This article surveys the evolution of Rwandan family planning practices from the nation’s mythico-historical origins to the present. Rwanda is typically regarded as a patriarchal society in which Rwandan women have, throughout history, endured limited rights and opportunities. However, oral traditions narrated by twentieth-century Rwandan historians, storytellers and related experts, and interpreted by the scholars and missionaries who lived in Rwanda during the nation’s colonial period, suggest that gender norms in Rwanda were more complicated. Shifting practices related to family planning – particularly access to contraception, abortion, vasectomies and related strategies – are but one arena in which this becomes evident, suggesting that women’s roles within their families and communities could be more diverse than the historiography’s narrow focus on women as wives and mothers currently allows. Drawing upon a range of colonial-era oral traditions and interviews conducted with Rwandans since 2007, I argue that Rwandan women – while under significant social pressure to become wives and mothers throughout the nation’s past – did find ways to exert agency within and beyond these roles. I further maintain that understanding historical approaches to family planning in Rwanda is essential for informing present-day policy debates in Rwanda aimed at promoting gender equality, and in particular for ensuring women’s rights and access to adequate healthcare are being upheld.
...More
Thesis
Darja Djordjevic;
(2016)
The Cancer War(d): Onco-Nationhood in Post-Traumatic Rwanda
(/isis/citation/CBB606619358/)
Book
Caroline Rusterholz;
(2020)
Women's medicine: Sex, family planning and British female doctors in transnational perspective, 1920–70
(/isis/citation/CBB545634392/)
Book
Prescott, Heather Munro;
(2011)
The Morning After: A History of Emergency Contraception in the United States
(/isis/citation/CBB001212465/)
Article
Malich, Lisa;
(2012)
Vom Mittel der Familienplanung zum differenzierenden Lifestyle-Präparat
(/isis/citation/CBB001420902/)
Book
Thierry Hoquet;
(2015)
Current Perspectives on Sexual Selection: What's left after Darwin?
(/isis/citation/CBB794907195/)
Article
Aliakbar Akbaritabar;
Flaminio Squazzoni;
(May 2021)
Gender Patterns of Publication in Top Sociological Journals
(/isis/citation/CBB721191179/)
Article
Agata Ignaciuk;
(2020)
No Man’s Land? Gendering Contraception in Family Planning Advice Literature in State-Socialist Poland (1950s–1980s)
(/isis/citation/CBB998240820/)
Article
Pia Vuolanto;
Marjo Kolehmainen;
(July 2021)
Gendered Boundary-work within the Finnish Skepticism Movement
(/isis/citation/CBB137850505/)
Article
Nikolay Rudenko;
Irina Antoshchuk;
Roman Maliushkin;
Liliia Zemnukhova;
(2022)
Gender Equality Paradise Revisited: The Dynamics of Gender Disbalance in Russian Engineering from the Late Soviet Time to the 2010s
(/isis/citation/CBB921131009/)
Book
Elena Conis;
Sandra Eder;
Aimee Medeiros;
(2021)
Pink and Blue: Gender, Culture, and the Health of Children
(/isis/citation/CBB018040212/)
Book
Lynn M. Thomas;
(2020)
Beneath the Surface: A Transnational History of Skin Lighteners
(/isis/citation/CBB648991874/)
Article
Carlos Dávila;
Andrea Lluch;
(2022)
Entrepreneurship in Emerging Markets: Female Entrepreneurs in Colombia since 1990
(/isis/citation/CBB217770961/)
Article
Mary Frank Fox;
Diana Roldan Rueda;
Gerhard Sonnert;
Amanda Nabors;
Sarah Bartel;
(2022)
Publications about Women, Science, and Engineering: Use of Sex and Gender in Titles over a Forty-six-year Period
(/isis/citation/CBB872647702/)
Book
Gianetta Rands;
(2018)
Women's Voices in Psychiatry: A Collection of Essays
(/isis/citation/CBB559079787/)
Book
Paolo Nucci;
(2020)
Storia, vizi e virtù della migliore sanità del mondo
(/isis/citation/CBB780681474/)
Book
David Clark;
(2016)
To Comfort Always: A history of palliative medicine since the nineteenth century
(/isis/citation/CBB432012178/)
Article
Vladimir A. Reshetnikov;
Natalia V. Ekkert;
Lorenzo Capasso;
Evgeny V. Arsentyev;
Maria S. Mikerova;
Irina I. Yukushina;
(2019)
The history of public healthcare in Russia
(/isis/citation/CBB176501091/)
Book
Rebekah Lee;
(2021)
Health, Healing and Illness in African History
(/isis/citation/CBB969631252/)
Article
Garnelo, Luiza;
(2011)
Aspectos socioculturais de vacinação em área indígena
(/isis/citation/CBB001420515/)
Book
Hoffman, Beatrix Rebecca;
(2012)
Health Care for Some: Rights and Rationing in the United States since 1930
(/isis/citation/CBB001214588/)
Be the first to comment!