“My Body as an Egg Vending Machine”: (En)Countering Master Narratives in Egg Provider Blogs

Using Hilde Lindemann’s notion of identity as narratively constructed, this study examines egg providers’ blogs to explore how they make sense of their experiences within a marketized fertility system. A systematic search (2021–23) identified twenty-three blogs, subsequently analyzed through reflexive thematic analysis and interdisciplinary collaborative auditing. The authors found that the bloggers often conformed to the dominant altruistic master narrative, but they also revealed concerns about exploitation and feelings of being treated as “egg machines,” and they created counternarratives. Finally, the authors discuss how the dominance of altruistic framings can contribute to epistemic injustice, constraining how egg providers articulate and have their experiences socially recognized.