Academic Absurdity of the Week: Another Bank Bailout?

I know a lot of people remain very upset about bank failures and bank bailouts, but wait till the populist pitchfork crowd get word of this new bank scandal, reported in Women’s Studies International Forum:

The golden cage of sperm banking industry

Ya’arit Bokek-Cohen, Department of Sociology, Ariel University, Israel

Synopsis:

The present article aims at exploring whether, if at all, women can achieve any degree of procreative liberty by shopping for sperm donations in commercial sperm banks, which is an understudied arena for evaluating maternal agency and freedom of mind. In order to address this topic, a content analysis of 180 donor profiles from six American sperm banks was conducted. Data analysis provided vital evidence of symbolic violence and reproduction of male symbolic capital by manipulating those women who dared to challenge the heterosexist social order. Rather than exercising free choice, customers of sperm donations, mostly unmarried women, shop for masculinized sperm, and in doing so they are forced to make a patriarchal bargain. Masculinized catalogues contribute to delegitimizing non-traditional gender images and family structures. Recipients of donations are not the only victims of symbolic violence; their yet-to-be-born children are also subject to the same manipulation. Since these children strive to read their biological fathers’ characteristics, the donor profile functions as a socializing medium which enables men to deliver a cultural legacy to the next generation.

Where to begin with this one? Maybe with the suggestion that President Hillary appoint Anthony Weiner to be the Comptroller of the Currency for the sperm bank industry? And just how would negative interest rates work for sperm banks? This paper deserves a modern-day Aristophanes for a proper response.

As always, this article can be yours for a mere $35.

Chaser: “Why Professors Are Writing Crap That Nobody Reads.”

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses