Human Rights Syllabi: Critical Issues In International Women's Health

HumBio 169: Critical Issues In International Women's Health
AUTUMN 2002
Anne Firth Murray, Consulting Professor

Class Meets: Mondays & Wednesdays, 11 A.M. to 12.15 P.M., Room 210 Education Bldg.

Format: Lecture/workshop Quarter/Year: Autumn 2002 Number of Units: 4

Enrollment: 28-32 Prerequisite: None Grading Letter or Credit/No Credit

Requirements (and weighting): class attendance (20%); participation and in-class writing, including short book report and evaluation (21%); 12-page paper (23%); annotated bibliography (10%); reading group attendance, participation, leadership, and discussion comments and questions (20%); film attendance (6%). Students must sign in at each class and reading group discussion.

DESCRIPTION

This course provides an overview of international women's health issues, presented in the context of a woman's life, from childhood, through adolescence, reproductive years, and aging. The overall approach to women's health is broad, taking into account economic, social, and human rights factors and particularly the importance of women's capacities to have good health and manage their lives in the face of societal pressures and obstacles. Particular attention will be given to critical issues of women's health such as the demeaning of women, poverty, unequal access to education, food, and health care; and violence. Such issues as maternal mortality, sexually transmitted disease, violence, traditional practices, and sex trafficking will be discussed.

Course materials will draw from a wide variety of sources, including information about women's organizations outside the US. The class will be interactive. A suggested outline for the course is offered; in addition, participants will be expected to define their expectations during the first week. After the first week, each week will be devoted to a particular phase of a woman's life and/or a health issue related to that phase, with one session being introductory (often involving guest resource people) and the other being primarily discussion, with students leading parts of the discussions. Each student is required to attend a one-hour small group session each week and occasionally provide leadership.

The Course Reader (CR) represents the main required reading for the course, along with two texts: Kim, J. Y., et al, eds., Dying for Growth: Global Inequality and the Health of the Poor, Common Courage Press, 1999, and Mann, Jonathan M., et al, eds., Health and Human Rights: A Reader, Routledge, 1999. Copies of the texts will be on reserve at the library. The Course Reader (CR) is available on the web (in Coursework), and one or two copies will be on reserve at the library. Additional materials may be posted on the class website or handed out in class.

Most weeks during the quarter, a video/film evening will be scheduled. Twice during the early part of the quarter the class will be invited to a "tea" at the home of the professor, during which we will get to know each other better and share our thoughts about which book each student has chosen to read from the supplementary reading list. Students will be responsible for all materials that are handed out in class and for announcements put on the web site. These may include: course announcements, changes in the lecture or reading schedule, minimal additional reading material, and updated guest resource person information.

OBJECTIVES OF THE COURSE

1. To introduce critical health issues affecting women globally (particularly in poorer countries), in terms of their cultural and social contexts, not as a rationale for practices but as a basis for understanding. 2.

3. To familiarize students with some of the strategies and programs that non-governmental organizations are using to address women's health issues in poorer countries. 4.

5. To communicate a sense of personal empowerment and connection with women globally.

REQUIREMENTS

Students are expected to attend class and to have read and discussed with others the readings for each session. Students are expected to be prepared for discussion of the readings and to bring their experiences, leadership capacities, and perspectives to participatory discussions. Each week each student will be expected to attend a small reading group session (section) and to submit a discussion question on the reading and topic of the week, such questions forming the basis for fuller class discussions. Questions will be due in electronic format sent to the professor and the teaching assistant by midnight each Saturday. Students are also asked to be up to date on the international daily or weekly news relating to women's and girls' health.

Students are expected to complete assignments by the set deadlines. There will be one annotated bibliography (maximum: 5-page double-spaced) and one longer paper (maximum: 12-page double-spaced) required. The annotated bibliography and the longer paper offer opportunities for students to deepen their understanding of a topic or region of their choosing.

Students are expected to attend at least three film/video evening sessions and to read at least one book from the supplementary reading list during the quarter.

COURSE SCHEDULE

Week 1 (September 25) : Introduction

WEDNESDAY: Warm welcome. Introduction and overview of the subject, rationale, structure, and context for this course; introduction of participants, expectations. Review of: requirements, website, film/video evenings, and books; review of syllabus, course reader, and reading lists; clarity about reading groups and assignments. Fill out contact sheets.

