Reproductive Autonomy and Sexual Health: Experiences and Representations of Young Women Attending College and University in Mumbai, India
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The modernization of large urban cities in India is transforming cultural norms and is allowing more women to access higher education (Chasles, 2008; Manier, 2015). These social changes affect female identity, as marriage and pregnancy are two important constituents of Indian female identity (Abraham et Kumar, 1999, Unnithan, 2010; Widge, 2002). Does empowering women from educational and career standpoints translate to a greater reproductive autonomy? Does it empower them to pursue better overall sexual health? Few empirical data using a feminist theoretical frame are available on the sexual and reproductive health of young college and university women in India, limiting our understanding of the obstacles and difficulties they may encounter. This qualitative exploratory research was conducted from September to November 2016 in Mumbai. Ten female college and university students, aged between 20 and 25 years old, sexually active in the last twelve months, took part in individual semi-directive interviews. Preliminary analysis demonstrates that sexuality is an important part of their intimate relationships, for pleasure as much as commitment. However, because social norms dictate that premarital sexuality is inadmissible, young women face challenges such as being judged for having multiple sexual partners or being reluctant to inquire about or get proper contraception. Indeed, it is difficult for them to openly discuss with their relatives or health professionals about their sexuality and their contraceptive needs. Participants relied on limited and uneven contraceptive uses when having sexual relationships. The dynamics surrounding patriarchal social norms aforementioned seem to have created a line of misinformation and lack of control of contraception on the women’s part thus complicating and inhibiting their reproductive autonomy. Tensions between patriarchal and liberal norms (Manier, 2015) need to be addressed by promoting the concept of reproductive autonomy amongst Indian women’s movements working on reproductive health.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.008 | 0.005 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.005 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".