#1 Men, Masculinities, and Reproduction: Why a Fresh Look at this Topic?

Reproduction matters!

The beginning of life, pregnancy, birth, and child-rearing have perplexed humankind for centuries, and these topics have been much disputed throughout history (Hopwood et al., 2018). The events linked to human reproduction are subject to diverse emotions and are also frequently politicised. On the individual level, many people ascribe meaning and moral importance to reproductive tissue and build significant social lives around desired children at all stages of the reproductive process (Baldwin, 2016; Lupton, 2013). On the collective and political level, the continued existence of a social group, collective identity, or nation-state is often perceived to be secured through human reproduction, which culturally frames it as a practice of “future-making.” 

Where are the men? A gap in reproduction research 

Feminists have argued that reproduction and care relationships demonstrate the need to understand sociopolitical circumstances not as individual matters, but as fundamentally interdependent (Samerski, 2015). This perspective draws needed attention to the relational sites of family systems and communities involved in child-rearing. However, much research in this realm has historically focused solely on women as reproductive agents and as the main and most important figures in childcare – a tendency reflected in the ideology of intensive mothering (Faircloth, 2014). As Inhorn et al. (2009) put it, men have been relegated to ‘the second sex’ in the scholarship on reproduction in the social sciences. In spite of a remarkable amount of academic interest in masculinities and the body, men’s involvement in reproduction has been given little attention so far. 

Only recently have scholars begun to address issues around ‘reproductive masculinity’ (Inhorn, 2020), and a few studies now shed light on the variety of men’s reproductive roles, experiences, and concerns. An important early intervention was Reconceiving the Second Sex: Men, Masculinities, and Reproduction (Inhorn et al., 2009), which foregrounds the marginalisation of men and masculinities in reproductive contexts and helps to establish a foundation for subsequent research on fatherhood, fathering, and caring masculinities. This line of enquiry has since been expanded in volumes, such as Globalized Fatherhood (Inhorn et al., 2015), which develops a conceptual vocabulary for understanding and tracing fathers’ expectations and experiences at the dawn of the twenty-first century, showing that men respond to globalisation as fathers in creative and unprecedented ways across the globe. More recent contributions, including Caring Fathers in the Global Context (Eerola et al., 2025), further examine how care is practiced and experienced by fathers across diverse cultural, social, and policy settings. From a more institutional perspective, legal scholarship has examined how the law shapes notions and practices of fatherhood, often reinforcing traditional markers such as genetics and marriage, while marginalising queer and other non-conventional forms of fatherhood (Collier and Sheldon 2007; Margaria 2019).

Social anthropologists have shown how men’s reproduction is affected by social, environmental, and structural circumstances (Ammann and Staudacher, 2021; Wentzel et al., 2024). They have documented how men and fathers make sense of their roles at the local level and how these experiences connect with global trends (Inhorn et al., 2015). In the field of medical sociology and reproductive health, attention has been given to the role of science and reproductive medicine in (mis)understanding sexed reproductive bodies and, in turn, men’s attitudes to and experiences of reproduction (Almeling, 2020; Almeling et al., 2025). These works consider how biopolitics, reproductive politics, and other structural forces – such as the market – engage with and shape reproductive bodies and gametes, producing specific reproductive experiences.

The findings of this growing body of scholarship tend to challenge the widely held assumption that men and persons who provide sperm are generally uninterested and disengaged in matters of reproduction, and offer a novel image: that men have their own reproductive issues and concerns, and often participate and are emotionally involved in most dimensions of procreation.

Navigating the risks of centring men: erasure of reproductive embodiment and reinforcement of the gender binary

While there is a clear need to examine men as sexual and reproductive subjects, doing so entails two significant risks. First, it risks centring men in debates about reproduction, thereby overshadowing those who bear the greatest responsibility for reproduction. Second, it risks reinforcing a binary understanding of gender, thus excluding a wide range of identities and reproductive experiences.

With regard to the first concern, we agree with Reich’s question, “how do we [safely] understand men as invested in reproductive rights and justice and as having an experience as potentially procreative people within a social landscape that for women is politically fraught, contentious, and even life-threatening?” (Reich, 2025, 29). While recent studies suggest that men may have socially or emotionally significant reproductive experiences, most do not have an embodied reproductive experience. The challenge, then, is to articulate meaningful forms of male involvement in reproduction without enabling men to exert control over women’s bodies or reproductive choices. Therefore, our focus on men should be understood not as a shift in normative priority, but as an effort to acknowledge the relational nature of gender and to advance reproductive justice by fostering a deeper understanding of the situations, experiences, and feelings of everyone implicated – men included. In this context, attending to men does not seek to displace those who inevitably bear the greatest burdens of reproduction; rather, it helps to explain the structural imbalance in reproductive responsibilities and to interrogate how that imbalance is produced, maintained, and potentially transformed.