Weekend Reading
? Read the syllabus thoroughly to avoid confusion later.
On health and human rights:
? Mann et al, pp. 1-34.
? Kim et al, Foreword and Chapter 1
On the situation of women in the world
? Pop. Ref. Bureau 2002 Women of our World data sheet: view at: http:www//prb.org
? CR: National Council for Research on Women, The World's Women
? CR: UNDP Human Development Report: Still an Unequal World
? CR: Hesperian Foundation: Where Women Have No Doctor
? CR: Avotri and Walters, "We Women Worry a Lot about our Husbands"

Week 2 (September 30 and October 2): Women's Health and Human Rights

MONDAY: Introduction to the course: Women's health, women's rights, and human rights. Review of course, syllabus, reader, reading lists, additional materials, and requirements. Names exercise.

WEDNESDAY: Discussion and possible video:Vienna Tribunal (parts). In-class writing exercise.

This week's film/video evening: A Woman's Place

Weekend Reading
? Mann et al, pp. 181-201
? Kim et al, Chapter 3, especially pp. 44-52
? CR: Bumiller, "No More Little Girls"
? CR: World Development Report 2000/2001: Attacking Poverty
? World Bank, Summers, Investing in All: Educating Women in Developing Countries
? CR: WHO, Female Genital Cutting
? Mann et al, pp. 336-62
? CR: Rahman/Toubia, Female Genital Mutilation: Guide to Laws and Policies (Skim)
? CR: Zainaba (Opening the Gates)
? Skim: CR: Izett and Toubia, Learning about Social Change (Skim)
? CR: US Dept. of Labor, Forced Labor: the Prostitution of Children (Skim)

Week 3 (October 7 and 9): Being Born a Girl; Poverty; Access to Education/Food

MONDAY: Critical issues of girls' childhood: being born a girl; poverty; access to education, food, health care; genital cutting and traditional practices; child labor and prostitution. Guest resource person: Mimi Ramsey, Forward USA.

WEDNESDAY: Students lead discussion. In-class writing exercise.
Possible video: Our Sisters and Daughters Betrayed

This week's film/video evening: "Secret and Sacred" (on female genital cutting) or "End the Suffering" (also on FGC)

SUNDAY, October 13: 3.30 P.M. TO 5.30 P.M. : tea at Anne's house

Weekend Reading
? CR: ICRW, The Critical Role of Youth in Global Development
? CR: Alan Guttmacher Institute, Into a New World: Young Women's...Lives
? Mann et al, pp. 35-45; and skim pp. 202-26,
? CR: Berer, Women and AIDS, especially pp. 5-13.
? CR: Nath, Madhu Bala, From Tragedy towards Hope
? CR: Farmer, Women, Poverty, and AIDS
? CR: Garcia Moreno in Visvanathan, Women Are Not Just Transmitters
Read quickly the CR materials on "Thoughts on Writing," and "How to Produce an Annotated Bibliography," and skim ideas about interviewing.

Week 4 (October 14 and 16) : Adolescence and Vulnerability

MONDAY: Adolescence: vulnerability, fertility, sex trafficking, HIV/AIDS.
Guest resource person: Natasha Martin, Strategies for HIV Prevention

WEDNESDAY: Students lead discussion. Discussion of materials in the Course Reader on writing, doing an annotated bibliography, and interviewing.

This week's film/video evening: Everyone's Child or Selling of Innocents

SUNDAY, October 20: 3.30 P.M. TO 5.30 P.M. : tea at Anne's house

Weekend Reading
? CR: Maternal Mortality and Morbidity: How Health Care System Contributes
? CR: Patchesky, Spiraling Discourses of Reproductive and Sexual Rights
? CR: Merali, Advancing Women's Reproductive and Sexual Health Rights (Skim)
? Mann et al, pp. 265-280
? CR: Dalsimer, Abuses against Women/Girls and China's 1-Child Family
? CR: IWHC, Reproductive Tract Infections
? CR: IWHC, Special Challenges: Cervical Cancer
? Mann et al., pp. 253-64
? CR: Indriso and Mundigo, Abortion in the Developing World
? CR: Alan Guttmacher Institute, Women, Society, and Abortion Worldwide (Skim)

Week 5 (October 21 and 23): Reproductive Health; Sexuality; Maternity

MONDAY: Womanhood: sexuality; fertility; maternal health; reproductive health; access to abortion. Guest resource person: Barbara Pillsbury, Pacific Institute for Women's Health, and/or Jodie Steinauer, UCSF Training Project on reproductive health and access to abortion, emergency contraception.

