How Sexual and Reproductive Rights Can Divide and Unite

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Anouka van Eerdewijk CENTRE FOR GENDER STUDIES AND CENTRE FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT ISSUES NIJMEGEN

ABSTRACT This article explores how cross-cultural research on sexual and reproductive rights can be vulnerable to ethnocentrism, and in what way ethnocentrism can be reduced in such research. Against the background of feminist debate on equality and difference, it discusses how the concepts of sexual and reproductive rights, within the parameters of development discourse, can reinforce hierarchical dichotomies of North–South, modern–traditional and actor–structure, and undervalue southern women’s agency. An analytical framework that combines the entitlement approach and the three-dimensional model of gender is proposed to diminish ethnocentrism and counter homogenization and generalization. This framework aims at balancing agency, actor and structure, and allowing for differences, heterogeneity and contradictions.

KEY WORDS development difference entitlement equality ethnocentrism feminism gender politics power sexual and reproductive rights

Sexual and reproductive rights1 have been high on the agenda of the international women’s movement in recent years. They gained inter- national2 signiﬁcance during the International Conference on Population and Development of the United Nations in Cairo in 1994. Sexual and reproductive rights deﬁne the right of women, and men, to make decisions on and control their own sexuality, procreation and bodies. In the context of my research project on the sexual and reproductive rights of young, unmarried women and men (age 17–22) in Dakar, Senegal, I have been struggling with the question about whether sexual and reproductive rights are ethnocentric concepts. Very few people in Senegal talk in terms of sexual and reproductive rights, or are familiar with the meanings given to sexual and reproductive rights at the international level. Feminist theoretical debates on equality and difference and on the

The European Journal of Women’s Studies Copyright © 2001 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi), Vol. 8(4): 421–439 [1350-5068(200111)8:4;421–439;019561] 02 eerdewijk (jk/d) 16/10/01 3:03 pm Page 422

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relationship between feminist politics and feminist theory have further strengthened my doubts about the use of sexual and reproductive rights as concepts in cross-cultural research. In this article I explore these doubts with the aim of coming to a framework that can reduce ethnocentrism in research on sexual and reproductive rights in specific settings. The arguments I pose here are largely the product of the theoretical preparation of my fieldwork, which is ongoing. In that sense, this article is a sort of ‘theoretical exercise’: it does not provide answers, but searches a theoretical framework that guides fieldwork by pointing to the questions that need to be asked. Two questions are central in this article. In what ways does ethnocentrism play a role in relation to the concepts of sexual and reproductive rights? In what ways can ethnocentrism in cross-cultural sexual and reproductive rights research be reduced to a minimum? This article starts with a brief background on sexual and reproductive rights as they have evolved at the international level. I then place sexual and reproductive rights within the debates in feminist theory on equality and difference. This shows how feminism has been faced with questions on universalism and ethnocentrism. In that second paragraph I also bring forward a framework to analyse ethnocentrism. The next step is to consider ethnocentrism in relation to the concept of development. This analysis focuses on two processes that are closely linked to each other: on the one hand, thinking in dichotomous and hierarchical categories and on the other, homogenization and generalization. I will discuss how these two play a role in the discursive construction of the notion of development and what the implications of this are for sexual and reproductive rights. In the fourth paragraph I propose a framework of analysis that can reduce ethnocentrism. The entitlement approach in combination with the three- dimensional model of gender are the central elements in that framework. I discuss to what extent these can counter dichotomous thinking, homogenization and generalization. My intention in exploring these questions is not to say that the sexual and reproductive rights strategy is bad feminist politics. I have personally been strongly involved in the recognition and promotion of these rights at the international level during meetings of the United Nations from 1998 onwards. This advocacy experience also inspired me to start research on sexual and reproductive rights. I think it is of great importance to reflect upon my own position and background. I am particularly interested in finding ways to avoid the marginalization and exclusion of women who are not part of the hegemonic, western feminist discourse. In that sense I am convinced that it is necessary to critically question feminist politics in order to further advance its goals and to improve its strategies. 02 eerdewijk (jk/d) 16/10/01 3:03 pm Page 423

