Cultural Constructions of Gendered Health in Morocco

Through months of research and field work with Moroccan women, these women helped me understand the very real structures of taboo and 7ashuma that exist in Morocco. The 7ashuma culture manifests in such ways as to shape how health is both practiced and accessed for these women. Without the generosity and patience of all of the people that helped me and allowed me into their homes, this showed how women create sub-spheres amongst themselves within their society. In my own observations and experience, Moroccan women were willing to make accommodations so that I could learn and share these insights. Through claiming their own complex identities, they shaped the conversation and shifted a simple idea into a question and transformed it into a journey of exploring shame culture in a most fascinating way.