The structurally conditioned phallocentric patterns of social interactions that dominate today deprive »women« of access to genuine social and representative power. Feminist movements struggle to ensure greater power for »women«, yet still fail to eliminate social discrimination among genders/sexes. One reason for this is that some continue to embrace the reproductive episteme of the patriarchal/phallocentric culture or sexual essentialism. Those movements whose analyses exceed the reproductive episteme are also clinging to »superstructural strategies« that are unable to provide adequate results in the current stage of biotechnological development. The article argues that the questions of reproductive essentialism and gender/sexual antagonism are not solvable on the level of the social superstructure. However, we can probably move beyond both essentialism and antagonism if a new paradigm that builds on scientific breakthroughs in reproductive biotechnologies emerges on the level of the social base. Such a new paradigm could create the conditions for doing away with the structures/practices that support reproductive essentialism and sexual antagonism, but also binary sexual/gender representations, i.e., the conditions for de-signification, in the social superstructure. A breakthrough like this would introduce new (e.g., agamic) reproductive modes that transgress the hitherto-possible human reproduction methods

Pravice