Ethnographic Review Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Ethnographic Review - Essay Example The complexity of the issues discussed with regard to women in pain is also clearly explained. Finkler’s objective in writing the book was to deepen our understanding of human sickness through what she termed as life lesions. In addition, biomedicine has without doubt made incredible advances and has succeeded in treating difficult medical impairments. Nonetheless, at times biomedicine fails to lessen patients routinely experienced symptoms because of the restrictions of the biomedicine script, a script that fails to understand life’s lesions. Finkler develops life lesions in an outstanding symbol of how wounds imposed on people that is women during their lives are narrated in the concept of life lesions in the reflection of a sense of loss of control, or the life of a person being out of control. Finkler analysis of the Mexican gender role outlook makes it understandable why women with little control of their lives would convey chronic and unexplained physical pain. In case, readers would presume that all Mexican women are trapped in similar gender roles and experience the type of life lesions described by Finkler, she warns against stereotyping the whole population of Mexican women. The women discussed in her book, are a specific set of women. She chose them as a subset from a sample of 205 women she interviewed earlier at the hospital, of which 161 were later interviewed at the comfort of their homes. The 10 case studies in the book were drawn from the 161 women interviewed both in the hospital and at home. The book is divided into three parts: the first part evaluates the literature with regard to the nature of sickness, nature of gender and the connection between gender and sickness. The second part puts out a good review of gender roles in Mexico, historical associations between men and women and the place of spiritualist or evangelical movements in the lives of poor men and women. Additionally, Finkler also incorporate an overview profile o f women in her chosen population. The longest section of the book is left for case studies. The reader is expected to meet with â€Å"Juana who is in search of dignity amid a garbage dump, Susana a woman who has ventured into the public domain, Carlota who changed from proletarian to a housewife, Maria whose life experiences have changed from bad to worse, Norma who claimed to have found God, Josefina who narrates that she has dedicated her whole life to working very hard. Rebecca on the other hand is a woman at the verge of disintegration, Julia who struggles to live with a drunken husband, Alicia who is a mother and a mistress and Margarita a woman in such of individualism†. With regard to nature of sickness, women and men have differing health needs and outcomes. This is because of biological differences, especially â€Å"sex-connected biology such as genital secretions, secondary sex characteristics and reproductive events like pregnancy and menopause†. Finkler not ed that gender affects the risk of mortality and morbidity through diverse exposure and helplessness, the harshness and consequences of illness and access to health care services (Finkler 5). In most of Mexican cities, there exists biasness when it comes to gender and healthcare. Most men are given priority than women therefore putting the women under the risk of further complications and stress. Moreover, the existence of socioeconomic inequality has been the main reason for health biasness in Mexico.