book review-selected readings

8/8/2019 Book Review-Selected Readings

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Selected ReadingsEdited by - Amita Sahaya,

Published by – Women Work and Health Initiatives,New Delhi (2008)

Reviewed by – Dr. Ruby Ojha, Reader,Department of Economics, PGSR,

SNDT Women’s University,Mumbai

The book under review is a collection of papers presented in IV International

Congress on Women Work and Health held in 2005, edited by Amita Sahaya.

The book is an endeavour to discuss the emerging trends in the issues of

women, work and health in today’s globalized world. Nearly 400 papers were

presented during the course of the Congress but according to the editor only a

few could be showcased in this particular publication because of space and

logistical constraints. The selected papers range from academics to case studies

and policy making. The book is divided into three parts which were the three sub-

themes of the Congress:

i) Gender Mainstreaming at Home and at Work

ii) The Changing World of Work

iii) The Scientific Practice of Health and Development.

Out of five papers selected for the first theme, i.e, “Gender Mainstreaming at

Home and at Work”, the first one is “Capacity Building as a Strategy for

Empowerment in the Context of Women Construction Workers” by Vaijayanta

Anand. She raised the issues of workers engaged in unorganized or informal

sector, who are at the bottom of society without any kind of job security and

regularity of employment. In construction industry which is the second largestemployer, next only to agriculture and absorbs maximum number of migrant

labour force, about 30% comprise of women. These women have no bargaining

power, no social security and are vulnerable to various types of exploitation. This

paper focuses on the empowerment and capacity building in the lives of these

women by Nirman, an NGO, working with construction workers in Mumbai. The

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NGO tried to develop their personal capacities by giving them literacy classes

combined with skill oriented components, forming self-help groups, skill

upgradation in construction work, midwives training etc. This changed the

voicelessness and the bleak survival pattern of the women construction workers.

Paper “Children and Adults in the Division of Domestic Labour in Disadvantaged

Communities in the Outskirts of Beirut” is written by Rima R. Habib, Cynthia

Myntti, Iman Nuwayhid and Mirvat Merhi. This paper examines the contribution of

children and adults to domestic labour in three disadvantaged communities on

the outskirts of Beirut, Lebanon. After giving the theoretical background about

housework in Lebanon, The authors described the division of housework by age

and sex by measuring the extent to which children and adult household members

are involved in performing 28 different types of tasks. The result of this

descriptive study confirms a finding that housework is segregated by sex, and

that women continue to do most of it.

Sunita Kaistha wrote on “Informal Economy and Women Workers”. In most of the

developing countries there is a large informal economy which lacks recognition

and protection under the formal legal or regulatory framework. The number of women workers in this sector is very high, which is the case with India too.

Working conditions in this sector exposes women to occupational exploitation,

health problems and other social pressures. The writer adds that there is an

immediate need for a better organized and more comprehensive coverage of this

sector through education and awareness activities, provision of health care and

access to government welfare schemes.

A study of Finland on lengthening of working hours and its impact growing work

related stress and time pressure is presented by Anna-Maija Lehto in “Overlong

Working Hours and Women’s Work in Finland”. For undertaking this study Anna

has used the Finnish Quality of Work Life Surveys that has been carried out by

Statistics Finland. The results show that time pressure, especially instances of

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doing unpaid overtime work have increased during the last decade in cases of

both men and women but it has become slightly more typical among women than

men. This creates the work-life balance problem for Finnish women.

Dr. Vibhuti Patel’s paper is on “Gender Audits of Budgets with Respect to

Women’s Health in India”. After giving historical development of the issue plan-

wise, she has analyzed gender audit of macro policies. In her analysis she has

narrated how increasingly the realization has come that without engendering,

development is endangered. She concluded that budget is an important tool in

the hands of state for affirmative action for improvement of gender relations

through reduction of gender gap in the development process.

In the second part of the book that is on the Changing World of Work consist of

six papers recording challenges facing the women in the world of work in a

variety of ways. The paper “A Theoretical Model of Various Causes of

Musculoskeletal disorders” by Carina Bildt empirically tests a model of

association between psychosocial conditions, psychological distress and

neck/shoulder pain symptoms. The data analysed in this study originates from a

questionnaire based study performed in Sweden in 2001. In this study, it wasmade clear that women suffered from combined neck/shoulder pain and other

symptoms more often than men.

