Women in the Third World: gender issues in rural and urban areas

Abstract

Social scientists critique womens roles and their status in developing countries. They specifically look at their roles in child care housework subsistence farming employment and health care. They address status by examining wider societys value and meaning given to womens roles which in turn reflect and influence gender relations. They highlight the ideological and practical gender inequality that is incorporated into development. The majority of women in this book are low income women since poverty is widespread in developing countries and most of the literature covers low income women. They 1st examine women in rural areas then those in urban areas. 5 major themes relevant to gender questions are used. Households present the 1st theme since they are the fundamental site for sexual division of labor. The next theme is reproduction meaning transformation of good and services for household use (nonincome generating activities) as well as welfare family planning health care and urban housing and services. Reproduction in the former meaning limits women from partaking in public life and politics. The 3rd theme is production which refers to all income generating activities. In rural areas however it is often more difficult to distinguish between production and reproduction because of the intermediate category of subsistence farming. The 4th theme incorporates both policy and planning. They look at agricultural and rural development planning; urban planning including housing programs service provision and community development projects; and government and development agencies consideration of women and womens work. The last theme is rural-urban migration. They attempt to make generalizations about each major developing country region: Latin America the Caribbean Middle East and North Africa Sub-Sahara Africa South Asia and Southeast Asia.

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