Veiling in rural Bangladesh: women’s rights consciousness, choice, and subjectivity

Maoism, Feminism, and the UN Conference on Women: Women's Studies Research in Contemporary China Wang Zheng On a September morning at Huairou, the site of the 1995 Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) Forum, over three hundred women from all over the world gathered in an auditorium to listen to the presentations of a group of Chinese women scholars on the topic "Women's Studies in China." This was one of forty-seven panels presented by Chinese women at the NGO Forum. Many participants in the Forum from outside of China, observing Chinese women's activities for the first time, were impressed by what seemed to be an extraordinary amount of women's studies scholarship and activism. Although one of the most significant social phenomena in contemporary China is the development of research on women, the history of women's studies is in fact relatively short and began only with the economic reforms of the early 1980s. Moreover , while the term "women's studies" might have conveyed to participants at the NGO Forum a sense of a common academic enterprise, in fact, women's studies in China has a very different history and content than it does in the United States. Rather than emerging from a feminist movement , women's studies, or research on women (funü yanjiu) in China, has constituted a nation-wide women's movement that is creating new discourses on Chinese women. This essay examines the social and poUtical context of the rise of research on women in contemporary China, attempts to delineate the contours of this movement, and discusses the relationship between the Chinese women's movement and Western feminism. Having played the dual role of participant/observer in the development of research on women in China in the past several years, I wiU present my observations based on interviews with women scholars and activists in China and participation in some projects carried out in China, in addition to my survey of related literature about and documents of the movement. However, I do not claim that this paper represents an "inside view." Although I was born and educated in the People's Republic (PRC), I have spent the last decade engaged in studying U.S. women's history and Western feminism. I therefore view the current women's movement in China from multiple perspectives. © 1997 Journal of Women's History, Vol. 8 No. 4 (Winter) 1997 Wang Zheng 127 Establishing a Chinese Women's Studies—the Initial Stage Women Become an Issue Although many Western feminist scholars have criticized the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for abandoning gender equality in the course of revolution, for many Chinese women who grew up in the People's RepubUc, especially urban women who were beneficiaries of equal educational and employment policies of the Maoist era, the CCP presumption that "Chinese women were Uberated" was a fact beyond questioning. However, this presumption was seriously challenged, for the first time, by the inadvertent effects of the one-child policy. In the early 1980s, cases of female infanticide and abuse of women who gave birth to female infants in the countryside were reported in newspapers nationwide. This was shocking to the Women's Federation (Julian) as well as to most urban educated women, since for them these were tales supposedly relegated to the pre-1949 past—the era prior to Chinese women's liberation. The national Women's Federation immediately launched a campaign to "protect the legal rights of women and children ," which suggested that women's liberation was an unfinished cause that needed more public attention.1 Soon after that, other problems related to urban women attracted more public attention and media coverage. These included divorce (associated with long-term separation or social and spacial mobility of groups of men and women during and after the Cultural Revolution), marriage (a large number of urban educated women were reaching their thirties with dim prospects of marriage, an issue that even caught the attention of the Central Committee of the CCP), women's employment (the urban economic reforms quickly threatened gender equality in the sector of public ownership), femininity (as a critique of the ultra-leftist line that supposedly masculinized Chinese women), prostitution (increasingly prominent...