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THE STRUGGLE AND GAINS AT THE INTERNATIONAL LEVEL

In order to understand the meaning and value of sexual and reproductive rights it is necessary to briefly go into the (international) debate on population policies and reproductive health. This debate evolved around the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo 1994. Population control and reproductive health are two distinctly different approaches touching upon procreation and sexuality. They are based on different problem definitions and consequently aim at different goals. Population policies are formulated in relationship to demographic problems, in most cases ‘overpopulation’: there are too many people and that is the cause of economic and environmental problems. The solution is lowering population growth: i.e. lowering fertility rates by increased use of modern contraceptives (Bandarage, 1997; Gupta, 1996). This approach to what are called population and development issues was and is heavily criticized by women’s health organizations and feminists from different parts of the world (Bandarage, 1997; Gupta, 1996; Keysers, 1994; Richter, 1994; Watkins, 1993). The women’s movement argues that the way the population control perspective defines the problem and the solution makes women fertility ‘factors’ instead of actors. And with their high fertility rates, women are portrayed as a barrier to development. Adding to that, the biomedical and top-down demographic approach pays little attention to social relations of power affecting procreation and fertility. This reductionism leads to the promotion of mainly technical interventions with an emphasis on provider- dependent, long-acting methods over which the women who are supposed to use them have little control. Such family planning methods have often been promoted by the use of incentives and disincentives that put pressure on women to use certain methods. The reproductive health perspective emerges in this critique on con- ventional population politics. Advocates argue that it is not demographic objectives but women’s health and bodily autonomy that should be the concern. They raise such issues as maternal mortality and morbidity, unsafe abortions, as well as gender and sexual violence including rape and incest. Reproductive health is not aimed at demographic objectives but at:

A condition in which the reproductive process is accomplished in a state of complete physical, mental and social well being and is not merely the absence of disease or disorders of the reproductive process. Reproductive health, therefore, implies that people have the ‘ability’ to reproduce, to regulate their fertility and to practise and enjoy sexual relationships. It further implies that reproduction is carried to a ‘successful outcome’ through infant and child survival, growth and healthy development. It 02 eerdewijk (jk/d) 16/10/01 3:03 pm Page 424

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ﬁnally implies that women can go safely through pregnancy and childbirth, that fertility regulation can be achieved without health hazards and that people are safe in having sex. (Fathall, cited in Cook and Plata, 1994: 30)

Reproductive health also requires sexual health. Because reproduction is closely linked to sexuality, it is necessary to make the ‘sexuality connection’ (Dixon-Mueller, 1993a). When one talks about procreation and fertility, one also needs to consider sexuality. Sexual health encompasses all aspects related to sexuality, and not merely reproduction. This reproductive and sexual health perspective is then linked to a rights approach that calls for the recognition, promotion and protection of sexual and reproductive rights (Dixon-Mueller, 1993a: 269). Women’s reproductive and sexual health, it is argued, is suffering from their lack of control over their own fertility, sexuality and bodies (Appelman and Reysoo, 1994; Dixon-Mueller, 1993b; Gupta, 1996;). Sexual and reproductive rights claim women’s rights to make decisions concerning procreation and sexuality. They encompass, inter alia, the right to the highest attainable standard of sexual and reproductive health; the freedom to decide when, if, with whom and how to express one’s sexuality; as well as the freedom to decide on the number, timing and spacing of one’s children; the right to regulate one’s fertility safely and effectively; the right to understand and enjoy one’s sexuality and the right to make these decisions free of discrimination, coercion and violence (Appelman and Reysoo, 1994; Dixon-Mueller, 1993a). In short,

The concept of reproductive [and sexual] rights draws on human rights prin- ciples of freedom and entitlement. It also draws on the feminist principle of a woman’s right to control her own body, that is, her right not to be alien- ated from her sexual and reproductive capacity, and her right to the integrity of her physical person. (Dixon-Mueller, 1993b: 5; emphasis in original; addition mine, see note 1)

The reproductive health approach has been very successful in placing women’s interests and needs at the core of the development agenda and has shifted the attention from population issues to the health and rights of women. The Cairo conference has been characterized as a shift ‘from targets to choice’: from demographic, top-down targets to a health- and rights-oriented perspective focusing on the needs and choices of women. Since the mid-1980s, the women’s movement has succeeded in placing the issues of sexuality and procreation in the realm of human rights and this has proved to be a very powerful political strategy at the international United Nations level. My concern in this article is what the impact of this human rights strategy is in terms of universalism and ethnocentrism in cross-cultural research. 02 eerdewijk (jk/d) 16/10/01 3:03 pm Page 425

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FEMINISM, WOMEN’S RIGHTS AND UNIVERSALISM

