The present study aims to explore gay Israeli fathers’ responses and resistance to societal criticism on their decision to become parents through transnational surrogacy.
The authors interviewed 39 Israeli gay men who became parents via transnational gestational surrogacy using in-depth, semistructured interviews. Analysis of the interviews suggest that the gay fathers responded to societal perceptions on their choice of surrogacy, which they interpreted as heterosexist and hostile, by relating them to Israeli dominant ideologies and constructing a counter discourse that frames surrogacy as an intimate process fostering gender and parental change. Yet, while the participants portray surrogacy as a catalyst for social change, their accounts are embedded within an Israeli context defined by pronatalist and neoliberal ideologies, showing how accounts of change are intertwined within hegemonic ideologies.
AlmelingRene. 2011. The Medical Market: Sex Cells-for Eggs and Sperm. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
2.
BeckerAmy B.ToddMaureen E.2015. “Changing Perspectives? Public Opinion, Perceptions of Discrimination, and Feelings toward the Family.” Journal of GLBT Family Studies11, no. 5: 493–511.
3.
Ben-AriAditalEnoshGuy. 2011. “Processes of Reflectivity: Knowledge Construction in Qualitative Research.” Qualitative Social Work10, no. 2: 152–71.
4.
Birenbaum-CarmeliDaphna. 2009. “The Politics of Natural Family in Israel: State Policy and Kinship Ideologies.” Social Science and Medicine69, no. 7: 1018–24.
5.
BraunVirginiaClarkeVictoria. 2006. “Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology.”Qualitative Research in Psychology3, no. 2: 77–101.
6.
CaroneNicolaBaioccoRobertoLingiardiVicttorio. 2017. “Italian Gay Fathers’ Experiences of Transnational Surrogacy and Their Relationship with the Surrogate Pre- and Post-Birth.” Reproductive Biomedicine Online34, no. 2: 181–90.
7.
ConnellR. W.2005. “Change Among Gatekeepers: Men Masculinities and Gender Equality in the Global Arena.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society30, no. 3: 1801–25.
8.
ChodorowNancy. 1994. Femininities, Masculinities, Sexualities: Freud and Beyond. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky and London, UK: Free Association Books.
9.
ConnorCory. 2015. “Access and Exploitation: Can Gay Men and Feminists Agree on Surrogacy Policy?” The Georgetown Journal of Poverty, Law and Policy23, no. 1: 160–33.
CreswellJohn W.2012. Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing among Five Approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
12.
DenzinNorman KLincolnYvonna S.2011. The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research (4th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications.
13.
DonathOrna. 2015. “Regretting Motherhood: A Sociopolitical Analysis.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society40, no. 2: 343–67.
14.
DoucetAndrea. 2006. Do Men Mother? Fatherhood, Care and Domestic Responsibility. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
15.
DugganLisa. 2003. The Twilight of Equality. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
16.
ErezChenShenkmanGeva. 2016. “Gay Dads Are Happier: Subjective Wellbeing among Gay and Heterosexual Fathers.” Journal of GLBT Family Issues12, no. 5: 451–67.
17.
GamsonJoshua. 2015. Modern Families: Stories of Extraordinary Journeys to Kinship. New York: New York University Press.
GiorgiAmedeo. 2005. “The Phenomenological Movement and Research in the Human Sciences.” Nursing Science Quarterly18, no. 1: 75–82.
20.
GolafshaniNahid. 2003. “Understanding Reliability and Validity in Qualitative Research.” The Qualitative Report8, no. 4: 597–606.
21.
GoldscheiderCalvin. 2018. Israel’s Changing Society: Population, Ethnicity, and Development. New York: Routledge.
22.
GolombokSusan. 2015. Modern Families: Parents and Children in New Family Forms. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
23.
GoodfellowAaron. 2015. Gay Fathers, Their Children and the Making of Kinship. New York: Fordham University Press.
24.
GrossAeyal. 2015. “The Politics of LGBT Rights in Israel and Beyond: Nationality, Normativity and Queer Politics.” Colombia Human Rights Law Review46, no. 2: 82–151.
25.
HarrisonLaura. 2016. Brown Bodies, White Babies: The Politics of Cross-Racial Surrogacy. New York: New York University Press.
26.
HartalGiliSasson-LevyOrna. 2016. “Being (in) the Center: Sexual Citizenship and Homonationalism at Tel Aviv’s Gay Center.” Sexualities20, no. 5–6: 738–61.