This paper aims to assess the pattern, determinants, and magnitude of local people's involvement in community clinics (CCs) in rural Bangladesh. We endeavor to show how these clinics function in reality in rural settings, taking account of local socio-economic and political contexts, and additionally to explore how community members perceive their participation in the activities of CCs. To this end, an ethnographic approach has been used as a methodology. Drawing on ethnographic data from rural settings, we argue that rural health provision may be usefully examined in light of a community-based approach. This paper finds that CCs have played a crucial role in providing primary healthcare among rural women, poor, and marginalized people; however, the utilization of healthcare services is still low compared to the target set in the policy. The extent of local engagement in community clinics is influenced by several contextual factors, including social stratification, power dynamics, and the possession of social and cultural capitals. Conversely, there has been an observed rise in the extent of community engagement; nevertheless, it has not yet reached the intended level. Sociocultural dynamics, political and economic factors, and a lack of awareness are the key barriers in this regard. More specifically, both structural arrangements and cultural factors within the local community determine the success of CC programs. The effectiveness and sustainability of CCs are believed by local people to be greatly enhanced by the implementation of a community-participatory strategy, provided that the goals behind this approach are really adhered to and put into action. Despite the implementation of several policies and initiatives, conducting comprehensive research is necessary in order to develop future action plans that may improve the quality, magnitude and level of community engagement in CCs.

The importance of personalized products and services is increasing in the dynamic customer-oriented business marketplace. Open environment of dynamic interoperable eBusiness processes is a key requirement for the emerging business models. Negotiation processes are at the core of dynamic eBusiness. While research on negotiation is not new, the vast majority of the studies to date have focused on auctions and bilateral negotiations. More complex negotiations are often required for dynamic formation of supply network and personalized fulfillment of the requests. In addition, it is very common that negotiation processes are "interleaved" with other business processes. We propose a framework for negotiation processes that provides a consistent model for supporting a comprehensive range of negotiations in dynamic eBusiness environment. The new framework leverages the scope of existing research on the negotiations and extends it to the level of complexity necessary for next generation eBusiness applications. The framework provides the foundation for constructing dynamic negotiation processes by enabling the required functionality in five components: 1) negotiation requirements, 2) negotiation structure, 3) negotiation process, 4) negotiation protocol, and 5) negotiation strategy.

Within the overall aim of poverty alleviation, development efforts have included credit and self-employment programmes. In Bangladesh, the major beneficiaries of such group-based credit programmes are rural women who use the loans to initiate small informal income-generating activities. This paper explores the benefits of women's participation in credit programmes on their own health seeking. Using data from a sample of 1798 households from rural Bangladesh, conducted in 1991-1992 through repeated random sampling of 87 districts covered by Grameen Bank, Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) and Bangladesh Rural Development Board (BRDB), this paper addresses the question: does women's participation in credit programmes significantly affect their use of formal health care? A non-unitary household preference model is suggested to test the hypothesis that women's empowerment through participation in these programmes results in greater control of resources for their own demand for formal health care. The analysis controls for endogeneity due to self-selection and other unobserved village level factors through the use of a weighted two stage instrumental variable approach with village level fixed effects. The findings indicate a positive impact of women's participation in credit programmes on their demand for formal health care. The policy simulations on the results of this study highlight the importance of credit programmes as a health intervention in addition to being a mechanism for women's economic empowerment.

Most maternal deaths occur in the puerperium and most maternal morbidities probably also arise at that time. Maternal morbidities occur much more frequently than maternal deaths, but very little is known about their magnitude or causes. This study uses focus-group discussions to explore the experiences of childbirth and postpartum illness among rural Bangladeshi women. The women's beliefs about disease causation, and their use of traditional health care, are explored. The significance of the findings for the training of traditional birth attendants and for programs of postpartum care is discussed.

Household food security is vital to measure of a country’s advancement and well-being. Three mostly usage determinants to measure household food security are per capita daily calorie availability, dietary diversity, and individuals body mass index (BMI) scores. Food security condition in rural Bangladesh is vulnerable due to poverty, unavailability and high prices of food. Almost every year food price is increasing in Bangladesh due to the low level of production, improper market management and fraud business syndicate from some top traders. In Bangladesh, food production is affected by natural calamities such as the flood in monsoon period. Rice is considering as the leading food and dominating 70% of total calorie intake in rural Bangladesh. Rural inhabitants are consuming protein and micronutrient-rich food very infrequent. The main barriers to decrease the malnutrition rate are a lack of access to protein and micronutrient rich foods and inappropriate health services. Women and children are the primary targets of ensuring nutrition security in developing worlds. However, in rural Bangladesh, in practice, both women and children are getting fewer privileges regarding food consumption and health facilitates. The main objective of this paper is to examine the role of women’s earnings and food budget control. Very authentic, recognized and useful datasets are needed to get the precise insights and information about food security condition and the role of women in food security in the rural Bangladesh. Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey 2011-12 datasets are used for this study. Regression method is used to analyze the research objectives. This paper found that women control over food budget has positive roles to ensure food availability in the house and more dietary diversity. However, the BMI scores indicate that rural people are heavily under-weight and under-nutrition.

