Abstract
Achieving gender equality fundamentally requires a transfer of power from men to women. Yet data on men's support for women's empowerment (WE) remains scant and limited by reliance on self-report methodologies. Here, we examine men's support for WE as a sexual conflict trait, both via direct surveys (n = 590) and indirectly by asking men's wives (n = 317) to speculate on their husband's views. Data come from a semi-urban community in Mwanza, Tanzania. Consistent with reduced resource competition and increased exposure to relatively egalitarian gender norms, higher socioeconomic status predicted greater support for WE. However, potential demographic indicators of sexual conflict (high fertility, polygyny, large spousal age gap) were largely unrelated to men's support for WE. Contrasting self- and wife-reported measures suggests that men frequently exaggerate their support for women in self-reported attitudes. Discrepancies were especially pronounced among men claiming the highest support for WE, but smallest among men who held a professional occupation and whose wife participated in wage labour, indicating that these factors predict genuine support for WE. We discuss the implications of these results for our understanding of both individual variation and patriarchal gender norms, emphasising the benefits of greater exchange between the evolutionary human sciences and global health research on these themes.
Highlights
Women’s empowerment (WE), defined here broadly as the advancement of women’s autonomy, rights and wellbeing, is a central goal of contemporary global health
While we draw on studies from across the social sciences, we frame our research around the notion of WE as a sexual conflict trait, aiming to promote greater connections between evolutionary human science and global health scholarship on gender norms and ideology
Levtov et al (2014) demonstrate that men who report gender-equitable attitudes to WE report gender-equitable practices, including greater participation in domestic duties, and reduced intimate partner violence (IPV)
Summary
Women’s empowerment (WE), defined here broadly as the advancement of women’s autonomy, rights and wellbeing, is a central goal of contemporary global health. Our understanding of what makes some men more supportive of women than others remains limited, among relatively low-income nations (Charles, 2019; Levtov et al, 2014). Addressing this gap, we contribute novel data on male attitudes to WE in a semi-urban community in northwestern Tanzania. Alesina et al, 2013; Becker, 2019; Boserup, 1970; Draper, 1975; Hansen et al, 2015; Hrdy, 1997; Smuts, 1995) Research in this tradition has rarely considered individual variability in men’s support for WE within communities
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