Expanding Freedoms: Applying Amartya Sen’s theory of “Development as Freedom” to poor urban women in Oaxaca, Mexico
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Authors
Kinziger, Claire E.
Issue Date
2002
Type
Presentation
Language
en_US
Keywords
Alternative Title
Abstract
In recent years, much attention has been given to
the situation of the world’s women, especially to those
who live in underdeveloped countries. Issues of
inequality, whether they are in the areas of health,
education, politics, or a number of other arenas, are being
fought throughout the world, including rural and urban
areas alike. A thorough examination of women’s
condition, as well as a theoretical perspective from which
to view women’s lives, is necessary in order to provide
development strategies that effectively deal with the
women’s lives, freeing them from social injustices,
premature mortality, escapable morbidity, and ingrained
cultural and social prejudices.
People in Oaxaca, especially women and children,
are not free from a life of poverty. Of the women who are
fifteen and older in Oaxaca, 26.7% are illiterate (Social
and demographic statistics). This greatly hampers
women’s ability not only to read, but to possess all that is
valuable about being literate: leading a more independent
life, among other things.
Women’s economic situation benefits from an
increase in education. Although women’s economic
participation has increased from 26 to 45 percent between
1980 and 1997 (The world’s women 2000), this is not
without burden; as the primary caretakers of children and
the home, women now must balance work, usually of
lower status than that of men, and family responsibilities.
Although great strides have been made with respect
to women’s health in Latin America, death from
complications during pregnancy, childbirth and the
puerperium still remains as one of the five leading causes
of death for women between the ages of 15 and forty-four
in Latin America (Reproductive rights). Contraceptive
use is on the rise, with 65 percent of married women
between the ages of 15 and forty-nine using contraceptives
(Maternal mortality).
In the political arena, women, on the whole are not
represented in Mexico. Although the provisional article
22 of the Federal Code requires that all political parties
should consider that no more than 70 percent of its
members are of one sex (Committee on the eliminatio