This article presents a microanalysis of interactions between female fieldworkers and women in rural Bangladesh, and a discussion of the broader organizational constraints that hamper service delivery. It is argued that the fieldworker, herself a rural woman, is faced with considerable demand for both maternal-child health (MCH) and reproductive health care services, but that operational constraints prevent her from realizing her potential in both of these areas. Qualitative data show that, in the eyes of rural women, contraceptive use and health care are intricately intertwined, and that this association often raises a range of questions that the worker cannot address competently. A number of specific operational barriers--worker densities, staff motivation, supervision, technical competence, supplies--are identified. These barriers reflect a general institutional weakness in the Ministry of Health bureaucracy that prevents it from organizing itself to deliver user-oriented health and family planning services while maintaining adequate and appropriate standards of care.

Mobility and employment opportunities of women have traditionally been restricted in rural Bangladesh. As poverty increases, women in poor families seek work to support families. This trend has resulted in expansion of female activity space, after many years of stability. This article analyzes female space in the context of purdah, the patriarchal family structure, and the spatial organization of rural settlements. It discusses ethnic and other differentials that influence female space. Governmental and nongovernmental organizations are urged to create additional employment opportunities for rural women, so as to expand further their activity space. IN many developing countries, women in rural areas usually perform their daily activities at home or in their own neighborhoods. Beyond the neighborhood boundary, open fields, public roads, and markets are male space, traversed by women only on special occasions and in appropriate company or dress. The presence of women in male space is generally considered to be both provocative and offensive (Mernissi 1975). Evidence suggests, however, that many changes occurred in gender relations throughout the developing world during the U.N. Decade for Women, from 1976 to 1985, and that female space has expanded as a result. Most work on this subject has dealt with the spatial behavior of urban women in industrial countries, with little attention given to the spatial behavior of rural women in developing countries. This article examines the changing structure of female activity space in rural Bangladesh. A holistic approach links female activity space with cultural, social, political, religious, and economic systems. Unless otherwise noted, the term female space here represents the space of Muslim women. The predominant religion in Bangladesh is Islam, which covers 85 percent of the population. Hindus account for 13 percent, Buddhists 0.61 percent, and Christians 0.31 percent (BBS 1985, 97). * DR. PAUL is an assistant professor of geography at Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506. Copyright ? 1992 by the American Geographical Society of New York This content downloaded from 157.55.39.35 on Sat, 03 Sep 2016 05:37:45 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW Until recently, the mobility and employment opportunities of rural women in Bangladesh have been limited both spatially and functionally. However, women are now increasingly forced to seek employment outside the homestead to support their families. Age-old norms segregating and protecting women have been broken during the last two decades (World Bank 1990, 1). This pattern has resulted in the areal expansion of the female activity space, which had been severely restricted by tradition (Greeley 1983, 42; Khandker 1987, 93). After providing background, this article discusses differentials of female activity space in rural Bangladesh, analyzes the recent changes in the extent of female space at the national level, and offers some policy recommendations.

