Argues that patterns of gender exclusion occur on multiple levels from the transnational to the local, and identifies gender-specific obstacles in the recovery and reconstruction period. In Haiti, these include meeting family survival needs, violence and exploitation, and class and racially based stigmatization.
Reviews the book "Women's Activism in Latin America and the Caribbean: Engendering Social Justice, Democratizing Citizenship," edited by Elizabeth Maier and Nathalie Lebon.
Looks at Barbados's experience of abortion law reform undertaken in the 1980s. The movement was led by then Cabinet Minister and lawyer Billie Miller. Documents the nuances, important moments, key strategies and major players in the reform movement, and highlights the critical role that Miller played in getting the Medical Termination Act passed in 1983. Background information on the situation of Barbadian women and the nature of parliamentary governance at that time is also addressed in order to give context to the politics surrounding the issue.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
346 p., A comparative feminist work that starts with a substantial historical account of the different ways that freedom, race and gender were intertwined in Jamaica and Haiti after the end of slavery.
Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
516 p., Explores the theme of power to expose the disruptions and dangers lurking in Caribbean discourses on gender and love when these are approached from interrogating the currencies of power continuously circulating in their operations. The chapters are grounded in the complex realities of the contemporary Caribbean even as they challenge canonical thought. The authors simultaneously critique and create knowledge about the lives of women and men within the Caribbean and its diaspora.
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
323 p., Despite sustained economic growth at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century, Latin America and the Caribbean still faces high inequality and weak indicators of well-being among certain population groups. Women, people of African ancestry, and indigenous peoples are often at the bottom of the income distribution. The share of female-headed households rose in the past 20 years. By the beginning of the 1990s, women headed 1.2 percent of complete households (households in which both husband and wife are present) and 79.8 percent of single- head households. This book presents a regional overview of gender and ethnic disparities in labor earnings during this last turn of the century. Latin America and the Caribbean provide a rich environment for studying social inequality, because historical inequalities along gender and ethnic lines persist, despite positive indicators of economic development.
Theodore,Karl (Author), La Foucade,Althea (Author), Gittens-Baynes,Kimberly-Ann (Author), Edwards-Wescott,Patricia (Author), Mc Lean,Roger (Author), and Laptiste,Christine (Author)
Discusses aspects of violence in Jamaica and the efforts to improve the life of women in the country. Cites that the country has one of the highest per capita homicide rates in the world and that gender stereotyping is extensive and pronounced.
