Naples & Desai

In Naples and Desai I found it really interesting to learn about how privatization has effected women and their access to health care. On page 22 it says “Privitization has greatly reduced government-funded primary care, this limiting the access or poor people, particularly women, to health care. When poor women have to pay for health care from their meager earnings, they do so for their children but not for themselves.” The women are acting selflessly to make sure that their children have what they need. However the children do need a mother so I am not sure what she would do if she got sick. I feel like even in the developed world here in the United States that access to health care is still a major issue. It is a good thing to learn that health care is clearly a global feminist issue and not just an issue in the United States.

As usual it was interesting to me to see the numbers on unrecognized women’s work. On page 19 it says “Over the globe, 71 percent of women work in the less visible informal sector where they prepare products for sale in the market, domestic service, and work in their homes to produce goods for subcontractors… Although such work is unregulated, poorly paid, and involves long hours, it plays a crucial role in maintaining a modicum of livelihood for most poor women in a post-structural adjustment world.”
How do you think this compares to the unpaid housework that women face in the United States?
Did you know about all of these organizations before reading this book? Because I am feeling clueless that I had never heard of the majority of these amazing organizations!