Gender and Generation in Poor Women's Household Health Production Experiences

Abstract

This study examines women's daily domestic health work in low‐income Mexican American and anglo households with young children in the southwestern United States. The women described the experience of domestic health work as a gendered endeavor reflecting essential differences between women and men. In times of illness, Mexican American women obtained help from female relatives, and conflicts with male partners were frequent. Antagonisms between Mexican American women and their partners were heightened by both cultural beliefs (such as maternal sacrifice) and socioeconomic factors (such as more children and deeper poverty). Anglo women relied more heavily on aid from spouses and less on that of women kin. The private stories of women in poverty supplement the public academic discourse on household health production by emphasizing the culturally linked interplay of gender and generation in health production and therapy management.