Death Without Weeping Analysis

That job has very little honor in this community. “Three years, Three births and that’s all. After that they are Laborers for the rest of their adult lives, until the day that they enter the House of the Old… The Birthmothers never even get to see new children” (p. 22). Today, some women decide to become surrogate mothers of other women’s babies because of several reasons, such as sympathy for the couples who cannot have children of their own or financial reason. However, to carry other women’s children gives surrogate moms great senses of responsibility. They writhe in not only soreness of body, but also agony of mentality. The psychological pain by giving their babies to other women is greater than that of body. Thus, some surrogate mothers refuse to give up their babies sometimes.

One way to destroy the vicious cycle of high birth rates is to empower women through social change, specifically, education. There is a proven connection between the education level of a mother and how many children she will have, statistically. In the United States, birth rates of women with less than 12 years of total education are more than triple their college-educated counterparts. This can logically be applied to Guatemala’s situation to find that if more women are educated, not only in school, but in proper child care and contraception use, their Total Fertility Rate should rapidly decrease to a more sustainable level. This is a one-two punch: not only will women have less children, the ones they do have will likely be raised more effectively and are less likely to die of disease in infancy. Guatemala must engage in a campaign to enroll more girls in school. This will be difficult, due to the culture of the country. Women are expected to stay at home and work the fields. Culture must shift to make progress, as it so often does.

Therefore, in the mothers’ point of view, their daughter's sexual encounters were commonly seen as their boyfriends taking advantage of their naivety. Such was the case for Emma, who reports telling her daughter, “‘You think he loves you? Se está aprovechando de ti, ya verás [He’s taking advantage of you, you’ll see]!’” (Garcia, 2012: 24). The reason behind this view is “the patriarchal control over women’s bodies” (Garcia, 2012: 24). Because women were seen as objects, the common explanation for female sexuality is that they were deceived by their partner. Victimization was also seen as a way to maintain both a girl’s and her mother’s reputation. The mothers interviewed were expected to take on the responsibility of raising their children. One of the tasks involved was educating their daughters of the dangers of premarital sex. Like the teachers of the sex education courses the girls had taken, mothers did not go in depth on different methods of pursuing safe sex. In the end, the cultural belief that a daughter who had been properly educated would prevent unwanted pregnancy and STDs through abstinence until marriage persisted in the lives of second-generation Latinas. By portraying their daughters as victims, the mothers would avoid having other relatives place the blame on them for not properly educating their

Motherhood was an expected part of the wife’s life. Woman would have a large number of babies right after each other although some babies would not survive. “High mortality rates must have overshadowed the experience of motherhood in ways difficult to

The documentary Babies by Thomas Balmès is a film that takes place in four very different locations around the world. The documentary follows four babies and their families from when they are first born as they grow up and are able to walk. We watch Ponijao grow up in Namibia, Bayar grow up in Mongolia, Hattie grow up in San Francisco, and Mari grow up in Tokyo. Because the babies are from such different places, the documentary allows us to see what it is like growing up in cultures that we are currently unfamiliar with. The film opens up your eyes to the various forms of living in other areas around the world. In this paper, I will discuss the universal themes I noticed, my personal reflection of the film, the various

There were numerous powerful testimonies and striking findings noted throughout the and first two chapters of the book Birth Matters by Ina May Gaskin. As a health care provider, and therefore someone who is entrusted to care for individuals during their most private and sacred times, I found Gaskin’s statements regarding the environment and care surrounding birth experiences very impactful. According to Gaskin (2011), the “women’s perceptions about their bodies and their babies’ capabilities will be deeply influenced by the care they recieve around the time of birth” (p. 22). The statements made by Gaskin in Birth Matters not only ring true, but inspires one

Ana Castillo’s novel, So Far From God, propels the reader on a vibrant and surreal journey through the tragic ordeals of Sofi and her four daughters. The first chapter, which offers certain similarities to the Bible’s story of Jesus Christ, in that Sofi’s three year old daughter, La Loca, seems to succumb to a violent and horrifying death, and at the wake, she returns to life with a tale of her journey beyond the veil. This scene creates a notable comparison between the patriarchal religiosity of the story of Jesus Christ and the Chicana-centered resurrection, complete with the hypocrisy of a male-centered system of beliefs, the acts of acquiring selfhood as a female centered savior, and the phenomena of the “death” of the saviors.

