Medicalization, reproductive agency, and the desire for surgical sterilization among low-income women in urban Brazil.

Full Abstract

This article draws on data from ethnographic fieldwork in an urban housing project to examine the social context and meanings of surgical sterilization for low-income women in Brazil. Low-income women resort to sterilization because they distrust or are unsatisfied with alternative methods and because it helps them to fulfill the requirements of modern, responsible motherhood. Although sterilization is an option among few alternatives, and one that has subjected women to greater medical management and intervention, I argue that sterilization also represents poor women's active struggle to improve their lives and to resist the burdens placed on them by unequal gender relations. This article contributes to a growing anthropological literature that demonstrates how reproduction has become a central site where social values are constituted and contested, and it details women's diverse responses to the process of medicalization.

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Author information

Author/s: de Bessa, Gina Hunter (GH);

Affiliation: Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Campus Box 4660, Illinois State University, Normal, IL 61790-4660, USA. glbessa(-atsign-)ilstu.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Medical anthropology (Med Anthropol), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: -2006 Jul-Sep; vol 25 (issue 3) : pp 221-63

Dates: Created 2006/08/09; Completed 2006/10/25; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 16895828, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adult
Attitude of Health Personnel
Brazil
Choice Behavior
Contraception Behavior
Female
Gender Identity
Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice
Humans

Marriage
Personal Autonomy
Poverty
Pregnancy
Reproductive Rights
Self Efficacy
Social Mobility
Sterilization, Reproductive - legislation & jurisprudence; psychology; trends
Urban Population

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