I'm fascinated by how pop culture shapes, and is shaped by, our society's view of bioethical issues. Here's the Mother's Day cover of the
New Yorker .
It shows a woman peering gooily into a shop window, mooning over a warm and wriggling litter of--wait for it--not puppies, but diapered babies. Meanwhile, her male companion tries to drag her away from the window, eyes rolled heavenward in the universal male posture of "Not
this again!"
There's a lot to unpack here, beginning with the idea that women view motherhood the same way they view a new pair of shoes; that men view women's desires to become mothers with the same exasperation as they view the shoe-buying habits some of us have; that babies are like puppies (warm, fuzzy, commodities)....
You can play too! What other assumptions and analogies are implied here?
It shows a woman peering gooily into a shop window, mooning over a warm and wriggling litter of--wait for it--not puppies, but diapered babies. Meanwhile, her male companion tries to drag her away from the window, eyes rolled heavenward in the universal male posture of "Not this again!"
There's a lot to unpack here, beginning with the idea that women view motherhood the same way they view a new pair of shoes; that men view women's desires to become mothers with the same exasperation as they view the shoe-buying habits some of us have; that babies are like puppies (warm, fuzzy, commodities)....
You can play too! What other assumptions and analogies are implied here?