Bad Boys and Good Girls: The Implications of Gender Ideology for Child Health in Jamaica

Abstract

(Originally published in American Ethnologist, 19, 3, 523-537.) An exploration of the implications of a gender preference for girls in Jamaica focuses on child care practices, including child abandonment, drawing on 1987-1989 research in a low-income Kingston neighborhood, comprising census & reproductive history information; interview data from 50 women; anthropometric assessment of 211 primary school students; analysis of 114 case reports of abandoned children; & morbidity survey data on 40 children. The position of Jamaican women as mothers, heads of household, & primary economic providers is discussed in relation to gender preferences. Analyses reveal a pattern of gender preference for girls that was exacerbated by a deteriorating economic situation. It is suggested that higher mortality & morbidity rates among boys born to low-income women may have been due to cultural values favoring girls, & negative attitudes exhibited by mothers toward their male offspring could influence health status. Economic stress is found to be the dominant factor involved in abandonment, although moral/psychological defects on the part of the mother were also cited, especially in situations where the child was not left with responsible people. Six individual cases are related to illustrate various conditions of abandonment. 6 Tables, 52 References. J. Lindroth