During the ICPD+5 process a booklet and postcards circulated with the slogan: ‘Reproductive rights are human rights’ (Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, 1999). By placing sexuality and reproduction issues in the realm of human rights, the women’s movement has to deal with questions of universalism and particularism. Within feminist politics and theory these questions are strongly related to the equality–difference debate. What is feminism ﬁghting for? One answer to this question is that women are equal to men, and thus should be treated equally. The demand for women’s rights ﬁts into this tradition. This strategy of equal rights is based on liberal political philosophy and has focused on claims to equal pay in employment, civil and political liberties, the right to bodily integrity as well as sexual and reproductive rights (Andermahr et al., 1997: 64–5). The women’s rights approach has been criticized for what is called ‘saming’, which comes down to the accusation that women are made into men, that the differences of women from men are denied (Andermahr et al., 1997: 66). Rights, according to this critique, should not be extended to women, because ‘they are built upon a false universal human subject’ (Andermahr et al., 1997: 65). When claiming women’s human rights, a deconstruction of the extent to which the human subject is male is required. The focus should not be on making women the same as men, but on valuing the difference and valuing women. The differences between women and men are then seen as something valuable that should be safeguarded and respected. In relation to this, Scott has called for breaking away from the dichotomous positioning of the equality–difference debate and explores in which way we can ‘recognize and use the notions of sexual difference and yet make arguments about equality’ (Scott, 1988: 44). She argues that

An insistence on differences undercuts the tendency to absolutist, and in the way of sexual difference, essentialist categories. It does not deny the existence of gender difference, but it does suggest that its meanings are always relative to particular constructions in particular contexts. . . . equality requires the recognition and inclusion of differences. (Scott, 1988: 47–8; emphasis added)

So, the challenge is how politics for equality of women and men can be shaped without disregarding the differences that exist between and among women and men. The debate on difference has also pointed to the ethnocentric character of feminist theory and practice. In this debate, the homogeneity of the assumed universal category of ‘woman’ is being questioned. Black feminist and lesbian feminist critiques on hegemonic feminist discourses have been the starting point for this debate. Black feminists forced the recognition that dominant feminist theory and practice was in fact a 02 eerdewijk (jk/d) 16/10/01 3:03 pm Page 426

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white, western and middle-class standpoint that marginalized women of other social, cultural and geographic backgrounds. The critique from lesbian feminists highlighted the heterosexism of dominant feminism (Andermahr et al., 1997: 66). Mohanty (1993) deconstructs the normative categories created by western feminist writing on so-called ‘third world women’ in her attempt to uncover ethnocentric universalism. She argues that within dominant feminist discourse,

A homogeneous notion of the oppression of women as a group is assumed, which, in turn, produces the image of an ‘average third world woman’. This average third world woman leads an essentially truncated life based on her feminine gender (read: sexually constrained) and her being ‘third world’ (read: ignorant, poor, uneducated, tradition-bound, domestic, family- oriented, victimized, etc.). This, I suggest, is in contrast to the (implicit) self- representation of Western women as educated, as modern, as having control over their own bodies and sexualities, and the freedom to make their own decisions. . . . Western feminists . . . all construct themselves as the normative referent of such a binary analysis. (Mohanty, 1993: 56)

These critiques thus called for attention to the differences between women and implied that a universal and homogeneous category of ‘woman’ does not exist. They also exposed the normative character of feminist discourses based on universal categories and claims and pointed to their ethnocentric character. Because of the critique on dominant feminist discourse pointing to the false and essentialist idea of unity among women, feminists had to ask themselves what, if anything, women share in common, what is the essence of womanhood and what are the properties that all women possess. Feminism was forced to rethink its ground of action: what are feminist politics and theory about and how can its political angle be safeguarded? Against this background I am analysing the danger of ethnocentric and normalizing claims in research on sexual and reproductive rights issues. In this exercise I see ethnocentrism as a critique to

. . . draw attention to the ways in which Western, and speciﬁcally European, discourses construct themselves as subject, in the process marginalizing or ‘othering’ non-western discourse. (Andermahr et al., 1997: 68)

Jansen (1989) has developed a model, largely derived from the work of Said (1978), that is very helpful in understanding and analysing ethnocentrism. Jansen’s starting position is that ‘all research is influenced by the sociocultural background of the researcher; no one can be absol- utely free from ethnocentrism. This must be realized before one can attempt to reduce ethnocentrism to a minimum’ (Jansen, 1989: 290). She identifies four ‘guises of ethnocentrism’. The first characteristic points 02 eerdewijk (jk/d) 16/10/01 3:03 pm Page 427

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to the belief in and the creation of the absolute and systematic difference between the East and West. In this, the East is represented as irrational, inhumane, underdeveloped and inferior and the West is considered rational, humane, developed and superior. Second, there is a preference for abstractions over actual social relations. This philo- sophical idealistic bias leads to the neglect of historical and contem- porary realities and to the assumption that a society is more homogeneous than it in reality is. The concept of the Orient as static and unchanging is the third characteristic. A fourth guise of ethnocentrism is the fear of ‘the other’, and consequently the representation of Arabs and Muslims as dangerous. Jansen’s work is related to analysing Anglo-European visions of the Middle East. With respect to processes of normalization and ethnocentrism in research focusing on sexual and reproductive rights, similar and analogue ‘guises of ethnocentrism’ can be traced. My point of entry is to explore what kinds of considerations and decisions a researcher is faced with when doing cross-cultural research on the concepts of sexual and reproductive rights. Being aware of possible pitfalls of ethnocentrism, one can consciously develop a framework of analysis that does more justice to the women, men and societies that one is studying.