Moving on to the second risk, any discussion of men and masculinities must remain attentive to how this language can inadvertently reinscribe a rigid gender binary. Speaking of “men” in the context of reproduction risks stabilising the categories of “male” and “female” reproductive health as if they were self-evident, mutually exclusive, and biologically deterministic. The reality, however, comprises more heterogeneity than rigid binary gender categories: men and women are not uniform groups, but rather, their reproductive experiences are influenced by differing intersectional experiences and inequalities in a myriad of ways. In addition, it is crucial to recognise how frameworks of “male” and “female” reproductive health can obscure the lived realities of trans, intersex, and nonbinary people, which calls for the systematic incorporation of their perspectives into research, clinical practice, and policy-making, rather than treating them as marginal or exceptional cases. This Blog Symposium, therefore, rethinks male reproduction beyond binary, linear, or deterministic models. Rather than conceiving reproduction as a straightforward biological sequence divided between men and women, we propose understanding it instead as a contested, relational, and socially embedded process – shaped by power, identity, embodiment, and structural inequality.

The blog symposium – current directions in the field of men, reproduction, and masculinities 

In May 2025, we organised a workshop at the Fondation Brocher in Hermance, Switzerland, to explore the often-overlooked and under-researched roles of men in the field of human reproduction. We invited speakers from various disciplines to present their work and early-career scholars working on related themes to join us. Given that the number of junior scholars who applied to the workshop exceeded the number of available places, we decided to organise an additional online workshop in August 2026. The aim was to bring together early-career scholars to exchange perspectives on research conducted in different fields and across contexts. We were particularly interested in the fresh perspectives a younger generation of researchers could offer on debates on men, masculinities, and reproduction.

To further showcase the excellent and timely work of these scholars, we decided to organise this blog symposium. In the first contribution, Irini Papaioannou, Kerstin Bronner, and Nadia Baghdadi examine the relationship between care work, parental well-being, and masculinities in German-speaking Switzerland. Situated within the field of social work and drawing on interviews with cis-heterosexual parents, their contribution shows that fathers are often physically present in their children’s everyday lives and take on an active role in childcare, even when employed full-time. The authors argue that fathers negotiate tensions between ideals of ‘good fatherhood’ and the social, relational, and structural constraints they face, revealing that caring masculinities are relational and embedded in everyday family life.

The relationship between work, care, and masculinities is also at the centre of the second contribution, authored by social psychologists Silvia Filippi, Vincenzo Iacoviello, and Clara Kulich. In contemporary neoliberal societies, success in paid work continues to function as a central marker of men’s identity and self-worth. The authors argue that men are required to continually demonstrate, defend, and prove their masculinities. While some men respond to changing gender norms with sexist attitudes, others with more egalitarian orientations embrace the opportunity to redefine what it means to be a man. Overall, their contributions show that shifts in social norms are not linear but complex and uneven, unfolding in multiple – and often contradictory – directions, as is currently evident across many regions of the world.

History has demonstrated the close entanglement between family planning and nation-building, a nexus that is currently the object of intense public and political debate, particularly in countries with pro-natalist governments and declining birth rates. The following two contributions address the question of who is encouraged to reproduce and who is prevented from doing so, in India – a country characterised by considerable demographic variation and a resulting “fertility paradox:” While fertility rates remain high in some regions, they have declined substantially in several southern states, leading to Indian men being portrayed as both infertile and hyperfertile. These two blog contributions provide historical overviews of family planning in India in general and of vasectomy in particular, a procedure through which the Indian state has sought to more actively involve men in reproductive control. Yet, they also show that, despite these efforts, women remain the primary targets of population-control policies. Drawing on fieldwork in Assam and an analysis of newspapers and policy documents, Mayuri Sama illustrates that governmental vasectomy campaigns predominantly target poor men from minority communities. Similarly, Arushi Sahay, on the basis of ethnographic fieldwork in Rajasthan, argues that the same procedure – vasectomy – is evaluated very differently depending on class- and caste-based inequalities. Whereas vasectomies among well-educated, upper-caste men are framed as acts of responsibility and care toward their wives and families, vasectomies among poor, less-educated, and oppressed-caste men are regarded with suspicion. Taken together, these findings point to vasectomy as a paradoxical and stratified technology, deeply embedded in intersecting social inequalities.

The next contribution shifts attention to the ways in which reproductive possibilities are being expanded through medical interventions. Focusing on testicular cancer patients in the US, whose treatments often result in infertility, Olivia Weiss traces the emergence of sperm banking as a means for those who produce sperm to preserve the possibility of becoming biogenetically related parents in the future. Drawing on historical analyses of scientific literature, personal memories of testicular cancer patients, and caregivers’ accounts, the author reveals how cultural connections between sperm, procreation, and masculinities were already discursively established. Sperm have long been – and continue to be – imbued with notions of virility and aggressiveness that are closely intertwined with dominant ideals of manhood.

