Karleen Pendleton Jiménez's How To Get A Girl Pregnant

841 Words4 Pages

Life consists of expectations. In order to achieve ultimate fulfillment and accomplishment in life, one must go to school, obtain a job, marry, have children, retire, and then eventually die of old age. Several of these expectations, however, are gendered. The ingrained belief that women must marry and bear children is an oppressive tradition present in various cultures and perpetuated throughout history. Fortunately, these customs are being challenged by third-wave feminism, which asserts that women have the inalienable right to their own body on the subject of reproduction. To exemplify, today in contemporary society, more women are pursuing their careers instead of having children, but despite such progress in women’s rights, therein lies …show more content…

Due to omnipresent images of the heterosexual nuclear family in society, homosexual couples are already severely marginalized. When they are represented, however, the media sugar-coats the struggle they face as they attempt to adopt or inseminate. In sitcoms, audiences are only exposed to the moment where the gay couple arrives in a foreign country to meet their adopted child, not the extensive and agonizing application process, which alone can take years. In a similar case, the surrogate is simply injected with sperm and suddenly BAM! they're pregnant, when in actuality the chances of becoming pregnant as a result of the first insemination are slim. Multiple inseminations are often required following the first. Nevertheless, Jiménez’s memoir refutes these notions as she delivers the cold, harsh truth to her audience. Of the several options same-sex couples are offered when it comes to starting a family, such as adoption and surrogacy, Jiménez seeks a sperm donor. Once she is able to find a suitable profile, Jiménez describes the complicatedness of the insemination process and how it requires intense coordination and precision. She must be ovulating, have enough money on her credit card, know that sperm is available for purchase, double-check