Title:	Rural Women’s Sexuality, Reproductive Health, and Illiteracy
Authors:	Gisele Maynard-Tucker
Keywords:	Rural health services Developing countries
Issue Date:	2015
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Description:	The book illustrates rural women living in different ethnic societies and provides insights into health-care delivery in rural parts of the world. It reveals the intimate life of the women who are subject to gender inequality, subservience to their partners, and their need to conform to cultural customs. In many cultures girls are not the valued gender and are dependent on their male partners or on their kin for economic survival unless they are educated or have mastered a skill. I write about their approaches to modern medicine and their pragmatic solutions to resolve their health problems based on their financial means and cultural beliefs. Traditional medicine is very much alive in rural communities because of traditional beliefs and the lack of health facilities, transportation, and cash. Healers and traditional midwives are the health-care alternatives to physicians and trained midwives. The high maternal mortality in most developing countries attests to this problem, which is known by international donors, ministries of health, and local NGOs but remains unsolved. I also discuss my findings about women involved in sex work in Madagascar, Senegal, and India in order to show that women who are illiterate and have no skills have no alternative but to sell their bodies in order to survive. Clandestine sex work is a way for poor women to make fast money in order to take care of their children and to be independent from a partner. However, it is risky because of the HIV epidemic and also because of violence from clients
URI:	http://10.6.20.12:80/handle/123456789/48373
ISBN:	978-0-7391-9232-0
Appears in Collections:	Gender Studies

Items in DSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.