May 18, 2012
CAN SISTERHOOD BE GLOBAL? Reproduction, Social Justice, and Feminism Across Borders
When Robin Morgan first introduced the slogan "Sisterhood is Global" into the feminist lexicon in the 1980's, the gesture suggested a reorientation of Western feminist consciousness - away from a 'me' feminism of First World Privilege and toward a recognition of global women's struggles across linguistic, national, economic, and political barriers. In the intervening years, there have been many challenges to the idea that feminist movements can be somehow unencumbered by issues of privilege and difference - that our 'freedoms' as women in the global North can somehow be divorced from what Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen would call the 'unfreedoms' of women in the global South. Yet, there has been perhaps no more profoundly embodied challenge to notions of "global sisterhood" than transnational surrogacy - what has sensationally been called in India the "wombs for rent" industry.
This presentation will be based on my current work in transnational surrogacy - particularly the ways that the rhetoric of sisterhood is used by surrogates and Western 'intended mothers' alike to downplay an essentially market-driven interchange. What is a global feminist response to transnational surrogacy? How can this framing of "sisterhood" be reclaimed? What are the implications of this 'brave new' reproductive era on cross-border feminist and other social justice movements?
Sayantani DasGupta is a physician and writer originally trained in pediatrics and public health, and is currently a faculty member in the graduate program in narrative medicine at Columbia University and the graduate program in health advocacy at Sarah Lawrence College. She teaches courses on illness and disability memoir, fictions of embodiment, as well as narrative, health, and social justice. Sayantani's scholarly work is in the field of feminist health science studies, most recently looking at transitional surrogacy and what's been called the Indian 'wombs for rent' phenomenon. She is a widely published and nationally recognized speaker on issues of narrative, health care, race, gender, and medical education. She is the co-author of The Demon Slayers and Other Stories: Bengali Folk Tales, the author of a memoir about her education at Johns Hopkins University, and the co-editor of an award winning collection of women's illness narratives, Stories of Illness and Healing: Women Write Their Bodies.
The Laurie Phillips Memorial
Lecture is supported by the Phillips Family.
It honors the memory of our colleague and friend and
brings to the community leading contributors to the
psychoanalytic field.
A donation of $10-$35 at the door is encouraged.
Date: Friday, May
18, 2012
Time: 7:00 p.m. -
9:00 p.m.
Location: Mt. Sinai
Medical Center, Hatch Auditorium,
1468 Madison Avenue at 100th Street, New York, NY
Fee: Suggested
Donation: $10-$35