HREQ 1700 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Cultural Capital, Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights
7 Feb 2018
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Document Summary
The complexity of some of those perspectives, concerns and interests are evident in this week"s readings on women"s reproductive health and women"s reproductive rights. Responses to women"s reproduction and reproductive health are influenced by broader social, cultural and political factors. Historically women"s bodies were thought to be both endangered and dangerous. Menstruation, pregnancy, labour, childbirth, lactation were ministered to by women and took place in the privacy of the home. In the early nineteenth century women"s reproductive bodies became closely associated with the ideologies of domesticity and motherhood and from the mid- twentieth century women"s reproductive bodies were linked to women"s attempts to enter higher education and the professions. In the twentieth century the state and medical profession became actively involved in promoting maternal and infant welfare and scientific motherhood. More recently, there have been many cutbacks in healthcare. And these cutbacks affect some people more than others.
