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Developing a Construct of Women’s Sexual Freedom in the Mexican Context

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Abstract

Protecting women’s sexual freedom has evolved as a modern value through a long process of social, economic, and institutional changes brought about by the ascend of human rights principles and societal engagements such as the feminist movement. We suggest that the concept of sexual freedom accommodates a more encompassing expression of the simultaneous demand for all aspects of personal, socioeconomic, and political resources related to the pursuit of women’s well-being. The purpose of this study is to develop a construct of women’s sexual freedom in the Mexican context. The data are from the National Survey on the Dynamics of Households Relationships, 2011. We use exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis to model women’s sexual freedom and test for invariance between working and non-working women. Results indicate that women’s sexual freedom consists of four factors: reproductive rights, physical intimate partner violence, sexual intimate partner violence, and violence inflicted by others.

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Correspondence to Jeyle Ortiz-Rodriguez.

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Ortiz-Rodriguez, J., Pillai, V.K. Developing a Construct of Women’s Sexual Freedom in the Mexican Context. Soc Indic Res 127, 1181–1191 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-015-0995-5

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