Babies (Balmes, 2010) is an unusual documentary film that does not have any narration. This documentary film follows four babies from four different countries: Ponijao from Namibia, Bayar from Mongolia, Mari from Japan, and Hattie from the United States. The film takes viewers to these four babies’ development from their birth to roughly around age one. These four babies are different starting from when they are born. While Namibian parents gets no help from hospital, American parents does not even think of giving birth to the children without going to the hospital. When the baby is born, Hattie meets the world with bunch of medical equipment whereas Namibian child gets no such test. Anyone who encounters Babies (Balmes, 2010) would realize how different culture affects children even from their infancy. Most distinctively, it can be inferred that children development differs by the culture of parenting, the child’s attachment, and the child’s motor development.

Among violence against women and gender inequality, death is a constant factor that runs through the whole story this culture is surrounded by it every day and even when there is drought death is expected, but infant mortality is a constant battle. There are multiple occasions where infants die, mainly because of what they are being fed and how they are treated. It is understood that Monique’s baby’s health is declining throughout the story. The main cause of children

Nancy Scheper-Hughes studies and observes the connections between the loss of infants and the mother’s ability to express maternal love in the shantytowns of Brazil in her article “Mother’s Love: Death without Weeping.” Studying documents, interviewing, and observing the everyday lives of mothers, were the fieldwork procedures she used to conduct her research. The results of her research provided evidence of two theoretical perspectives observed in the article, structuralism and materialism.

68-92). Andaya (2014) uses quotes from participants to explain the Cuban narrative of abortion (pp. 80-82). There seems to be a double narrative that is taking place during discussions surrounding abortion. One narrative designates women who keep unintended pregnancies as “undisciplined” (Pg. 82). Women are shamed for conceiving often, especially if they are of a lower class. On the other hand, there is a counter narrative which shames women who have had multiple abortions (Pg. 68). This shaming is disguised a concern for women’s health and fertility, where Andaya (2014) writes “The state holds that abortion is a public health problem…in 2004, 11 of the 54 maternal mortalities were abortion related (Acosta 2006)” in which Cuba has “linked” abortion to maternal mortality. Furthermore, Andaya (2014) also writes “…in 2009, more than half of the cases of female infertility among young women were thought

Many tragic events have occurred throughout history that lead to the protection and advocacy of children, for example in Greece, during ancient times, infanticide would be legal and even enforced under certain cases like illegitimate or deformed children. Children would be sold into slavery or be put to work if families needed the extra income. Unwanted European newborns were discarded without penalty and children were pushed into adulthood as quickly as possible. “Owing to the high infant mortality rates of the times, estimated at one or two in three, the investment of love in a young child may have been so unrewarding that by some ruse of nature… it was suppressed. Perhaps also the frequent childbearing put less value on the product. A child was a born and died and another took its place” (Tuchman, 19778, p.50).

The article, “Mother’s Love: Death without Weeping” by Nancy Scheper-Hughes is about mothers in the Alto do Cruzeiro and how the mothers take the death of an infant. The mothers have been thought not to morn for their babies and to not become attached. They do this because the high rate of mortality because the infants are left at home while the mother is at work. No one is there to tend for the babies and the mother cannot take the babies to work with them. No funerals are done with the death of these babies some of the babies never even got a name because the mothers are thought not to get attached to the child until they know the child will survive. This is all due to the malnourishment in the children because the mothers are in poverty

A mother should always be there for her children. It was an unspoken rule of society that women would raise their children to be the best that they could possibly be. To be there at their child’s wedding, to hold the babies, to share the sagely advice. Sadly, not everyone gets to have their mother by their side until the end of time. The day she lost her mother was an unusually cold day in Barcelona, as Daniela remembered it. Her mother had been ill for as long as Daniela could remember; slowly rotting away of skin cancer. Daniela was only six when her mother passed into the afterlife. A grieving Daniela saw the cancer as her fault. Daniela believed she was some sort of omen to her family. Thus, Daniela was never close with her family since

Childbirth is oftentimes described as “the miracle of life”. It is typically a time of immense pride and joy; many claim the birth of their offspring was the best day of their lives. Unfortunately, however, this exuberant experience is not a memory to be fond of for hundreds of thousands of women in developing countries. Liberia is a prime example of how grim the reality truly is. According to Yulia Widiati from Unicef, “Liberias maternal mortality ratio is one of the highest in the world, with 1,072 maternal deaths for every 100,000 births” (ADD CITATION). This doesn't even include the hundreds of infant deaths that take place every year as well, just the mothers. These numbers are excessively high when considering how far modern medicine and science has come.