Veronica Garcia

Current legal responses are not able to effectively address obstetric violence and mistreatment in childbirth. This inadequacy stems from their failure to recognise that this phenomenon has a structural dimension related to the broader oppression women experience regarding childbirth, which manifests both during and beyond events of obstetric violence and mistreatment in childbirth. This structural oppression typically takes three forms: masculine domination, seen in the application of gender stereotypes regarding childbirth; professional domination of health professionals, evident in the performance of non-consensual medical procedures; and structural violence, apparent in the lack of access to appropriate healthcare services. Structural oppression of women in childbirth must be addressed because it is fundamentally unjust and violates women’s human rights. The identification of State obligations regarding childbirth constitutes a promising framework for addressing this structural oppression as well as obstetric violence and mistreatment in childbirth more generally.

Does home-based family involvement influence academic performance? To answer this question, a case study research was carried out with 96 children from all six levels of primary education at a public school, and their families. Data regarding home-based family involvement were collected using a questionnaire. Academic achievement was measured from school marks. The results reveal that, apart from two of the factors considered, home–family involvement as a whole is not significantly related to academic achievement. These two factors are access to informal education resources and parents’ employment. Family involvement related to the access of children to informal education resources is significantly related to a better academic achievement. Those students with both parents working perform best, and those with none working, worst. Although gender does not appear to significantly influence academic achievement and family involvement, the results show that girls attain better school performance and re...

Feminist anthropologists have evidenced the social and cultural aspects of motherhood and have challenged the universality of the nuclear family as the basis for residential and child-rearing practices. From a feminist anthropological perspective, the concept of the household has thus been redefined to capture the ways in which different principles of household recruitment and residence shape the activities and access to resources of women and men of different ages and status. This paper examines the relationship between household composition and coffee production in Ocotal Grande, a Popoluca community in the Sierra de Santa Marta in Southern Veracruz, Mexico. It shows that polygamous households are larger and have higher yields of coffee than other types of households. However, this does not mean that all members of the household profit equally from their contribution to coffee production. While some relationship exists between labor input and returns, the distribution of benefits is based on gender and age hierarchies and is open to conflict and dispute