27.
HochschildArlie R.2012. The Outsourced Self: Intimate Life in Market Times. New York: Metropolitan Books.
28.
KellyMauraHauckElizabeth. 2015. “Doing Housework, Redoing Gender: Queer Couples Negotiate the Household Division of Labor.” Journal of GLBT Family Studies11, no. 5: 438–64.
29.
KinserAmber. 2010. Motherhood and Feminism. Berkeley, CA: Seal Press.
30.
LamontMicheleSilvaGraziella MoraesWelburnJessicaGuetzkowJoshuaMizrachiNissimHerzogHannahReisElisa. 2018. Getting Respect: Responding to Stigma and Discrimination in the United States, Brazil and Israel. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
31.
LaRossaRalph. 1997. The Modernization of Fatherhood: A Social and Political History. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.
MamoLauraAlston-StepnitzEli. 2014. “Queer Intimacies and Structural Inequalities: New Directions in Stratified Reproduction.” Journal of Family Issues36, no. 4: 519–40.
34.
MarkensSusan. 2007. Surrogate Motherhood and the Politics of Reproduction. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
35.
MaussMarcel. 1990. The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies. London, UK: Routledge.
36.
MorenoAdi. 2016. “Families on the Market Front.” In Intimate Economics: Bodies, Emotions and Sexualities on the Global Market, edited by MorenoAdiHoffmanSusanne, 233–61. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
37.
MurphyDean A.2016. Gay Men Pursuing Parenthood through Surrogacy: Reconfiguring Kinship. Sydney: UNSW Press.
38.
NairYasmin. 2010. “Against Equality, Against Marriage: An Introduction.” In Against Equality: Queer Critiques of Gay Marriage, edited by ConradRyan, 1–10. Lewiston, ME: Against Equality Publishing Collective.
39.
PandeAmrita. 2010. “Commercial Surrogacy in India: Manufacturing a Perfect Mother-Worker.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society35, no. 4: 969–92.
40.
PandeAmitra. 2014. “This Birth and that: Surrogacy and Stratifies Motherhood in India.” philoSOPHIA: A Journal of Transcontinental Feminism4, no. 1: 50–64.
41.
PandeAmitra. 2016. “Global Reproductive Inequality, Neo-Eugenics and Commercial Surrogacy in India.” Current Sociology64, no. 2: 244–58.
42.
PanitchVida. 2013. “Global Surrogacy: Exploitation to Empowerment.” Journal of Global Ethics9, no. 3: 329–43.
43.
RudrappaSharmila. 2015. Discounted Life: The Price of Global Surrogacy in India. New York: New York University Press.
44.
RudrappaSharmilaCollinsCaitlyn. 2015. “Altruistic Agencies and Compassionate Consumers: Moral Framing of Transnational Surrogacy.” Gender and Society29, no. 6: 937–57.
45.
ShawJay. 2016. “Reflexivity and the ‘Acting Subject’: Conceptualizing, the Unit of Analysis in Qualitative Health Research.” Qualitative Health Research26, no. 13: 1735–44.
46.
ShadmiErella. 2000. “Between Resistance and Compliance, Feminism and Nationalism: Woman in Black in Israel.” Women’s Studies International Forum23, no. 1: 23–34.
47.
ShenkmanGevaShmotkinDov. 2014. “‘Kids are Joy?’ Psychological Welfare among Israeli Gay Fathers.” Journal of Family Issues35, no.14: 1926–39.
48.
TemanElly. 2010. Birthing a Mother: The Surrogate Body and the Pregnant Self. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
49.
TemanElly. 2019. “The Power of the Single Story: Surrogacy and Social Media in Israel.” Medical Anthropology38, no. 3: 282–94.
50.
The Association of Israeli Gay Fathers. 2020. Welcome to the Proud Father Association. https://www.gaydads.org.il.
51.
ThompsonCharis. 2005. Making Parents: The Ontological Chorography of Reproductive Technologies. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press.
52.
VenturaRafaelRodríguez-PoloXose R.Roca-CuberesCarles. 2018. “Wealthy Gay Couples Buying Babies Produced in India by Poor Womb-Women: Audience Interpretations of Transnational Surrogacy in TV News.” Journal of Homosexuality66, no. 5: 609–34.
53.
ZivIdoFreund-EscharYael. 2015. “The Pregnancy Experience of Gay Couples Expecting a Child through Overseas Surrogacy.” Family Journal23, no. 2: 158–66.
