Training Indigenous Women to Conduct Health Promotion in the Developing World: Empowering Women or Colluding with Multiple Oppressions?

Abstract

Countries that have women in subservient positions have higher disease and mortality rates for women and children. Listening to Dragonflies Project is testing a sustainable model of health behavior change, training indigenous women in rural Vietnam based on the assumption that sustainability is dependent on women's empowerment. Psychological health behavior interventions are not politically neutral. This article examines the simultaneous oppressions that women in the developing countries face, while questioning the intended and unintended consequences that emerge from participating in a health behavior change program that intrinsically fosters self-efficacy and women's empowerment in the face of simultaneous interlocking oppressions.