THE DEVELOPMENT CONCEPT AND ITS DISCURSIVE CONSTRUCTIONS

Can these four ‘guises of ethnocentrism’ be traced in the use of the concepts of sexual and reproductive rights? Given the fact that a large part of this debate was held in relation to a conference on ‘population and development’ organized by one of the biggest ‘development enterprises’ in the postwar world, the United Nations, it is of pivotal importance to analyse them in the way these rights deﬁne ‘development’. Put differ- ently, ‘because the dominant mode of international feminism reﬂects the dominant character and colour of international relations, Bourgeois/ white, often predatory, and paternalistic’ (Oloka-Onyango and Tamale, 1995: 698), it is essential to understand how the concepts of sexual and reproductive rights are part of a development discourse and hence contribute to the construction of a difference between a developed and developing part of the world. Parpart’s deconstruction of the ‘development expert’ starts with the acknowledgement that

The development enterprise for the most part has been predicated on the assumption that certain peoples and societies are less developed than others, and that those who are more developed, i.e. more modern, have the expertise/knowledge to help the less developed (or developing) achieve modernity. (Parpart, 1995: 221) 02 eerdewijk (jk/d) 16/10/01 3:03 pm Page 428

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So, a dichotomy is created in which the North is being represented as developed and modern, as superior, rational and humane. The South is depicted as the opposite: irrational, inhumane, inferior, or, in short, traditional and underdeveloped. In this dichotomy the North is superior on both moral and technical grounds. This superiority was ﬁrst based on Christian civilization and later on modernity (Parpart, 1995: 224). In the dichotomy created between the developed North and the developing South, notions of tradition and modernity play a particular role. Develop- ment in itself often refers to achieving modernity. In the early years of development theory and practice, the 20 years after the Second World War, development explicitly meant becoming modern just as the ‘developed’ countries in Europe and North America. In this conceptualization of development, cultural traditions and practices were seen as obstacles and barriers to development in the South (Huizer, 1999: 6). Modernity carries the positive connotation of being dynamic and progressive, while tradition and culture carry the negative connotation of being backward and static. Moreover, the notion of culture itself is constructed in the geopolitical divide between North and South. Culture is not an impediment to development in the North, because the North has either ‘a monopoly of high culture’ or is ‘without or beyond culture’ (Oloka-Onyango and Tamale, 1995: 713). In the North culture is not an issue, but when attention is drawn to ‘development processes’ in the South culture is an issue. The undervaluing of cultural traditions and practices in the northern context combined with overemphasizing them in the southern context, keeps the constructed differences between the two regions alive. In fact, the North–South dichotomy is linked to the actor–structure dichotomy (Sztompka, 1993). The actor is predominant in the analysis of processes in the North with little attention for structural factors, while explanations of the South focus on structural aspects disregarding the agency of actors. In the case of women and gender issues, cultural traditions are of particular interest. The position and status of women is often used in the deﬁnition of a society as traditional and culturally static. Women’s position is sometimes used as a feature to mark the differences between cultures, to make the dual construction. It is not easy to speak about a term as ‘development’ knowing that development theories as well as practices have changed and shifted time and time again.

Even though at given points particular constellations of thinking and policy seem to present a solid whole and façade, there are inconsistencies under- neath and the actual course of development theory and policy shows constant changes of direction and numerous improvisations. (Nederveen Pieterse, 2000: 183)

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programmes, poverty alleviation, democratization, participatory development, empowerment, human development, local knowledge, etc. My intention in deconstructing the concept of development is not to say that all these different ideas and practices of development are all the same. My concern is to identify the implicit or explicit assumptions behind these varying theories of development. I think it is important to understand how a specific way of talking about development confuses our view of what is really going on. Feminism and gender issues are vulnerable to becoming part of the definition of development as discussed earlier. Gender equality and women’s rights are then linked to modernity and morality. Since the struggle for the recognition of sexual and reproductive rights was fought by the international women’s movement within the ‘development business establishment’, there is a risk that the sexual and reproductive rights remain within the parameters of the North–South divide. In that perspective, ‘ethnocentric’ in this article does not mean that only women from the North set the sexual and reproductive rights agenda, because this is not the case. Many women from different parts of the world have been engaged in the recognition of these rights (Petchesky, 1998: 2–3). The question is in what way the ethnocentric character of the ‘development business’ affects, or can affect, the sexual and reproductive rights discourse. Within the parameters of the North–South divide in the concept of development, protection and promotion of sexual and reproductive rights are part of what is defined as development, and violations of these rights are development problems mainly located in southern countries. Much research on sexual and reproductive health and rights is focused on developing countries, or in some cases on what is called ‘the south within the north’, i.e. poor and/or migrant communities in developed countries. The geographical focus on violations of these rights reinforces the image of the North as developed and modern, and taking it a step further, of women in the North as modern, as women having control over their bodies and sexuality and as women having the freedom to make their own decisions. Whether you like it or not, the choice of a woman to have a big family, thus to have many children, is often seen as a traditional one. Implicit in the notions of sexual and reproductive rights is the assumption that an empowered woman who can exercise her rights will choose for a small number of children. This is of course possible, but does not necessarily hold for every woman in this world. One can also note the differential consideration of culture and religion in relation to sexual and reproductive rights issues for women in the North and in the South. Culture and religion are often seen as impeding factors on women’s control over their bodies, sexuality and reproduction. But issues of culture and religion are considered more relevant for women 02 eerdewijk (jk/d) 16/10/01 3:03 pm Page 430

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in the South than for women in the North. In fact, there is a false assumption that for women in the North sexuality and procreation are individual matters, over which decisions are made by individuals. But in most cases, sex is an affair in which at least two people are involved and it is not easy to have a baby without involving someone else’s body in one way or another. And between these people power plays a role, based on numerous differences, such as gender, class, colour and age. This means that there is no absolute freedom from social influences in the broadest sense. The sexual and reproductive lives of northern women are misrep- resented, in the sense that their agency and power is overemphasized. In contrast to the way modern northern women are depicted as actors, women in the South are represented as ‘cultural dopes’ that lack power to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights. Violations of these rights are often represented as being related to threats coming from tradition, culture and religion. Much attention is being paid to what are considered ‘harmful traditional practices’. Early marriages, forced marriages, arranged marriages, bride price, polygamy and female genital mutilation are interpreted as impeding factors on women’s freedom to make their own decisions. The value attributed to motherhood and large families is also brought forward as a cultural element that adversely affects women’s sexual and reproductive lives. My point here is not to decide whether or not such practices are harmful, but to analyse the way they are employed in representations of so-called ‘third world women’. In this representation there is a danger of overgeneralization and oversimplification of issues of culture and religion in women’s sexual and reproductive lives. Oversimplification takes place when cultural and religious aspects are overemphasized. Women’s lives are explained from religious and cultural practices only, disregarding the numerous other processes that impact on their lives and well-being. Moreover, oversimplification takes place when culture and religion are being studied in an abstract and general way (Jansen, 1989). When the focus is on regulations, religious texts and traditional rules, only half of the story is taken into account. This is also related to the way culture is studied in anthropology:

The efforts to produce general ethnographic descriptions of people’s beliefs or actions risks smoothing over the contradictions, conflicts of interest, doubts, and arguments, not to mention changing motivations and historical circumstances. Besides being theoretically unsound, the erasure of time and conflict is misleading because it makes what is inside the external boundary set up by homogenisation seem essential and fixed. (Abu-Lughod, 1993: 9; emphasis added)

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keeping up the dichotomy. The effect is that women are represented as a homogeneous group: a group of ‘third world women’ all suffering in the same way from the same practices. In the process of ‘smoothing over’, as Abu-Lughod calls it, the differences between women disappear and one loses sight of what is really going on and of the differential role and impact of culture and religion on different women’s lives. And what is worse, in the process, agency of women in the South gets lost. This analysis of the risk of ethnocentrism in the concepts of sexual and reproductive rights in relation to the development discourse reveals an analogy with Jansen’s four ‘guises of ethnocentrism’. The notion of sexual and reproductive rights runs the risk of creating dichotomous and hierarchical categories: the modern, developed North vs the underdeveloped, traditional South. By focusing on cultural values and ‘harmful traditional practices’, generalizations are easily made, and the South is depicted as a homogeneous and static whole, that invokes fear. By overemphasizing the agency of women in the North and undervaluing that of southern women, the North is implicitly taken as a normative referent. These representations are clearly misrepresentations: they do not do justice to the lives of women in different parts of the world. The question then is how dichotomous thinking as well as homogenization and generalization can be avoided or reduced in order to do justice to the lives of all these different women living on this globe. This is explored in the next section.

ENTITLEMENT AND AGENCY

Sexual and reproductive rights research should be concerned with the construction of power of particular groups of people in specific contexts on matters of sexuality and procreation. The focus is not on how, for instance, culture and religion impact on the ability of ‘third world women’ to control their sexual and reproductive lives. On the contrary, the focus is on the dynamic between structural and discursive factors in relation to individual lives, views and strategies. In this section I argue that a combination of the entitlement approach and the three-dimensional model of gender brings to light differences and contradictions and allows for balancing agency, actor and structure. The entitlement approach finds its origins in economics and has proven to be fruitful when applied to the analysis of gender issues (Petchesky, 1998; Sen, 1990, 1995). Entitlement refers to ‘the socially and culturally recognised rights of specific categories of persons to particular resource shares. . . . The concept of entitlement to resource shares embodies the ideas of distributional justice shared by the members of a group or society and can therefore be seen as part of its moral basis’ (Papanek, 1990: 170). In this article the concern is not resource shares, but sexuality and 02 eerdewijk (jk/d) 16/10/01 3:03 pm Page 432

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reproduction, and hence entitlement should be understood as: the socially and culturally recognized rights of specific categories of persons to decision- making power on matters related to sexuality and reproduction. What is interesting in the notion of entitlement is that it allows for the analysis of power relations and processes. The rights terminology in itself does not necessarily create this opportunity. As formulated and defined at the international level, sexual and reproductive rights are goals and ideals. They are not analytical notions, which can be used to gain insight into the local meanings of sexual and reproductive rights and into the decision-making processes of and power relations within sexual and reproductive matters in specific contexts. Besides that, rights are often associated with formal laws and institutions, while issues of sexual and reproductive rights play an especially important role in private lives (Petchesky, 1998: 11–13). By using the entitlement concept, the focus is on social norms and justifications, and not on the formal laws. The notion of entitlement steps away from the international definitions of sexual and reproductive rights, but allows for contextual analysis which includes power relations and processes. What should such an analysis look like? The entitlement approach requires an exploration of patterns of allocation as well as belief systems (moral bases) that are behind such allocation patterns (Papanek, 1990). In other words, one needs to gain insight into, on the one hand, how specific groups of people are allowed to make certain decisions about sexuality and reproduction and, on the other hand, what values and justifications people in that context use to explain these particular allocation patterns. The advantage of the notion of entitlement is that it points to the social and cultural construction of the allocation patterns: they are not pregiven or natural, but specific interpretations of social reality. These interpretations define in a specific manner how women and men deal with each other in the field of sexuality and procreation. For instance, the expression ‘a girl should not have sexual relations before marriage’ is an allocation pattern, and the justifi- cation is the answer to the question why girls should not have such relations. Different answers to this question are possible. The moral basis that justifies a particular allocation pattern is never one, straightforward answer, but always is a consensus of multiple views that are slightly or highly different from each other. This acknowledgement creates the possi- bility to see differences in values, norms and discourses. It also enables the analysis of the dynamics between different belief systems, as well as their interaction with the structural patterns they support. It is interesting and useful to link the entitlement approach to the three- dimensional model of gender. In this model, first developed by Harding (1986) and Scott (1991), three dimensions3 of gender are distinguished: the symbolic dimension, the structural or institutional dimension and the 02 eerdewijk (jk/d) 16/10/01 3:03 pm Page 433

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individual dimension. The symbolic dimension ‘is the dimension of symbols, representations, ideal images and stereotypes. It is the dimension in which the discursive elements manifest themselves. Differences between women and men are articulated as absolute differences in this dimension, as differences between the man and the woman. Dichotomous categories are articulated here that have a lot more nuance in practice’ (Davids and van Driel, 2001). The symbolic is shaped within and shapes the socially institutionalized practice in the structural or institutional dimension. Here structural differences between women and men become apparent. The absolute, symbolic differences between them gain specific meaning in this structural and institutional dimension: differences between women and men as well as among women and among men come about (Davids and van Driel, 1999). The belief systems and allocation patterns identified in the entitlement analysis correspond to the symbolic and structural dimensions of gender. In that way the two models can blend together. The gender model, however, adds a crucial dimension, namely of individual subjectivity. In this dimension, individuals shape their identities, and here differences within women play a role. Processes of identification of individuals with multiple identities are central in this dimension. People take up particular subject positions, change the meaning and shift into other subject positions. In doing this, individuals may or may not conform to hegemonic meanings and power relations. This process of yielding or resisting to power relations is an active process, in which individuals exercise agency and can create ‘room for manoeuvre’ (van Eerdewijk, 1998; Villarreal, 1994). These dynamics need to be included in the analysis to make visible how fluid categories and their meanings are. The dimension of individual subjectivity is necessary for including agency of actors into the power analysis. The starting point is to ‘smooth over’ as little as possible. In such an approach, the ‘particular’ is also considered next to the ‘general’, because particulars ‘are always crucial to the constitution of experience’ and hence to understanding and explaining real life (Abu-Lughod, 1993: 14). This individual dimension thus makes the analysis complete. The combination of the entitlement approach and the three- dimensional gender model allows, for instance, to understand a 19-year- old girl living in Dakar. For many years she has learned from her mother and many others that her religion, Islam, requires her to guard her virginity until marriage. Television shows her, however, another world, in which unmarried young people are falling in love, are having boyfriends, are kissing, and are even having sex. She hears songs on the radio about love, broken hearts, etc. She talks with her friends at school, some of them have decided to really wait until marriage, and others are discovering the ‘world of love’. They talk about their boyfriends, show the presents he 02 eerdewijk (jk/d) 16/10/01 3:03 pm Page 434

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gives them. She has a boyfriend as well. When he asks her to sleep with him, she refuses at first: she has to avoid becoming known as one of these ‘easy girls’. Later she agrees to have sex with him, maybe out of curiosity, maybe because she feels like going beyond kissing, or maybe because she does not want to lose her boyfriend, because he is good to her, because he gives her presents and money. This girl is thus confronted with two different and contradictory cultural contexts, which she tries to make sense of: the one of her family and the one of her friends. The subculture of young people is curious about sexuality, and some of her friends are sexually active. Within her family context, she cannot really talk about these issues with her mother. Both the mother and the daughter know that their generations are different, notably with respect to sexuality. She might however tell her little sisters to stay away from boys and most of all not to lose their virginity. This shows that it is not only religion which explains her behaviour. Influ- ence from friends, from television and media as well as the fact that a boyfriend can help her financially also affect her choices. Adding to that, this example shows that this girl exercises agency, that she takes up multiple subject positions and that she tries to balance sometimes contradictory values and expectations. She might decide not to have sex with the boy that she hopes will marry her, because this could jeopardize her negotiating position in that marriage. But she may have sex with others. She knows that when she gets married, she can ask her best friends to help her prove during the wedding night that she is a virgin. In other marriages she has seen best friends of the bride provide a small bottle of blood to stain the white sheet. Her proof of virginity will safeguard her own status as well as that of her mother, who is responsible for her education. In this example, cultural and religious, as well as social and economic factors help to understand what is going on (Jansen, 1989). It highlights different allocation patterns justified by different values and discourses. It also highlights agency, as a consequence of which women come forward as active subjects, taking up multiple subject positions and weighing up their choices. As such, one can see how social processes affect women dif- ferently, and hence see heterogeneity among women. Analysing the different dimensions of gender and their interaction also leaves room for a historical perspective and hence to recognize change over time (Jansen, 1989). This diminishes the North–South division and enables one to see similarities as well as differences. Although beyond the immediate scope of this article, I want to make two final, short remarks. Reducing ethnocentrism in research is definitely not an easy thing to do. ‘The danger of ethnocentrism lies in the very act of conforming to the accepted, influential academic tradition of studying and writing’ (Jansen, 1989: 293). Self-reflection is therefore an essential element in cross-cultural research. Self-reflection entails a thorough and 02 eerdewijk (jk/d) 16/10/01 3:03 pm Page 435

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conscious effort of the researcher to recognize one’s positionality and background, to recognize one’s culturally bound viewpoint, choices and treatment of speciﬁc topics. Self-reﬂection requires the researcher’s willingness to engage in a dialogue with her- or himself and the research subjects to discuss and change all these aspects (Jansen, 1989). This implies a dialogue on the analytical level and on the methodological level as well. Much has been said about involving research subjects in all stages of the research project (e.g. Mies, 1983; Schrijvers, 1991). A researcher should spend considerable time exploring the needs of research subjects and the way in which her or his research can contribute to those needs. It should however be understood that this ideal of equal and dialectical relationships is often hard to realize. Moreover, this is an ideal of the researcher, not necessarily supported by the research subjects (Nencel, 1999: 18). Ethnocentrism and marginalization of women from the South are also related to the geographical availability and accessibility of funding and research opportunities. The point is not only to involve research subjects into the various stages of the research project, but that ‘those of us with more power actively support those of us with less [sic] opportunities to do such research’ (Jansen, 1989: 290). I think it is extremely important that northern researchers and scholars create opportunities and resources for research and educational opportunities for southern scholars. This is an essential step for fully integrating the perspectives of women in the South in theoretical debates and for reducing or hopefully ending the marginalization of these women in academic circles (Oloka-Onyango and Tamale, 1995: 703).

CONCLUSION

In this article I have shown how the notions of sexual and reproductive rights research can reinforce ethnocentric thinking on the sexual and reproductive lives of southern women. The parameters of the development debate make the notions of sexual and reproductive rights vulnerable to the creation and consolidation of hierarchical, dichotomous categories that contribute to homogenization and generalization. Does that imply that the notion of sexual and reproductive rights should be dismissed? I do not think so. The strategy of sexual and reproductive rights has been very successful in putting women, their lives, problems and needs at the core of the development debate. This has shown how seemingly gender-neutral policies need to be drastically altered in order to do justice to women. In that sense I think we should hold on to them. With that in mind, I propose an analytical framework that combines the entitlement approach and the three-dimensional model of gender as a 02 eerdewijk (jk/d) 16/10/01 3:03 pm Page 436

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basis for analysing power and decision-making in relation to sexual and reproductive rights issues. Within this framework multiple discourse, social relations and subject positions are allowed for and the dynamics and interaction within and between different gender dimensions are analysed. The framework allows for an analysis of actual social relations and processes, and for gaining understanding into processes through which meaning is given. Categories then become less static and self- evident, and the dynamics involved are brought to light. Heterogeneity and differences between and within the various dimensions become visible. The political element of the notions of sexual and reproductive rights is safeguarded because the framework allows for analysing the workings of power in a specific context. Conscious, critical and open reflection is essential in cross-cultural research on sexual and reproductive rights issues. If not, the misrepresen- tation of women’s (and men’s) lives in the South and the North is quickly made. A continuous willingness is required to reflect on how one’s research reinforces such misrepresentations. In this article I have attempted to highlight some of these problems in relation to sexual and reproductive rights and have also discussed ways in which these problems can be avoided. Although this is not easy to do, one can also look at it as a challenge. The challenge of how to hold on to the sexual and reproductive rights’ claim to equality while including and recognizing the differences between women around the world.

NOTES

My gratitude goes to Tine Davids, Anna-Karina Hermkens, Francien van Driel, Kim Brice and others for their critical and useful comments on earlier versions of this article. 1. In this article I use the term ‘sexual and reproductive rights’ as a unit. In the Programme of Action that was agreed to by the countries of the United Nations during the International Conference on Population and Develop- ment (ICPD), reproductive rights are recognized and deﬁned, but sexual rights are not. For me it is impossible to speak of reproductive rights without recognizing sexual rights, because the freedom of decisions related to reproduction and procreation are linked to the freedom to control one’s own sexuality. Sometimes the term ‘reproductive rights’ is employed as encom- passing rights to freedom of decisions on both procreation and sexuality. In order to avoid confusion and to make clear that sexual rights are an integral element to be considered in the discussion, I explicitly use the terminology ‘sexual and reproductive rights’. 2. In this article I use the term ‘international’ to point to debates within the United Nations, especially to debates held in relation to the ICPD in 1994 and to the ICPD+5 process that took place in 1998 and 1999. I use the term ‘international’ because these debates are not restricted to national policies and issues, but are negotiated between states within the United Nations 02 eerdewijk (jk/d) 16/10/01 3:03 pm Page 437

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conferences. Although these conferences work on the basis of consensus and the outcomes of these conferences (documents such as the Programme of Action from ICPD 1994) are also based on consensus, I am not assuming that the ideas expressed in such documents reflect some sort of ‘international’ view and perspective. My own experience of such conferences is that they engage in struggles about definitions of problems and a search for solutions in which highly differential perspectives and values clash. The term ‘international’ thus points to the arena of the debates, and not to an ‘international point of view’ in the sense that this definition reflects a universal truth. I think that such a coherent ‘international point of view’ does not exist, at least not in relation to the matters discussed here: reproduction, sexuality and gender. 3. One can speak of layers or of dimensions of gender. Using the term ‘layers’ can be confusing because it can contribute to dichotomous thinking in terms of above and below, high and low. The term ‘dimensions’ also allows for the recognition that, although these dimensions are analytically different, they always and constantly interact in practice.

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Anouka van Eerdewijk, a graduate in development studies, is currently afﬁliated as a PhD researcher at the Centre for Gender Studies and the Centre for International Development Issues Nijmegen (CIDIN) at the University of Nijmegen, the Nether- lands. She is interested in sexual and reproductive rights, gender and sexuality, feminist theory and politics, and development. Her research focuses on how young, unmarried women and men in Dakar, Senegal, negotiate their sexuality. She par- ticipates in an international youth movement advocating for young people’s sexual and reproductive rights and was youth representative in the Dutch government’s delegation to the United Nations conference reviewing the International Conference on Population and Development. Address: Centre for Gender Studies/CIDIN, P.O. Box 9104, 6500 HE Nijmegen, The Netherlands. [email: [email protected] and [email protected]]