“I came to escort someone”: Men’s experiences of antenatal care services in urban Ghana—a qualitative study

Background Male involvement in maternal healthcare has been widely recognized as essential for positive health outcomes for expectant mothers and their unborn babies. However, few studies have explored men’s experiences of maternal health services. The purpose of this paper is to explore men’s involvement in antenatal care in urban Ghana and to discuss how men navigate their roles in a space that has been constructed as feminine. The study draws upon theories of space, place, and gender. Methods A qualitative exploratory study using semistructured interviews, focus group discussion, and observation was conducted in Accra, Ghana. Expectant fathers and health workers were interviewed, and observation was conducted at a selected public hospital in Accra. Results The findings suggest that the few men who attend antenatal care with their expecting partners become involved to a limited extent in the clinic’s activities. Beyond a few who take an active role, most men stay on the outskirts of the hospital grounds and rarely participate in consultations with their partner and midwife. Men still view their presence as necessary to acquire knowledge and as sources of emotional, financial, and physical support for their partners. On the health workers’ side, the study found no clear agenda for engaging men at the clinic, and nurses/midwives felt there was a lack of staff who could engage more directly with the men. Conclusion The study indicates that most expecting fathers feel too shy and uncomfortable to locate themselves in the female space that makes up antenatal care/maternity wards. Health workers do not feel they have the necessary resources to involve men fruitfully. Thus, men do not engage in the activity as hoped but rather remain on the outskirts of the maternity clinic. However, if men continue to negotiate their involvement at the clinic and become more assertive in their roles, the maternity clinic as a female space could, with time, be transformed into a space in which both expecting mothers and fathers can actively participate and be engaged to the benefit of all.

Selection and Training of the First Female Cosmonaut Group for a Space Flight.

The paper covers organizational issues of the selection and training of the first female cosmonaut group for a space flight, they are: the group membership, tasks of the first female space flight, training specifics, first flight results.

Reflections from Cross-Gender Fieldwork Experiences in Open Markets in Ghana

Fieldwork can be an enjoyable academic adventure producing lifelong experiences of excitement and a sense of academic accomplishment. However, it can be an equally frustrating undertaking, especially when carried out in ‘unfamiliar’ environments. This paper adds to the growing number of studies about fieldworkers’ experiences by reflecting on the complexities involved in the process and proffering ways to respond to them. We share our perspectives as three adult African males conducting research in a predominantly female space in two informal markets in Accra, Ghana. To do this, we engage with five issues related to fieldwork: preparing to enter the field; negotiating access; handling interviews; dealing with ethical dilemmas; and exiting the field. We found that being male is not a barrier to conducting research in a predominantly female space. The success of our fieldwork was a product of our ability to adapt, be creative, appreciate our inadequacies, learn quickly and also take some practical and common-sense steps. Our hope is that the insights shared in this paper will serve as a compass for prospective fieldworkers.

Theologie im Tauchbad

This article surveys three centuries of rabbinic culture in Schnaittach (Central Franconia) on the basis of unexplored Hebrew sources. Located in an enclave within the Nuremberg territory, the Schnaittach rabbinate served four rural communities and variously exerted jurisdiction over large areas of Franconia, Upper Palatinate, and Bavaria. As a provincial authority, the rabbinate was oriented toward the political centers in Amberg, Munich, and Vienna, as well as toward the Jewish hubs of Fürth and Frankfurt. The rabbis of Schnaittach produced literary works in the fields of responsa and homiletics that this study contextualizes within a multilevel network of social relations. Early modern rabbis interacted with local tribunals, Christian theologians, Jewish fellow scholars, and migrant students while guiding rural Jews in their daily lives. Several documents show how they mediated, jointly with their wives, in issues of marital sexuality and cared for the female space that was the ritual bath.

“I came to escort someone”: Men’s experiences of antenatal care services in Urban Ghana. A qualitative study

