Rethinking Women and Their Bodies in the Age of Bi

Authors: Leem So Yeon Park Jin Hee

Publish Date: 2008/03/01

Volume: 2, Issue: 1, Pages: 9-26

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Abstract

Many Korean women felt strongly positive about donating their eggs for Hwang Woo Suks research in spite of the fact that Hwang was accused of fraud It is said that there is a kind of unique `egg donation culture among Korean women which urged them to donate their eggs for his research However positing such a Korean `egg donation culture does not seem to give a sufficient explanation of why so many Korean women were seemingly willing to provide their own eggs for Hwangs research Instead we suggest that egg donation issues in the Hwang affair can be interpreted under the paradoxical context in which Korean women are situated in the age of biotechnology On the one hand the invisibility of women as subjects in the public sphere led to their lack of social control over ova trafficking and made it possible for a huge number of eggs to be supplied secretly for Hwangs team The patriarchal structure of family the myth of economic growth and the restricted activities of feminist organizations are possible contributors to the invisibility of Korean women On the other hand in the practices of bodily technologies such as cosmetic surgery and reproductive technologies Korean women have been highly visible With the help of those technological instruments women have been empowered to own their own bodies and to have them at their disposal We argue that these dualistic realities of women as egg owners can explain the egg donation culture among Korean women in the Hwang affair요약문 황우석의 줄기 세포 연구 논문이 조작으로 드러났음에도 불구하고 많 은 한국의 여성들은황우석 연구에 자신의 난자를 기증하는 것에 긍정적인 반 응을 보였다 이를 두고 몇몇학자들은 한국 여성들 사이에 난자 기증을 강요 하는 일종의 독특한 ‘난자 기증 문화’가 있는것이 아니냐는 주장을 제기하기 도 했다 그러나 한국의 ‘난자 기증 문화’라는 가설로는그렇게많은 한국 여성 들이 황우석 팀의 연구에 겉으로 보기에는 자발적으로 자신의 난자를기증하 려고 했던가에 대한 충분한 설명을 주고 있지는 못하다 또한 ‘난자 기증 문 화’라는것이 설명 개념으로서는 부수적으로 더 많은 설명을 요하고 있다고 보 여진다 이런 까닭에이 논문에서는 기증 문화 대신에 난자 기증 현상을 생명 공학 시대에 위치한 한국여성이라는 모순적인 맥락으로부터 설명하고자 한 다 한편으로 공공 영역에서 한국 여성은 주체로서 ‘가시성’을 획득하지 못하 고 있다 이로 인해한국에서는 난자 매매에 대한 사회적 규제가결여될 수 밖 에없었고 이런 맥락에서 밝혀진것처럼 엄청난 수의 난자가 비밀리에 황우석 연구팀에 제공될 수 있었다 가족 내에존재하는 가부장적 구조 경제 성장에 대한 신화 여성 운동 단체들의 제한된 활동들로부터한국 여성의 비가시성이 연유되었다고 보여진다 다른 한편으로는 성형이나 재생산 기술과같은 신체 를 대상으로 하는 생명공학 기술들 적용 과정에서 한국의 여성들은 대단히 높 은‘가시성’을 보이고 있다 이들 기술 도구들의 도움으로 여성들은자신의 신 체에 대한소유권을 높일 수 있었고 자신의 신체를 자신의의지에 따라 처분할 수도 있게 되었다 난자 기증 문화는 이런 가시성의 산물일 수 있다 난자 소유 자로서 여성의이와 같은이중적인 현실이 황우석 사태에 나타난 한국 여성들 의난자 기증 문제를 설명해줄 수 있다고 본다There have been many attempts to understand Hwang Woo Suks scandal in Korea since his first world wide scientific achievement—creating patientspecific embryonic stem cells—was exposed as a `big lie Because Hwangstwo Science papers were based on manipulated data this affair could have been defined as nothing more than scientific misconduct But the way the fraud of Hwangs team unfolded and the response of Korean people to this affair were so unique that it can be seen as reflecting some essential aspects of Korean societyAs many Korean scholars pointed out various social and historical factors were involved in the Hwang affair1 Nationalism or an old ideology of economic growth may explain in part why Hwangs supporters showed such sympathetic attitudes to Hwangs research even after the MBC PD Notebook exposed its fraudulent research Kim et al 2006 Although Hwangs scientific achievement turned out to be a fraud most people held the opinion that Hwangs team should be given opportunities to continue stem cell research because of national interest Kim 2007Moreover Hwangs scandal further caused Korean society to confront the womens question The most unprecedented feature of Hwangs scandal was that his team used an enormous number of womens eggs—2221 in total—over the past 3 years not to mention the fact that he never succeeded in cloning a single stem cell National Bioethics Committee 2006 4 Even after this fact was disclosed many Korean women have shown a strong will to donate their eggs for Hwangs research Why did so many women make such a decision Why did so many women dare to undergo the risks of egg donation What does this social event reveal about Korean women and their bodies As an explanation for this phenomenon one American journalist has argued that that there is a unique “culture of egg donation for research” quoted from Cookson 2005 cited in Paik 2006 along with unethical scientific practices in Korea The presence of a local culture—an `egg donation culture—and the failure to follow conventional global ethics—bioethics