WEDNESDAY: Students lead discussion. In-class writing exercise.
Video: Fathalla on maternal mortality and/or BBC video on Nepal

This week's film/video evening: Small Happiness: Women of a Chinese Village

Weekend Reading
? CR: Population Reports: Ending Violence against Women
? CR: Sen, Subordination and Sexual Control

Week 6 (October 28 and October 30): Domestic Violence against Women

** NOTE: Annotated Biblio. is due in Anne's office on Friday, Nov. 8, at noon!**

MONDAY: Womanhood: domestic violence
Guest resource person: Lisa James, Family Violence Prevention Fund

WEDNESDAY: Students lead discussion. In-class writing exercise.
Possible video: Sin City Diary

This week's film/video evening: Once Were Warriors.

Weekend Reading
? CR: Jang, Domestic Violence in the Immigrant and Refugee Community
? Mann et al, pp. 75-105
? CR: Nikolic-Ristanovic, War and Violence against Women
? CR: Swiss, Violence against Women during the Liberian Civil Conflict

Week 7 (November 4 and 6): Women in War and Refugee Situations

** NOTE: Annotated Biblio. is due in Anne's office on Friday, Nov. 8, at noon!**

MONDAY: Violence against women in conflict situations; refugee women.
Guest resource persons: Helen Young on Uganda; to be announced on Afghanistan.

WEDNESDAY: Students lead discussion. In-class writing exercise.
Possible video: to be announced

This week's film/video evening: to be announced

Weekend Reading
? Kim et al, Chapter 11 (Skim)
? CR: UNDP: Valuing Women's Work
? CR: Arizpe, Women in the Informal-Labor Sector/Mexico City
? CR: Altink, Stolen Lives: Trading Women into Sex and Slavery
? CR: Sleightholme and Sinha, Guilty without Trial (Skim)
? CR: Daly and Mahendra, Human Rights and Trafficking: Supporting Women in Nepal
? CR: State Dept./CIA, Richard, International Trafficking in Women to the US
? Kim et al, one or more of chapters 4, 5, 6, and 7
? CR: Worldwatch excerpts: Items on Globalization (Skim)
? CR: Sachs on Globalization and Helping the World's Poorest (Skim)

Week 8 (November 11 and 13): Globalization and Women and Work

**NOTE: Longer paper is due in Anne's office at noon on November 22!**

MONDAY: Globalization, women's work; trafficking. Guest resource person: Hae Jung from Coalition on Slavery and Trafficking
Video: Global Assembly Line

WEDNESDAY: Students lead discussion. In-class writing exercise (brief book review)
Video: Rohani's Story (Malaysia)

This week's film/video evening: Salaam Bombay

Weekend Reading
? Look back to readings re poverty and inequality from weeks 1 and 2
? CR: UN, Aging in a Gendered World: Women's Issues and Identities, Introduction
? CR: International Institute on Aging: BOLD articles
? CR: Worters and Siegal, The New Ourselves Growing Older
Reread material in Course Reader on "Thoughts on Writing."

Week 9 (November 18 and 20): Aging and the End of Life

**NOTE: Longer paper is due in Anne's office at noon on November 22!**

MONDAY: Growing older; menopause; widowhood, poverty; access to services, end of life.
Possible video in class: Nuestras Vidas/Our Lives

WEDNESDAY: Students lead discussion. In-class writing exercise.

This week's film/video evening: Who's Counting?

Weekend Reading
? Mann et al: From Concept to Action, pp. 395-452
? Kim et al, chapters 15 and 16
? Additional materials to be provided by individual NGO organizations
? CR: Weaver, Gandhi's Daughters

Week 10 (November 25 and 27): Making a Difference

MONDAY: Addressing women's health issues; strategies that seem promising. Possible video: Visionaries film on Global Fund for Women. Visiting resource people today and possibly Wednesday: Alicia Contréras (Whirlwind Women), Esther Hewlett (CEDPA), Andrea Johnston (Global Action Network), Jane Maxwell (Hesperian), Maitri Morarji (Global Fund for Women).

WEDNESDAY: Students lead discussion. Continuing visits.

Week 11 (December 2 and 4): Choosing Priorities

MONDAY: We become a grantmaking foundation board and make decisions about funding women's organizations.

WEDNESDAY: Discussion of earlier expectations; recommendations and evaluations.
Fond Farewell

Anne Firth Murray, Consulting Professor
Human Biology, Stanford University (Building 100, Room 102M)
Email: afmurray@stanford.edu
Phone: 650-725-9546 (office) 650-328-7572 (home)

Office hours by appointment, usually on Mondays and Wednesdays; please sign up.

Ann Ha, Teaching Assistant
Email: annha@stanford.edu
Phone: 714-325-7088

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