Hypermasculinity, State violence, and family well-being: Child health in Zimbabwe

In this manuscript, I explore the demography of maternal and child health in Southern Africa from an Africana feminist sociological perspective. I present a framework that considers the ways that nation, race, class, gender, sexuality, globalization, and other dimensions of oppression intersect to impact upon the experiences and agency of individuals and groups with health care and social support in Zimbabwe. I analyze data sets from the Demographic and Health Surveys for this country. On the basis of the Africana feminist framework elaborated herein, I argue that maternal and child health cannot be understood unless the socioeconomic, political, and cultural contexts are taken into account. I extend and test the hypothesis that militarism (especially state violence) and hyper-masculinity in Zimbabwe have deleterious effects on family well-being in general, and especially on maternal and child health. This work contributes importantly to the social scientific literature in the social demography of Africa because it adapts the vibrant intellectual work of Africana feminists to a quantitative methodology. Thus the work proposes a new Africana feminist quantitative methodology that could be utilized to study other subject matter. Further, on the basis of this novel methodological approach, this work elicits results that give rise to useful maternal and child health-related policy recommendations.
Keywords: ethnic divisions, maternal and child health, Africa, Zimbabwe, feminist analysis