculinity has so many more rules.
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Permalink Reply by taraw on -
It's funny, because I was so glad I ended up with two boys, yes girls clothes are freakin adorable, and I love to shop for baby girls, but growing up with two sisters, I felt like girls are so much more high maintenance....
mcglory13 said:I like the question that was introduced: why are girls so important to us? I think it's an interesting one and one I would like to discuss. :)
Some possible reasons for me:
I only had sisters and didn't know much about small boys AND it seems like girls are socially conditioned to stay closer with their parents than boys are (there's not nearly the stigma for being "Daddy's girl" as there is for being "Mama's boy") AND the clothes for little girls are so much more colorful and fun. It seems like boy's clothes for toddlers, middle schoolers, and grown men are fairly indistinguishable. Masculinity has so many more rules.
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Permalink Reply by kommishoner on -
Re: the question about why having girls (or boys) is important:
I have to really fight through my knee-jerk response to this issue, because frankly the desire for a child based on the belief that a girl child is one way and a boy child is another creeps me out and has caused a lot of pain in my life. My mom endured a lifetime of harassment because she's butch, my partner has endured harassment (from immediate family as well as strangers) both for being the girl he was and the man he is now, I've been harassed because of the way I live my gender... this shit is deep for me.
Rather than belabor the point or get all Queer Nation about it, however, I'll say that I was worried about having a girl, and was kind of relieved to have had a boy - not because of what I thought my kid would be, but because I still have so much pain around my own inadequacy at handling the social expectations of girlhood that I would have had to really struggle not to force my daughter into being the girl I wish I could have been, the one who knew how to handle her shit and love herself. The social expectations for boys, however, I understand a little better. But I also don't know if it's that easy - who the little man is as a person is going to interact with social expectations for his gender in all kinds of weird and mysterious ways. And they say you have the child you're meant to - so maybe the universe has it destined for him to be a beer-pickled frathead and I'll be forced to grow as a person. ;)
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Permalink Reply by kommishoner on
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My two favorite comments to that article (which is so horrific in its implications that I haven't been able to churn up emotion about it yet) are:
"This won't end well for anyone"
and
"This is the catch-22 of [the 'homosexuality is a choice/not a choice'] debate. If homosexuality is a choice, then it's a sin and we can just make laws to oppress them. If people are born that way, then there must be a 'cure' we can find. Either way, the LGBT community loses."
Mamawho said:This is germane.
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Permalink Reply by mightyninjamom on -
Oh kommish...I'm feeling this post, big time. My mother still despairs that I'm not the 'sweet little girl' that her mind invented about me. When my two sisters found out I was having a girl, they were aghast. One of them in fact told me, "You're never going to let her be a girl!" It was so awful, I was dumbstruck. Why is it that my concept of how I express femininity somehow inferior? I would never impose my own standards on my daughter, just as I reject both my sisters standards of being female. I also don't expect my son to do anything he is uncomfortable with, just to prove his 'manhood'.
Also, just the comments that you posted from that article are disturbing enough without actually reading the article. There does NOT NEED TO BE A CURE! God, can't we just leave people alone?
kommishoner said:Re: the question about why having girls (or boys) is important:
I have to really fight through my knee-jerk response to this issue, because frankly the desire for a child based on the belief that a girl child is one way and a boy child is another creeps me out and has caused a lot of pain in my life. My mom endured a lifetime of harassment because she's butch, my partner has endured harassment (from immediate family as well as strangers) both for being the girl he was and the man he is now, I've been harassed because of the way I live my gender... this shit is deep for me.
Rather than belabor the point or get all Queer Nation about it, however, I'll say that I was worried about having a girl, and was kind of relieved to have had a boy - not because of what I thought my kid would be, but because I still have so much pain around my own inadequacy at handling the social expectations of girlhood that I would have had to really struggle not to force my daughter into being the girl I wish I could have been, the one who knew how to handle her shit and love herself. The social expectations for boys, however, I understand a little better. But I also don't know if it's that easy - who the little man is as a person is going to interact with social expectations for his gender in all kinds of weird and mysterious ways. And they say you have the child you're meant to - so maybe the universe has it destined for him to be a beer-pickled frathead and I'll be forced to grow as a person. ;)
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Permalink Reply by jenra on -
I think having girls is so important to us because we want part of us to carry on in the future. I long for a daughter because I want the closeness that I had with my mom. Yes, the girl clothes are cute, you can put stuff in their hair, etc. The concept of a daughter also scares me because this world is not kind to girl babies. Yet as the mother of a son I have learned that all children are vulnerable regardless of gender, there are ways that the world crushes boys and ways it crushes girls.
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Permalink Reply by jenra on
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Good Christ. This is deeply disturbing! How in the hell did anyone ever think this was a good idea?
Mamawho said:This is germane.
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Permalink Reply by mcglory13 on
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Kommish, I hear you. I never expected my child to be one way or the other due to sex, but I did feel like I better understood the ways girls are socialized and how they can work within/resist that. I see how boys are socialized (and have become vastly, vastly more interested in that since the small one) but I am less clear on how he can work within the structures of masculinity, since I have zero experience navigating them. I don't really identify with needing a part of me to be carried on to the future. I mean, I am completely comfortable with the idea that he may choose not to have kids, whether heterosexual or not, and would have felt the same was if I had a daughter. So it has less to do with that, for me.
This is one of the reasons I am interested in unpacking my internal desire to have a girl. Why should I have that? What is motivating that?
As for the second article, should the Smudge end up being heterosexual the last thing on the fucking planet I want for him is some kind of robotic submissive woman. That will be me failing as a parent and a role model. Big time. The whole notion that lesbians (or anyone who "acts like" a lesbian) should be cured? Scary ass crazy.
And HC, I totally agree. The relational work does fall on all the women I know. Even with my spouse I'm the one who keeps up with our friends, makes plans, remembers birthdays, etc. That does need to change, I think.
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Permalink Reply by ruth on -
mcglory nailed my answer as well; all sisters, closer to parents (even though we kind of can't stand our parents) and each other than a lot of men I know, better clothes. Plus raising a feminist boy seems to be MUCH more challenging than raising a feminist girl.
mcglory13 said:I like the question that was introduced: why are girls so important to us? I think it's an interesting one and one I would like to discuss. :)
Some possible reasons for me:
I only had sisters and didn't know much about small boys AND it seems like girls are socially conditioned to stay closer with their parents than boys are (there's not nearly the stigma for being "Daddy's girl" as there is for being "Mama's boy") AND the clothes for little girls are so much more colorful and fun. It seems like boy's clothes for toddlers, middle schoolers, and grown men are fairly indistinguishable. Masculinity has so many more rules.
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