The Dynamic of Gender Role Conflict of Pastors’ Husbands at Batak Karo Protestant Church

Abstract

Abstract Gender inequality often relates more to women, causing gender role conflict in men to be somewhat overlooked. This study aims to describe the dynamic of gender role conflict among pastors’ husbands at the Batak Karo Protestant Church. We were encouraged to conduct this research due to the large negative effects of gender role conflicts despite the limited number of studies on the matter. There were three male participants involved, namely TA, SE and BS. These participants fulfilled the sample criteria:1)Having been married for at least one year;2) Having at least one daughter or son; 3)A native of Karo tribe; and 4) Having been a congregation at Batak Karo Protestant Church since childhood.We used a qualitative method with a phenomenology approach, in which the interview results were analyzed using the hermeneutic method. The results show that gender role conflict of pastors’ husbands are caused by gender role socialization since childhood, patriarchal culture embraced by the Karo tribe, masculine ideology and gender role transition that caused husbands to practice contradictive gender roles. The need for more qualitative studies regarding this topic is highlighted. Keywords: gender role conflict, Batak culture, and Pastors’ husbands