Population and Reproductive Rights: Feminist Perspectives from the South

Sonia Correa Zed Books, £10.95, pp 136 ISBN 1 85649 284 2

In The Origins of Human Disease the eminent social historian Thomas McKeown wrote: “the control of [population] numbers is an emotive subject which touches on national, religious and racial sensibilities.” Sonia Correa, author of Population and Reproductive Rights, would doubtless admonish him. Firstly, the word “control” implies gender inequality—men having power over women. Secondly, McKeown overlooks gender sensibilities, the focal point of Correa's book.

Explicitly political, the book was published to coincide with the 1994 United Nations international conference on population and development, in association with DAWN (Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era)—a network of Southern women activists and researchers tackling “the impact of …