Patterns of Gender Socialization of Adolescent Boys in Single-mother Households: Perspectives from a Community in Cape Town, South Africa

Abstract

This article analyzes the gender socialization patterns and masculine constructions of a group of adolescent boys living in single-mother households. Data collection methods such as observation and interviews were employed together with interpretive techniques to explain how the participants constructed their realities based on their experiences. The results revealed that gender socialization of adolescent boys took place when their single mothers—pressured by dramatic physical changes in their adolescent sons—concluded that the boys were already men, and admonished them to act as expected of men. Gender socialization also took place when mothers observed in the behavior of their adolescent boys traits regarded as typically male, which they (mothers) did not like; and also when the mothers, in response to harsh socioeconomic and other adverse conditions, directed their sons’ attention to the failure of their absent fathers to perform traditionally defined masculine roles in the families. The attitudes of the participants to male gender were revealed in their notion of fathers as providers and figures of authority, and in their involvement in gang-related activities and other risky behaviors associated with masculinity.