ABSTRACT
Late nineteenth-and early twentieth-century Europe and North America have been characterized as the “age of the womb” because of the “epidemic” of modern upper class female nervous disorders during this period (Davis and Low 1989: 2). Whenever in Ecuador I feel like I am living amidst an ongoing “age of the womb,” but one with a dizzying array of new technical and surgical options to cure the feminine affl ictions of modernity. Young, childless, middleclass Ecuadorian women seem to have all undergone some sort of reproductive surgery or treatment (laparoscopy, fi broid removal, or had intensive hormonal therapy), usually for physical problems that remained somewhat undefi ned. Later on, pregnancy intensifi es their commitment to bodily invasion as they prepared for their inevitable cesarean section. The young women undergoing these surgeries and treatments are often sure that they cannot have children because of their reproductive troubles. In the context of these failed bodies, the arrival of assisted reproductive technologies in Ecuador, such as in-vitro fertilization (IVF), did not produce the expectation that their bodies would fail (although they have surely exacerbated it). Anticipatory infertility was already well in place among many Ecuadorian women since it is assumed that a modern woman’s body is likely to experience some sort of reproductive malfunction throughout her lifetime. For invitro fertilization (IVF) patients in Ecuador, with whom I have conducted research since 2000, IVF is an achievement of sorts, a sign of what I call reproductive modernity – a class based norm that entails fi nancial sacrifi ce and the bodily markers of modern biological dysfunction.1
