Virtually Virgins : Sexual Strategies and Cervical Cancer in Recife, Brazil / Jessica L. Gregg.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gregg, Jessica L., Author.

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (232 p.) : 10 tables, 4 illustrations

Place of Publication:

Stanford, CA : Stanford University Press, [2022]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

This book provides a detailed, intimate portrait of a community of women living in a shantytown (favela) in northeastern Brazil, while exploring the complex interplay between gender, sexuality, power, and disease. It reveals how poor Brasileiras are constrained by dominant cultural constructions of female sexuality as a dangerous force that must be controlled by men; yet these women also manipulate these expectations by using their sexuality as a means to secure economic support from men. The book argues that these constructions affect their interpretations of medical discourse on the prevention of cervical cancer. Since women view sex as both a force they can't control and as a necessary tool for their survival, they choose to de-emphasize medical warnings against risky sexual behavior, with grave consequences for their health. The text is threaded with poignant, humorous, sometimes graphic, and always memorable depictions of the women’s lives in the shantytowns, making this serious anthropological study a highly readable one as well.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

List of Illustrations

List of Women Interviewed

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction: Culture, Gender, and Ethnography

2. The 'Ilha': Life in a Brazilian Shantytown

3. "A Woman Has to Stay in the House": Gender and Sexuality in the 'Ilha'

4. Sexuality and Risk: Biomedical Constructions of Brasileira Sexuality

5. Sexuality as Survival: Favelada Constructions of Women's Sexuali

6. Expedient Boundaries: Security and Agency in the Ilha

7. Rearranging Risk: Local Understandings of the Pap Smear

8. "I've Eaten so Many Good Men Since You Left": Liberdade, Resistance, and Ambivalence in the 'Ilha'

9. "You Get it if You Go out Looking for a Man": Cervical Cancer and Stigma

10. Living with Inflammation, Dying from Cancer, and Curing an Incurable Disease

11. Some Survivors

APPENDIX 1 Methodology

APPENDIX 2 Economic Data for the Sample of Women with Cancer

APPENDIX 3 Impact of Screening Services on Cervical Cancer Morbidity and Mortality

APPENDIX 4 Nonbiomedical Forms of Healing

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 31. Jan 2022)

ISBN:

0-8047-7938-4