Review of GUYnecology: The Missing Science of Men’s Reproductive Health

Abstract

Since obstetrics and gynecology emerged as one of the first medical specialties in the late nineteenth century, the female reproductive body has been a key focus of scientific knowledge production. Understandings of how women’s health impacts the health of future children have expanded beyond science and medicine into the general public, reinforcing common associations of reproductive risk and responsibility with women’s bodies. It was not until relatively recently that questions about how men’s health affects reproductive outcomes received serious attention. In her second book, sociologist Rene Almeling asks why it took so long for these questions to be taken more seriously. Following the insightful Sex Cells: The Medical Market for Eggs and Sperm (2011), GUYnecology continues an exploration of how gender shapes medicine by looking at reproductive health more broadly while focusing on men in particular. In the book, using a variety of sources, Almeling examines biomedical knowledge about men’s reproductive health, from its production to its circulation and reception. But the main subject of analysis is not the knowledge itself but rather its relative lack or absence. Almeling is especially attentive to why a specific kind of knowledge is not produced in the first place and what happens when it is not widely shared.