BackgroundMale involvement in maternal healthcare has been widely recognized as important for positive health outcomes for expectant mothers and their unborn babies, but few studies have explored men’s experiences of maternal health services. The purpose of this paper is to explore men’s involvement in antenatal care in urban Ghana and to discuss how men navigate their roles in a space that has been constructed as feminine. The study draws upon theories of gender, place and space.MethodsA qualitative exploratory study using semi-structured interviews, focus group discussion and observation was conducted in Accra, Ghana. Expectant fathers and health workers were interviewed and observation was conducted at a selected public hospital in Accra. ResultsThe findings suggest that the few men who attend antenatal care with their expecting partners get involved to a limited extent in activities at the clinic. Beyond a few who take an active role, most men stay on the outskirts of the hospital grounds, and rarely participate in the consultation with their partner and nurse-midwife. Men still view their presence as important, both to acquire knowledge, and as a source of emotional, financial and physical support for their partners. On the health workers’ side, the study found that there was no clear agenda for engaging men at the clinic, and nurses / midwives felt the lack of staff who could engage more directly with the men. ConclusionThe study indicates that most expecting fathers feel too shy and uncomfortable to locate themselves in the female space that makes up antenatal care / maternity wards. Health workers do not feel they have the necessary resources to involve men in a fruitful way. Thus, men do not engage in the activity as hoped but remain on the outskirts of the maternity clinic. However, if men continue to negotiate their involvement at the clinic and become more assertive in their roles, the maternity clinic as a female space could, with time, be transformed into a space where both expecting mothers and fathers can be active and engaged to the benefit of all.

Reproductive behavior drives female space use in a sedentary Neotropical frog

Longer-range movements of anuran amphibians such as mass migrations and habitat invasion have received a lot of attention, but fine-scale spatial behavior remains largely understudied. This gap is especially striking for species that show long-term site fidelity and display their whole behavioral repertoire in a small area. Studying fine-scale movement with conventional capture-mark-recapture techniques is difficult in inconspicuous amphibians: individuals are hard to find, repeated captures might affect their behavior and the number of data points is too low to allow a detailed interpretation of individual space use and time budgeting. In this study, we overcame these limitations by equipping females of the Brilliant-Thighed Poison Frog (Allobates femoralis) with a tag allowing frequent monitoring of their location and behavior. Neotropical poison frogs are well known for their complex behavior and diverse reproductive and parental care strategies. Although the ecology and behavior of the polygamous leaf-litter frog Allobates femoralis is well studied, little is known about the fine-scale space use of the non-territorial females who do not engage in acoustic and visual displays. We tracked 17 females for 6 to 17 days using a harmonic direction finder to provide the first precise analysis of female space use in this species. Females moved on average 1 m per hour and the fastest movement, over 20 m per hour, was related to a subsequent mating event. Traveled distances and activity patterns on days of courtship and mating differed considerably from days without reproduction. Frogs moved more on days with lower temperature and more precipitation, but mating seemed to be the main trigger for female movement. We observed 21 courtships of 12 tagged females. For seven females, we observed two consecutive mating events. Estimated home ranges after 14 days varied considerably between individuals and courtship and mating associated space use made up for ∼30% of the home range. Allobates femoralis females spent large parts of their time in one to three small centers of use. Females did not adjust their time or space use to the density of males in their surroundings and did not show wide-ranging exploratory behavior. Our study demonstrates how tracking combined with detailed behavioral observations can reveal the patterns and drivers of fine-scale spatial behavior in sedentary species.

Watching and Being Watched: Gender and Space in the Painting of the Qianlong Emperor’s Southern Inspection Tour with a Comparative View

This article explores the female space in the painting of Qianlong Southern Inspection Tour, which depicts the daily life and activities of the eighteenth-century Chinese city Suzhou. From the observation of the painting, there are semi-open spaces along the streets in which females stand and watch the imperial parade. Women tended to be invisible in the public circumstance during feudal periods: this research analyses the presence and role of these female spaces and whether they can be seen as a step towards the modern space in the process of early-modern China. In analyzing these spaces, it focuses on the relation between the women’s watching and being watched in the space, and how it represents the evolution of feminism consciousness in space in feudal times and, sequentially, how it evokes the consideration of feminist role in modern practice. The study shows that the semi-open space that hosts the female activities can be regarded as an epitome of negotiating space and gender in the urban context. Women in the painting were exposed to the public to a certain extent, while they were still within mental and physical boundaries in the female social structure of the Emperor Qianlong period. These negotiations indicate the transition of gender and space in the late Imperial China and present parts of the process of spatial modernization in the Jiangnan region. From the comparative perspective, this research further investigates the relationships of gender and space by focusing on the space along the streets in the Qianlong Southern Inspection Tour, located within the homogenous space of the Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival of Ming dynasty seen Canaletto’s paintings of eighteenth-century Europe and Dianshi Zhai’s pictorials of the late Qing period. The research traces space in these paintings and how it represents the feminism consciousness and the evolution of female space in different historical and cultural backgrounds by looking at the social relations of the production of the specific history of people’s daily lives and the differences of social classes and nations.