Making Sense of a Loss: Masculinities and Assisted Conception in Contemporary Iran

Abstract

Iran is among very few Muslim countries in which assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs), including the use of donor gametes and embryos, have been partly regulated by the state through their Increasing Population Policies and, more significantly, have been widely legitimised by religious authorities. Although the state partly subsidises ARTs, they are not equally accessible to all. In Iran, (in)fertility—a stigmatised condition—is dominantly considered a ‘woman’s problem’; male (in)fertility is hardly recognised or discussed in families, society, or the social sciences. This dissertation is based on 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork, including interviews with men (n=17), their partners, and ARTs experts (n=20), as well as observation of interactions on online platforms. It investigates two research questions: (1) How do men’s perceptions of infertility affect their reproductive decision-making, including their participation in assisted conception? and (2) What does this tell us about how sociocultural political notions of masculinity influence men’s lived experiences? It does so by analysing the meanings and experiences of loss and lostness I have found among Iranian men. The analysis in this study was informed by concepts such as ‘reproductive navigation’ (Van der Sijpt, 2014), ‘stratified reproduction’ (Colen, 1995), ‘emergent masculinities’ (Inhorn, 2012; Williams, 1977) and ‘affect’ and ‘emotion’ (Ahmed, 2014). Chapter 1 provides historical background on the contemporary Iranian population and reproductive health policies. Chapters 2 and 3 focus on a literature review and methodology, respectively. Chapter 4 focuses on access, affordability, and the uneven distribution of fertility services in the country. It shows that men’s uptake of assisted conception is structured by gendered norms (by addressing discussions around khanevade barabar [equal family]). Moreover, Iranian men’s uptake of assisted conception is stratified by social class and the Iranian regime’s techno-nationalism and its increasingly militarising reproductive policies (the case of Armed Forces Insurance and reproductive campaigns such as Jahad e Farzandavari [sacred war of childbearing]). This chapter clearly illustrates that the stigma around male childlessness is significantly more prominent for men from less privileged socioeconomic backgrounds who cannot live up to the gendered and stratified reproductive norms. Chapter 5 focuses on men’s narratives of their affective experiences of involuntary childlessness and ‘the affective economies’ of the IVF ‘quest’. In this chapter, I discuss three main categories of Iranian masculinities: dominant, residual, and emergent. I also illustrate that the absence of a desired child for men as an affective object, including an object of loss, is intertwined with other significant layers of loss for involuntarily childless men, such as the loss of status that comes with being deemed a mard e naghes [incomplete man], and the loss for ommat [Islamic nation] as a collective loss. Chapter 6 examines men's navigating and coping strategies within various institutional structures, including the clinic, kin, and men’s conjugal relationships, as well as their navigation of stigma, mahramanegi [secrecy] and gendered norms within those structures. Men’s main challenge throughout their reproductive paths is expressed by ‘feeling sargardoon [lost]’. Moreover, in this chapter I return to the topic of male bodies and male reproduction and the ways in which they have become nationalised within the Iranian regime's techno-national discourse. Finally, I argue that a severe lack of comprehensive programmes for men not only plays a significant role in men feeling lost in navigating the reproductive systems but also plays a crucial role in overburdening women who have been the main target of assisted reproduction and reproduction more broadly, in Iran. Building on important scholarly work on masculinities and reproduction, this thesis argues that there are newly emergent elements of masculinities in Iran, coexisting with both ‘dominant’ and ‘residual’ forms of masculinities. Identifying these three main forms of masculinity, I discuss extensively how the elements of social change and the persistent traditional notions of masculinity in Iran coexist, being unable to be reduced to either of these categories. Finally, my study contributes to a renewed perspective on reproductive loss that complements the research focused on women’s account of childbearing loss by focusing on the previously overlooked reproductive journeys of Iranian men. I discuss how men make sense of various forms of loss in their reproductive paths, including the loss of their material resources when it comes to issues of access and uptake of assisted conception, the loss of a desired child, as well as the loss of a sociocultural status and honour as a childless man. I argue that the rhetoric of the Iranian regime on what makes an ideal happy family, such as the campaign of Iran Javan Beman [Iran, Stay Young], and the campaing of Farzand e Bishtar, Zendegi Shadtar [More Children, Happier Life], creates a discourse around the loss of ommat [Islamic nation], a collective loss that adds to the stigma and the sense of loss and grief for involuntarily childless men who aspire to become fathers but find themselves both at a loss and lost.