As noted above, gender-binary logics remain deeply ingrained in dominant understandings of reproduction: men are imagined to produce sperm and become fathers, while women are assumed to produce oocytes, carry pregnancies, give birth, and become mothers. This reductive framework, however, fails to account for the diversity of embodied and lived reproductive experiences. There are, for instance, cis women without a uterus, trans men with a uterus, or people who produce sperm who identify with neither the category of male nor female. In this context, Carlo Sariego’s contribution poses a provocative question: what might be gained if pregnancy – and reproduction more broadly – were understood not solely as biological processes but also as affective and social phenomena? Such a reframing opens space to conceptualise pregnancy as a transformative mode of becoming that may encompass varied experiences, including sperm production, transitioning, or gestating a child in one’s uterus.

Our final contribution challenges readers to reimagine reproduction and envision alternative futures through the lens of ectogenesis – the gestation of a foetus outside the human body. Dora Chatzikonstantinou examines the potential of this technology to expand reproductive freedom, particularly for those experiencing infertility from a bioethics perspective. She asks how ectogenesis might be mobilised as a genuinely equitable opportunity, rather than one that primarily benefits the privileged, and how it might do so without reinforcing existing reproductive inequalities.

What now? Nurturing fresh perspectives 

This blog post has highlighted both the importance and ambivalence of engaging with the concepts of men and masculinities in the reproductive context. Our experience reflects the struggles and the rewards of navigating this complex landscape, whilst also underscoring the value of critically rethinking notions and practices once regarded as fixed and static, such as the so-called “traditional” division of labour. There is much to be gained from examining men’s reproductive experiences and caring relationships with curiosity and openness, and away from rigid conceptions of gender. The outstanding work being carried out by early-career researchers gives reason for optimism about the future of this field. This blog symposium offers a window into some of the most pressing questions arising in the rapidly evolving sociocultural landscape of reproduction and family life. Over the coming weeks, we invite you to join us on this journey, as each contribution brings a distinct perspective to the shared endeavour of bringing men into the picture – recognising and valuing their reproductive experiences without placing them on a pedestal.

Bibliography

• Almeling, R. (2020). GUYnecology: The Missing Science of Men’s Reproductive Health. Oakland: University of California Press.

• Almeling, R., Campo-Engelstein, L., & Nguyen, B. T. (Eds.). (2025). Seminal: On Sperm, Health, and Politics. New York: NYU Press.

• Ammann, C., & Staudacher, S. (2021). Masculinities in Africa beyond crisis: complexity, fluidity, and intersectionality. Gender, Place & Culture, 28(6), 759-768. doi:10.1080/0966369X.2020.1846019

• Baldwin, K. L. (2016). Ice, Ice, Baby? A Sociological Exploration of Social Egg Freezing. Doctoral thesis, de Montfort University. Available at: https://dora.dmu.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/2086/13109/Baldwin%20%282016%29%20Ice%2c%20Ice%2c%20Baby%20A%20Sociological%20Exploration%20of%20Social%20Egg%20Freezing%20PhD%20Thesis.pdf (Accessed 30 May 2023).

• Collier, R. & Sheldon, S. (2007). Fragmenting Fatherhood: A Socio-Legal Study. Oxford: Hart Publishing. 

• Eerola, P., Twamley, K., Pirskanen, H., & Romero-Balsas, P. (Eds.). (2025). Caring Fathers in the Global Context. Bristol: Bristol University Press.

• Faircloth, C. (2014). Intensive parenting and the expansion of parenting. In L. Ellie, J. Bristow, C. Faircloth, & J. Macvarish (Eds.), Parenting culture studies (pp. 25-50). New York: Palgrave MacMillan.

• Hopwood, N. et al. (2018). Reproduction – Antiquity to the Present Day. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Inhorn, M. C. (2020). Reproducing men in the twenty-first century: emergent masculinities, subjectivities, biosocialities, and technologies. NORMA, 15(3-4), 299-305. 

• Inhorn, M. C., Chavkin, W., & Navarro, J.-A. (Eds.). (2015). Globalized Fatherhood. New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books.

• Inhorn, M. C., Mosegaard, M. l. C., Tjørnhøj-Thomsen, T., & Goldberg, H. (Eds.). (2009). Reconceiving the second sex: Men, masculinity, and reproduction. New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books.

• Lupton, D. (2013). The social worlds of the unborn. Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

• Margaria, A. (2019). The Construction of Fatherhood: The Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

• Reich, J. A. (2025). The Challenges of Focusing on Men without Centering

• Men in Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice. In: Almeling R., Campo-Engelstein L. & Nguyen B. T., editors. Seminal: On Sperm, Health, and Politics (pp. 29-35). New York: NYU Press.

• Samerski S. (2015). Pregnancy, personhood and the making of the fetus. In: Disch L., Hawkesworth M., editors. Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

• Wentzell, E., Erol, M. & AciksöZ, S. (2024). Anthropologies Of Men, Masculinities, And Reproduction. In Van Hollen, C. C, Appleton, N. S. (Eds.). A Companion to the Anthropology of Reproductive Medicine and Technology. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.