Role of women as a motivative and collective force in international development

Women in third‐world countries understand feminism in terms of the right to live in dignity, to organize against military repression and militarization, and to mobilize energies through an understanding and acknowledgment of women's own achievements and strengths. Women play, or have the potential to play, a key role in decision making and implementation within the areas of food and water security, environmental protection, energy saving, health, population, and the improvement of the level of education.     

Framing the ethical issues in new reproductive technologies

The framework presented introduces a series of polarities for thinking about the new questions raised by new technologies. The first example is the question of long‐term responsibility for actions as opposed to the survival strategy of focusing on immediate outcome; second, equality as a value as over against comparative justice. Finally, the question of whether there can be limits to the desire for knowledge. If one can frame the limits of a problem and eliminate the spurious issues, an arena can then be provided for considered discussion.     

Sexual intercourse and pregnancy

Coitus during pregnancy is a crucial factor in the health maintenance of pregnant women. Fifty‐two women were surveyed regarding the information they received concerning sexual intercourse during and following pregnancy. This study showed that, overall, health professionals were not providing information to pregnant women about sexual intercourse and pregnancy. The health professionals who provided sexual information to pregnant women were shown to be inadequate in their efforts. Nurses need to take a more active role in the education of women and their partners about coitus during pregnancy and postpartum.     

Women in power: New leadership in the health industry

The health industry may be the prototype for changing gender roles among managers. Already women dominate mid‐level management positions. Meager data exist on senior health executives. In this exploratory study we examine the professional experiences of nationally prominent women leaders in Washington, D.C., who have recently been at the forefront of changing national health policy. Their career development, management styles, and influence in national health policy are discussed and analyzed. The leadership style of these women differs from the traditional male style, and they experienced role conflicts in their rise to power. The women in this study may be foreshadowing the roles of new leaders in the health industry in the 1990s.     

Folk images of health and menstrual patterns among Newfoundland outport women

Blood is a key concept used to describe various somatic states among women of all ages in a Newfoundland fishing village. Notions of blood are not quaint survivals of folk traditions but are constantly formulated in response to daily occurrences of idiomatic and villagewide events. By grafting new information onto existing cognitive frameworks, villagers have created new and malignant medical myths that are unconsciously perpetrated by local health professionals. The failure of recent local hypertension education campaigns and dramatic increases in hysterectomy and tubal ligation rates can be related to local conceptions of the importance of menstrual blood as an indicator of a diverse range of health states. This article describes how increased availability of medical services and partial assimilation of public health education information has impeded rather than enhanced informed decision making and responsible health consumerism.     

Induced abortion: Reported and observed practice in Taiwan

This study reports the result of a 1980 survey obtained from a nonrandom sample of 500 Chinese women in Taiwan. A total of 46.6% (223) of the respondents admitted that they had obtained at least one induced abortion for birth control purposes in their lifetime.

The following questions are explored and discussed in relation to the women's abortion experiences: prior contraceptive use, repeated abortion, decision to seek abortion, attitudes toward sexual activity and marriage, gestational age at termination of pregnancy, fear of complication, guilt after abortion, and comparison of abortion and pregnancy experiences.     

Dimensions of nurse and patient roles in labor

Nurses, as the principal caregivers during labor, play a major role in structuring the social context of childbirth. The influence of nurse‐patient verbal interaction on the social construction of the childbirth experience was investigated. Verbatim records of nurse‐patient interaction during labor were analyzed using Stiles's (1978a) Taxonomy of Verbal Response Modes. Nurse and patient scores on three dimensions of interpersonal roles, attentiveness, acquiescence, and presumptuousness, were determined. The results indicated that nurses established and maintained control over the definition of the childbirth experience. The viewpoint of the laboring woman was seldom acknowledged as relevant. Presumption of knowledge of the laboring woman's experience and failure to determine her perception of the situation can have a negative impact on individualization of care and the creation of a patient‐centered birthing environment.     

Preference for male children and contraceptive use in Taiwan

Taiwan has an active family‐planning program. Yet the preference for sons is deeply ingrained in the Chinese culture and may discourage women from limiting their family size if they feel they have too few sons. In this study, research problems concerned the relationships between women's stated preferences for the sex of their children, their perceptions of their in‐laws’ preferences for the number and sex of their children, and their use of birth control and choice of birth control methods. It was found that few women verbalized a preference for the sex of children, but the number of boys already in the family was related to the reliability of contraceptive method used later and to the willingness to consider abortion if pregnancy occurred. The desired number and occurrence of additional children related to women's perceptions of their in‐laws’ preferences for boys. The perception of in‐laws’ preferences for girls either related negatively or was not significant.