This article draws on ethnographic data from rural Bangladesh to examine how community members affected by arsenicosis understand, explain, and experience this deadly illness. Biomedically, arsenicosis has been described as a disease caused by drinking arsenic-contaminated water, and it is manifested through physiological complications such as symmetric hyperkeratosis of the palms and soles, cancer of the skin, kidney and lungs, and diseases of the blood vessels. This article goes beyond such biomedical discourse and illustrates how arsenicosis has been vernacularized as ghaa in practice. It focuses on lay world views, logic, local knowledge systems, and sociocultural factors that shape popular understandings of the disease. This article is thus a contribution to our understanding of how arsenicosis, apart from its biomedical and clinical manifestations, is understood and experienced by affected individuals living within the particular sociocultural and ecological constraints of rural Bangladesh.

While women in low- and middle-income countries face a range of barriers to accessing care for hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, there is little understanding of the pathways taken to overcome these constraints and reach the services they need. This study explores the perspectives of women and communities on the influences that impact care-seeking decisions and pathways to health services. To understand individual perspectives, we conducted 22 in-depth interviews (IDIs) with pre-eclampsia and eclampsia survivors (PE/E) in a tertiary hospital, where they received care after initiating PE/E services in different parts of the country. In four districts, we conducted one male and one female focus group discussion (FGD) to unearth care-seeking pathways and explore normative perspectives and the range of internal and external influences. Careful thematic analysis using Atlas-ti was applied. Prevailing views of women and communities across settings in Bangladesh indicate varied pathways to care throughout their pregnancy, during childbirth, and in the postnatal period influenced by internal and external factors at the individual, familial, social, and health systems levels. Internal influences draw on women's own awareness of hypertension complications and options, and their ability to decide to seek care. External factors include social influences like family and community norms, culturally-accepted alternatives, and community perceptions of the health system's capacity to provide quality care. The interaction of these factors often delay care seeking and can lead to complex pathways to care. Women's individual pathways to care were diverse, despite the homogenous community perceptions of the influences on women's care-seeking behaviors. This finding supports the need for improving quality of care in primary healthcare facilities and strengthening gender equity and community-based promotion activities through targeted policy and programming.

BackgroundWhile women in low- and middle-income countries face a range of barriers to accessing care for hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, there is little understanding of the pathways taken to overcome these constraints and reach the services they need. This study explores the perspectives of women and communities on the influences that impact care-seeking decisions and pathways to health services.MethodsTo understand individual perspectives, we conducted 22 in-depth interviews (IDIs) with pre-eclampsia and eclampsia survivors (PE/E) in a tertiary hospital, where they received care after initiating PE/E services in different parts of the country. In four districts, we conducted one male and one female focus group discussion (FGD) to unearth care-seeking pathways and explore normative perspectives and the range of internal and external influences. Careful thematic analysis using Atlas-ti was applied.ResultsPrevailing views of women and communities across settings in Bangladesh indicate varied pathways to care throughout their pregnancy, during childbirth, and in the postnatal period influenced by internal and external factors at the individual, familial, social, and health systems levels. Internal influences draw on women’s own awareness of hypertension complications and options, and their ability to decide to seek care. External factors include social influences like family and community norms, culturally-accepted alternatives, and community perceptions of the health system’s capacity to provide quality care. The interaction of these factors often delay care seeking and can lead to complex pathways to care.ConclusionWomen’s individual pathways to care were diverse, despite the homogenous community perceptions of the influences on women’s care-seeking behaviors. This finding supports the need for improving quality of care in primary healthcare facilities and strengthening gender equity and community-based promotion activities through targeted policy and programming.

Understanding attitudes about intimate partner violence (IPV) in cultural context is important for developing interventions to reduce it or mitigate its effects. This article presents qualitative findings from research conducted in rural Bangladesh to understand men's and women's responses to attitudinal questions about IPV. Both men and women often responded as if the questions were about their personal behavior. A few women said that their opinion did not matter. Women's responses were more sensitive than men's to contextual nuances in the questions, and men more often than women described their own attitudes as consistent with community norms.

