This commentary explores how the material-nonmaterial transactions around reproduction among women raise paradoxical questions of reproductive autonomy and commercialization of reproduction. Drawing from medical anthropological studies on human reproduction, the technology around social egg freezing has been conceived to proffer ambivalent possibilities of hope, despair, and repair as mature women recalibrate their reproductive identities, especially in pronatalist contexts. Building on the material-discursive critique of the ‘material turn’, I ask if social egg freezing offers an empowering biological reprieve for women who have ‘chosen’ a non-normative (i.e., a departure from heterosexual conjugality) life-course. Subsequently, how does one “do age” when material entanglements (here, reproductive technologies) disrupt the symbolic performance of the life-course? Or, does this reproductive autonomy actualized through social egg freezing align well with the neoliberal prerogatives of “successful aging,” thereby intensifying the specter of the “Third Age”? Overall, through an analysis of (reproductive) technologies, as well as the question of choice and social bodies, I argue how new materialities and anxieties of growing old can undergird the material-cultural link in gerontology.

本文探讨了围绕女性生殖的物质与非物质交易如何引发生殖自主权和生殖商业化的矛盾问题。借鉴人类生殖医学人类学研究的经验，社会卵子冷冻技术被认为可以在成熟女性重新调整其生殖身份时，尤其是在生育主义背景下，提供希望、绝望和修复的矛盾可能性。基于对“物质转向”的物质话语批判，我询问社会卵子冷冻是否为那些“选择”非规范（即背离异性婚姻）生活轨迹的女性提供了一种赋予权力的生物缓刑。随后，当物质纠缠（这里是生殖技术）扰乱了生命历程的象征表现时，一个人如何“衰老”？或者，这种通过社会冷冻卵子实现的生殖自主权是否与新自由主义“成功老龄化”的特权非常吻合，从而加剧了“第三时代”的幽灵？总的来说，通过对（生殖）技术以及选择和社会机构问题的分析，我认为新的物质性和变老的焦虑如何巩固老年学中的物质文化联系。