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Reproductive Justice: The Role of Community‐Based Organizational Participation in Reproductive Decision‐Making and Educational Aspirations among Women in Nicaragua
Author(s) -
Grabe Shelly,
Rodríguez Ramírez Daniel,
Dutt Anjali
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of social issues
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.618
H-Index - 122
eISSN - 1540-4560
pISSN - 0022-4537
DOI - 10.1111/josi.12377
Subject(s) - grassroots , reproductive rights , reproductive health , economic justice , sociology , structural inequality , general partnership , inequality , psychosocial , psychology , political science , economic growth , population , demography , economics , law , mathematical analysis , mathematics , psychiatry , politics
Across the world, women experience violations to their reproductive health and threats to their educational aspirations that limit their achievement. Reproductive health and education are examples of women's human rights that are connected by systemic gender inequalities that lead millions of women to experience discrimination and stereotyping that threaten these basic rights. The current study uses a reproductive justice framework to examine how a community‐based organization led by a group of women in rural Nicaragua challenges gendered psychosocial processes related to women's rights violations. In partnership with a grassroots local organization, we used structural equation modeling to demonstrate, in a sample of almost 300 women, that organizational participation was positively related to women's reproductive decision‐making and educational aspiration, in part due to relationships with women's self‐esteem and sense of powerlessness in sociopolitical matters. Given the persistent role of gendered inequities in the reproductive decision‐making and educational aspirations of girls and women, considering the social‐structural contexts that enable or limit rights is imperative to creating viable routes to gender justice.