or research ethics—makes some sense of what happened in the nonWestern country of Korea However it does not provide sufficient answers The donation culture cannot explain fully how it was possible for Hwangs team to have obtained so many eggs from Korean women In addition this `cultural explanation itself needs to be explained How did the donation emerge and develop It is necessary to examine the sociotechnical factors that are associated with the formation of this cultureThis paper offers feminist commentary on the Hwang affair while explaining two of its most scandalous features—the number of eggs used for Hwangs research during its heyday and the great number of women wanting to donate even after his fraud was disclosed In doing so it introduces a variety of Koreaspecific situations in which women and their bodies are made visible and at the same time invisible The first part of this paper explores how Hwangs team was able to collect a huge number of eggs without making it a serious social issue by considering the invisibility of women as subjects in the realms of family politicoeconomy and ethics—as a whole in the public sphere The second part offers an explanation of why over 1000 Korean women wanted to donate their eggs taking into account the bodytechnology context in which women as subjects as well as objects are highly visible Unlike previous feminist studies of egg donation for Hwangs research this paper broadens its bodytechnology context into other bodily technologies such as cosmetic medicine By highlighting the shaping of Korean womens invisibility in public spheres and the visibility of womens bodies in the practices of reproductive/cosmetic technologies it attempts to recontexualize and relocate Hwangs scandal in feminist perspectiveAccording to the National Bioethics Committee NBC in Korea Hwangs team was supplied with 2221 eggs from 121 women 1 Among them 85 women got paid for their contributions either through commercial donation or benefit in kind donation and 36 of them including 2 female researchers from Hwangs own team could be classified as `voluntary donors 2 On average paid donors were 244 years old distinguishably younger than nonpaid and voluntary ones whose average age was 326 3 most of the voluntary donors decided to provide their ova on behalf of family members who were disabled or ill 4 Voluntary donors did not realize their eggs were to be used for `research instead they thought that their eggs would be used for therapeutic purposes Myung 2006 These four facts show 1 more eggs used in Hwangs research were obtained from ova trafficking than from sacrosanct donation 2 the primary motivation of young women donors was a financial one 3 the voluntary egg donations were not a sacrifice for national development but rather for possible family benefit in the future 4 donor women seemed to consider donating their eggs for research to be the equivalent of donating their organs for transplantationDonor women did not seem to be influenced by cultural values or religious beliefs Most human eggs used for Hwangs experiments were from donors who suffered from economic deficiency Contrary to the cultural explanation an `egg donation culture has nothing to do with the Hwang affair The enormous number of eggs used by Hwangs team cannot be understood in terms of culture Egg donors had different motivations for their decisions Paik 2006 Those motivations could not be classified as cultural `The egg donation culture therefore is not one of `explanans but rather an `explanandum in itself It is not unique feature of Korean culture but the social practices of the Korean women that were most relevant to the acquisition of so many eggs by Hwangs team In order to understand the willingness of Korean women to donate we have to consider multiple contexts in which womens social practices were generated and performedOne of the most important contexts in which specific attitudes or thoughts of women are constituted is family As a fundamental social institution family has in many ways influenced Korean society Although industrialization in Korea caused the growth of the nuclear family the function of family is still very important in Korea Suh 2003 Song 2005 More and more young people today choose to remain single but their lifestyle is not considered desirable This type of family is usually regarded as abnormal As a recent policy of the Minister of Women and Family indicates the family of the married couple with two children is regarded as the most socially recommendable model Mosef 2006

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