I highly recommend this documentary, released in 2007. The way in which birth and motherhood have been conceived by Western Medicine (especially in the United States) has changed the way society responds and reacts and is attributed largely to scientific discourse and accepted medical opinions that have more or less come into being during the past century.
At the end of The Egg and Sperm, Martin quotes Ludwick Fleck: "the interaction between what is already known, what remains to be learned, and those who are to apprehend it, go to ensure harmony within the system. But at the same time they also preserve the harmony of illusions, which is quite secure within the confines of a given thought style" (19).
What is unique and powerful about this documentary is that it shows how the United States developed down a much different path that much of the rest of the world (including modern industrial countries). Presumably driven an increasingly profitable medical industry as well as a dramatic shift away from holistic and natural systems toward professional scientific advice, it is argued that in terms of the extent we (the U.S.) have shifted is out of sync with the rest of the world. I am curious as to how profit and ego increase the particular drive of keeping with 'the harmony of illusions'.
A few questions: What do we think of the equating of the feminine to holistic thought and masculine to western scientific thought? How does capitalism complicate the United States health care system as well as the information we receive about our health and what to do about it? Are we losing more connection to our bodily processes and putting too much trust into the hands of modern science? What are the scare tactics used that naturalize/normalize our fear and separation from ourselves and our bodies?
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