“Factors Associated with Self-rated Good Health in Low-educated, Gainfully

Employed, Elderly women” was studied by Raymond Dahlberg, Lena Karlqvist

and Eva vingard. This study is a part of a larger health project aimed to improve

health and decrease long-term sick leave and early retirement in a small

municipality in Southern Sweden. A hypothesis defined in this study was to be

physically active and to have high aerobic capacity are associated with self-rated

good health in low-educated gainfully employed elderly women. Though positive

association between being physically active and self-rated good health was

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supported by the results of the study but, high aerobic capacity was not found to

have an association with self-rated good health for the same group of women.

Christiane Kreitlow wrote briefly on “The Need for More than Justice”. The

research in this paper is based on the experience of therapy work with victims of

moral harassment in the workplace. About the cause of this harassment, a study

in Germany points out, these individuals are sensitive, creative and have the

capacity to be critical, and to innovate. Bi-cultural people and foreigners appeal

to be a favourite target of harassment in Switzerland. In most countries women

are in the frontline. The author asserts that for moral law to give direction we

need more than just justice. In the working environment one should not be limited

to globalization, but give birth to a more human world.

Amita Sahaya explored the issue of sexual harassment at workplace in her paper

“Defanging Sexual Harassment – New Approaches”. She says that women in

India have realized that the key to their problems lies in mobilizing themselves

against social forces that oppress and target women. After giving many examples

of Sexual Harassment at Workplace she narrated the stories of how the

collective voices raised in protest could create better working lives for those lessempowered.

A small story of “Rehabilitation of Female Tortured Refugees” by Tuire Toivanen

reveals that women are tortured harder and in a more cruel way. The paper is a

result of a pilot study of ten women from the Mid-East and South America. They

could plan and suggest their one year of rehabilitation themselves very

independently. The goal of treatment was to attain a better quality of life and

work was proved to be very therapeutic. It was found that tortured women, if not

extremely distressed, want to take active part in their treatment. It was concluded

that at any cost in terms of money or time, rehabilitation of tortured people is

necessary otherwise offended and humiliated people become very expensive for

the society.

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The last paper of this section is about “Workplace Stress and Physical Health

among Women Nurses in Malaysia” by Zainah Ahmed Zamani and Fatimah

Yusooff. A study of 288 women nurses from both government and private

hospitals in Malaysia reveals that there is a positive correlation between

workplace stress and physical health. Looking at the workplace stress based on

sectors, results indicate that there is no significant difference between the public

and the private sectors. But probably private hospital nurses are expected to

meet higher standards of health services demanded by patients who have paid

higher treatment fees; therefore, their stress level remains slightly higher. The

stress management programmes widely used may help to relieve stress

symptoms and promote psychological well-being.

The third section of this book that is on The Scientific Practice of Health and

Development includes six innovative papers relating to different parts of the

world. The paper, “Health Implications for the Swedish Gender Equality Policy” is

written by Sisko Bergendorff and Claudia Gardberg Moner. The paper states that

Sweden has come a long way towards achieving full gender equality, and women

and men have very similar living and working conditions. But, in case of healthissues alarming differences between men and women have been perceived. This

is mainly because traditional gender patterns in the family as well as in the labour

market prevail. Consequently, women and men face different health hazards at

work and different work loads in the family, which contributes to women’s ill

health and work incapacity.

The paper entitled “Ensuring Effective Knowledge Dissemination” by Anshu

Dogra, is regarding occupational safety and health of women, which she says

has been weighed down all over the world by the nature of women’s work which

is primarily unorganized, home based, domestic and hence invisible. This is

mainly due to the fact that even the basic professional data collection on

occupational health hazards, accidents and diseases of women has been

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The paper “Safety and Health through Redesign of Garment Workers’ workplace”

by Piia Tint and Karin Reinhold aims at estimating the hazards of garment

workers in A&G Textile Ltd. in Estonia. The factors that were considered about

workplace design included physical layout of the workplace, temperature, noise,

lighting of the workplace and ventilation. The results were assessed using the

norms established by the Estonian law in the work environment. The paper

concluded that initial investment in good design pays for itself in increased

efficiency, worker satisfaction and loyalty.

“Selected Readings”, with a variety of papers on new and unexplored

dimensions, can prove to be a good piece in collection of some one interested in

national and international gender and health issues.

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