When SlutWalk marched onto the protest scene, with its focus on ending victim blaming and slut shaming, it carried the promise of a renewed feminist politics. Focusing on SlutWalk London, this study examines representations and selfrepresentations of the protest in British national newspapers, blogs and Tumblr posts to explore how this promise has been negotiated in the contemporary media space. Building on the notion that contemporary media culture is characterised by a postfeminist sensibility, this study asks: how and to what extent is SlutWalk London represented as a feminist intervention in this culture? In particular, how do representations of the protest, by the media and by activists themselves, reproduce or challenge a postfeminist sensibility? Following Rosalind Gill, the thesis conceptualises the elements of postfeminist sensibility as: choice; individualism and empowerment; natural difference; irony and knowingness; and a view of feminism as passe or ‘done wrong’. The elements of feminist sensibility are conceptualised as: equality; solidarity and politicisation; intersectionality; anger and hope; and a view of feminism as current and relevant. To explore representations and self-representations of SlutWalk, texts and images from newspapers and social media platforms, as well as interviews with organisers and participants, are analysed using content, discourse and thematic analyses. The findings reveal that protestors’ self-representations (on social media and in interviews) are characterised more consistently by a feminist sensibility, while newspaper representations of protestors and of the SlutWalk protest display a more mixed picture of both postfeminist and feminist sensibilities. This indicates a process of negotiation between feminist and postfeminist sensibilities in social and mass media, and suggests that, while contemporary media culture maintains an overall postfeminist sensibility, SlutWalk is nevertheless represented in some spaces by a feminist sensibility. In particular, news items are characterised more consistently by a feminist sensibility, which marks a significant achievement; however, columns (especially by female, feminist authors) show a more postfeminist sensibility. This discrepancy highlights some surprising barriers facing feminist protestors seeking to intervene in the postfeminist media culture and fulfil their feminist promise.

Complex negotiations have been conducted for a long time, although until somewhat recently analysts had yet to conceptualize their fundamental nature, their essential elements, and the relationship between these elements. Over the past forty years, however, scholars have gained increasing understanding of the forces that shape negotiation complexity. In this article, I first review literature that has explored complex negotiations, which is found primarily in negotiation studies, and studies of international negotiation. I then develop a five-part theoretical framework for analyzing complex negotiations: (1) identification of negotiation architecture, (2) context analysis, (3) process analysis, (4) structural and relational analysis, and (5) decisional analysis. I then demonstrate the utility of this five-part framework by examining the U.S.–Australia Free Trade negotiations that produced the Australia–U.S. Free Trade Agreement of 2005. Finally, the article closes with some observations on complex negotiations and their analysis.

Maternal hypertension may be an underrecognized but important risk factor for perinatal death in low resource settings. We investigated the association of maternal hypertension and perinatal mortality in rural Bangladesh. This nested, matched case-control study used data from a 2019 cross-sectional survey and demographic surveillance database in Baliakandi, Bangladesh. We randomly matched each pregnancy ending in perinatal death with five pregnancies in which the neonate survived beyond seven days based on maternal age, education, and wealth quintile. We estimated associations of antenatal care-seeking and self-reported hypertension with perinatal mortality using conditional logistic regression and used median and interquartile ranges to assess the mediation of antenatal care by timing or frequency. Among 191 cases and 934 matched controls, hypertension prevalence was 14.1% among cases and 7.7% among controls. Compared with no diagnosis, the probability of perinatal death was significantly higher among women with a pre-gestational hypertension diagnosis (OR 2.90, 95% CI 1.29, 6.57), but not among women with diagnosis during pregnancy (OR 1.68, 95% CI 0.98, 2.98). We found no association between the number of antenatal care contacts and perinatal death (p = 0.66). Among women with pre-gestational hypertension who experienced a perinatal death, 78% had their first antenatal contact in the sixth or seventh month of gestation. Hypertension was more common among rural women who experience a perinatal death. Greater effort to prevent hypertension prior to conception and provide early maternity care to women with hypertension could improve perinatal outcomes in rural Bangladesh.