Eggcentrism: On How Eggs Come to Matter in Chinese IVF

We introduce eggcentrism to examine how eggs govern women's time, choices, and worth in Chinese IVF clinics. Drawing on eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork, we explore how clinical and social infrastructures render the egg central to scrutiny and responsibility. Through clinical observations and patient narratives, we critique how reproductive care practices make the egg visible, actionable, and culturally charged. While women's bodies are intensively managed, male infertility remains peripheral. We argue that eggcentrism reveals how temporal pressure, clinical practices, and technoscientific governance shape reproductive outcomes and the cultural terrain women navigate, reinforcing gendered burdens in reproductive medicine.Media teaser: Eggs are positioned at the center of fertility care in China, shaping how women's time, responsibility, and value are judged in IVF clinics.