Hamper Josie
School of Geography, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK.
Cult Health Sex. 2022 Dec;24(12):1713-1728. doi: 10.1080/13691058.2021.2002414. Epub 2021 Nov 15.
Smartphone apps for monitoring bodily signs of ovulation are growing in popularity and becoming increasingly important tools for facilitating or preventing pregnancy. This article explores heterosexual women's experiences of using fertility apps in the context of trying to conceive. Specifically, it focuses on a feature of fertility apps that enables women to share information about fertility with a male partner. This feature is frequently lauded by apps as providing an opportunity for partners to be more actively involved in the work of trying to conceive. With this focus, the article makes two key contributions to the emerging literature on fertility apps. Firstly, it situates narratives in apps that promote the shared responsibility for conception as part of a pre-parenting culture that values a shared commitment to (future) parenthood. Secondly, drawing on interviews with women in the UK who had used fertility apps, it explores women's perspectives on involving their male partners in pregnancy planning. Rather than redistributing conceptive fertility work, women's experiences reveal how cultural assumptions about heterosexuality and 'natural conception' significantly curtail their ability to engage partners in fertility tracking. As a result, the gendered divisions of fertility work are reconfigured in the new sociotechnical context of fertility app use.
用于监测排卵身体体征的智能手机应用程序越来越受欢迎，正成为促进或预防怀孕的日益重要的工具。本文探讨了异性恋女性在尝试受孕的背景下使用生育应用程序的经历。具体而言，它关注生育应用程序的一项功能，该功能使女性能够与男性伴侣分享有关生育能力的信息。应用程序经常称赞这一功能为伴侣提供了一个更积极参与受孕努力的机会。基于这一关注点，本文对关于生育应用程序的新兴文献做出了两项关键贡献。首先，它将应用程序中促进受孕共同责任的叙述置于一种育儿前文化之中，这种文化重视对（未来）为人父母的共同承诺。其次，通过对英国使用过生育应用程序的女性进行访谈，它探讨了女性对于让男性伴侣参与怀孕计划的看法。女性的经历并未重新分配生殖生育工作，而是揭示了关于异性恋和“自然受孕”的文化假设如何显著限制了她们让伴侣参与生育跟踪的能力。结果，在使用生育应用程序的新社会技术背景下，生育工作的性别分工得到了重新配置。
