Science & Cocktails - Fertility: Why Didn't Anyone Teach Me This?

Science & Cocktails is a series of public talks by scientists with live music and smoky dry-ice chilled cocktails in your hand.

19:00 doors open for cocktails
19:30 Max Hell
20:30 Joyce Harper & Lucy van de Wiel (talk)
Event in English, semi-seated.

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Join us for a special Science & Cocktails edition about understanding our reproductive bodies and freezing fertility, with Joyce Harper and Lucy van de Wiel, coinciding with the 40th Annual Meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) in Amsterdam.

What role do our reproductive systems play for our mental and physical well-being? Why was the anatomy of the clitoris described only recently? What impact do life transitions such as menopause and andropause have on individuals? Does it make sense to freeze your eggs? How can we celebrate our (non) reproductive bodies when they are so often presented as too fertile or not fertile enough? How can we navigate the new reproductive options that are made available to us? How can we celebrate our reproductive bodies through all its phases and complexities?

This event is an initiative by the Dutch Institute for Emergent Phenomena (DIEP) with the support of the University of Amsterdam. Science & Cocktails Amsterdam is presented in cooperation with Paradiso Amsterdam. For this special edition we collaborate with Amsterdam UMC, ESHRE Local Organising Committee and I Amsterdam.

Why didn’t anyone teach me this? Understanding your reproductive body - Joyce Harper

Our reproductive systems are not merely mechanisms for pro-creation: they are central to our mental and physical well-being, regulated by a complex interplay of hormones. Yet, our understanding of this crucial aspect of health remains surprisingly elementary. It's time we illuminate the complexities and nuances of our reproductive bodies, from the onset of puberty right through to our twilight years. The menstrual cycle, governing women's lives for roughly 40 years, is an odyssey of fluctuating sex hormones leading to ovulation and menstruation. Yet, our educational system rarely covers what constitutes a normal cycle or common conditions like endometriosis or PCOS.

Sex education typically focuses on contraception, leaving gaps in understanding fertility, planning for pregnancy, and fertility decline in both genders. With global fertility rates declining, these discussions are crucial. As we age, hormonal changes signal menopause and andropause. How do these transitions affect individuals? It's time to openly discuss and appreciate our reproductive bodies.

Freezing Fertility – Lucy van de Wiel

The egg, the largest–and coolest–human cell, is at the heart of female fertility. Yet beyond a biological function, this cell has also acquired a political life now that eggs may be frozen in time, exchanged between women and shipped around the globe. Governments across the world govern what women can and cannot do with their eggs, while a growing financialised fertility industry is driven by a vision of a future in which many more people rely on technologies to have children. In the face of all this, new technologies like egg freezing become meaningful in the context of old stories about gender, ageing and agency.