While for a long time the naturalness of the uterus seemed self-evident, the organ is also shaped, to varying degrees, by culture; two conceptions of the organ, but also of social gender relations and gender identities, thus clash.

An organ that defines the “nature of women”

Cited as proof of the natural difference between the sexes, the uterus is the argument of an essentialist discourse: the essence of woman lies in her anatomy, particularly her functional womb. However, this naturalism underpins two types of discourse with opposing aims: on the one hand, those who justify male domination in all spheres of social life;

on the other, those who, drawing on essentialist feminism, highlight the feminine power of reproduction, or even, as certain ecofeminist currents do, claim the sacredness of the link between the earth and the uterine organ.

This approach is also reflected in the use of certain discursive techniques to naturalize the organ. There are many metaphors for the uterus that draw on the animal and plant kingdoms (fruit and flower), thus indirectly recalling its naturalness. Even some supposedly scientific discourses are not immune to this. The 1626 edition of an anatomy treatise by Adriaan van den Spiegel is illustrated with nine engravings based on plates drawn by the Italian anatomist Giulio Cesare Casseri. Four of them depict a pregnant woman with her abdomen open. Each plate cuts away an additional layer of the organ. In the last one (fig. 1), the open walls of the belly and uterus, revealing the foetus, form a floral motif that echoes the seemingly surprising choice of placing the female figure in a plant setting: the foliage of the tree on which the woman rests her knee represents the stem of the uterine flower, of which the foetus is the fruit; through her body, which is directly connected to the earth and productive, the woman participates in a truly creative nature.

But an organ shaped by culture: from fiction to reality

However, the uterus is also shaped by culture. First of all, fiction reflects an ambition to decouple the uterus from femininity: there are numerous myths, legends, literary and artistic works that depict childbirth from uteri that do not belong to a biologically female body.

The motif of the uterus displaced into a man’s body has sometimes been interpreted as an expression of the male desire to control the process of childbirth, in which women play the leading role. Thus, in ancient times, Zeus gave birth to Athena by the head, while Lucian (2^nd century) gives birth to the little Selenites from his (male) calves. In 1983, Italian art historian Roberto Zapperi demonstrated the importance of the motif—used for comic and satirical effect—of the pregnant man in popular medieval literature. This motif developed in response to the Church’s attempt in the 11^th century to justify male domination—and, by analogy, all forms of social domination—by multiplying representations of the creation of Eve, not from Adam's rib as in the biblical account, but as a veritable birth from his belly. Although this thesis has since been debated and the number of images depicting Adam giving birth to Eve has been revised downward, this is indeed the interpretation suggested, for example, by the illustration in a manuscript of the theological treatise Speculum humanae salvationis, produced around 1430-1450 for the Bishop of Béziers (fig. 2): Eve is seen emerging from a very large opening in the belly of the sleeping Adam.

The motif of the male uterus is joined by that of the uterus projected outside the body, or even artificialized. 16^th-century alchemist Paracelsus’ recipe for creating a homunculus* by rotting sperm in a pumpkin echoes the artificial wombs described in the first chapter of Aldous Huxley’s 1932 novel Brave New World (fig. 3):

Written in response to the invention of the concept of ectogenesis* by British geneticist John Haldane in 1923, Huxley’s dystopia paints its generalization to the human species as hell.

However, the boundary between fiction and science is gradually receding. From surgical removal to transplantation—the first successful transplant resulting in a viable birth in France dates back to 2019—to modification induced by hormone treatments administered during certain pregnancies or gender transitions, science can now transform and shape the uterus to varying degrees. Even the artificial uterus has become a reality since 2017... at least for lambs. A team of doctors at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia has succeeded in creating biobags (fig. 4) that have hosted and enabled the development of lamb foetuses aged between 110 and 150 days for four weeks. The goal is to adapt these “biosacs” for human premature babies within ten years.

Towards a de-indexing of the uterus from the idea of nature?

All these scientific techniques provide arguments for questioning the naturalness of the uterus and the definition of femininity by this organ and, more broadly, for a denaturalization of gender identities. The current rise, in many languages, of circumlocutions containing the very name of the organ, such as “woman without a uterus” or “person with a uterus,” reflects the growing recognition of the possibility of decoupling the uterus from gender. The controversy that followed in France the publication of a family planning poster in the summer of 2022 (fig. 4) showing a transgender man in a relationship and pregnant in the association's waiting room nevertheless illustrates the systematic tension among part of the right and far right in response to proposals to no longer base the categories of feminine and masculine on nature.

Bibliography

J. Baschet, « Ève n’est jamais née. Les représentations médiévales et l’origine du genre humain », in J.-C. Schmitt (dir.), Ève et Pandora : la création de la première femme, Paris, Gallimard, 2002, p. 115-162 et 267-272.

D. Garnault, « Chercher/perdre la femme dans la mère, ou l’inquiétante étrangeté de la transplantation d’utérus », Corps & Psychisme, 69, 1, 2016, p. 73-85.

C. McClive, N. Pellegrin, Femmes en fleurs, femmes en corps. Sang, santé, sexualités du Moyen Âge aux Lumières, Saint-Etienne, PUSE, 2010.

R. Zapperi, L’Homme enceint : l’homme, la femme et le pouvoir, Paris, PUF, 1983.