Science, Technology, and Medicine Seminar 2021-22 Series

Inside the (Re)Production Boundary: Hormones and Labor Control in Japan

Date/Time: 27/09/2021 09:00-10:30 a.m. (HKT)
Language: English
Delivery: via Zoom
Speaker: Dr. Shoan Yin Cheung (Williams Collage)
Moderator: Dr. Ting, Grace En-Yi (HKU)

This talk critically examines how twenty-first century biomedical practices transform women’s bodies into new zones of production control in “flexible” economies. It argues that in 2010s Japan, reproductive health actors, including medical professionals, pharmaceutical actors, and government officials, began promoting the regulation of young women’s reproductive hormones as a medical component of the Japanese government’s plans to revitalize the nation through the “empowerment” of women. As the government called on women to both boost economic growth by working more and reverse birth rate decline by reproducing, new medical discourses encouraged women to regulate their hormones to be more productive, as well as prevent the development of reproductive illnesses that affect fertility and the reproduction of the nation’s future labor force. Building on feminist theories of social reproduction, this talk demonstrates how hormone regulation, as a technology of health, delivers new forms of value by intervening on the body to redistribute women’s productive and reproductive labor.