Widening cracks in patriarchy: mothers and daughters navigating gender norms in a Mumbai slum

Beniamino Cislaghi,Shweta Bankar,Ravi Kumar Verma,Lori Heise,Martine Collumbien

doi:10.1080/13691058.2019.1580769

Abstract

Inequitable gender norms can be harmful to girls’ and boys’ health and sexuality. Programmatic approaches that help renegotiate gendered power relationships are sorely needed. This qualitative study reveals how Parivartan, a sport-based intervention in a Mumbai informal settlement, helped families resist inequitable gender norms that limited girls’ mobility in public spaces. Fifteen girl athletes were interviewed in two rounds of face-to-face in-depth interviews. Results identify the strategies girls’ mothers used to support their daughters’ participation in the programme when they feared their husbands’ disapproval. Rather than openly confronting their husbands, mothers worked from within the patriarchal gender order, through its ‘cracks’, for instance initially hiding their daughters’ participation from their husbands. At an appropriate moment, girls’ mothers revealed to their husbands about their daughters playing sports, convincing them of the usefulness of the programme. Girls’ participation profoundly and positively affected relationships between daughters, mothers and fathers. Over time, parents’ trust that girls would not compromise family honour increased, eventually changing the acceptability of girls’ playing sport in public in spite of the patriarchal gender order. Concluding remarks offer key implications for effective interventions, highlighting the historical nature of gender transformation processes.

Highlights

Gender equality is both a valuable end in itself and a means to achieve other global health and wellbeing goals (Magara 2015)
Inequitable gender norms can be harmful for the health and wellbeing of girls and boys, women and men (John et al 2017; Lundgren et al 2018)
We have reported practical learnings from the programme (Collumbien et al 2019) and how the young women (20–24 years old), recruited from within the informal settlement to serve as mentors to the Parivartan athletes, negotiated a ‘respectable’ presence outside the home

Summary

Introduction

Gender equality is both a valuable end in itself and a means to achieve other global health and wellbeing goals (Magara 2015). Gender norms can be both facilitators (when equitable) and obstacles (when inequitable) to achieving gender justice (Connell 2014; Connell and Pearse 2015). They are unwritten rules of expected action for women and men in a given group or society, that affect their (often unequal). Inequitable gender norms can be harmful for the health and wellbeing of girls and boys, women and men (John et al 2017; Lundgren et al 2018). Expectations that boys and men should be tough and resilient can affect their capacity to seek help and care (Addis and Mahalik 2003), and expectations that girls should not leave the household can affect the aspirations and wellbeing of those girls and women who want to seek employment or further their formal education (Balk 1997; Rao 2012)

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion