Abstract
Background: The contribution of structural inequalities and societal legitimisation to violence against women, which 30% of women in India survive each year, is widely accepted. There is a consensus that interventions should aim to change gender norms, particularly through community mobilisation. How this should be done is less clear. Methods: We did a qualitative study in a large informal settlement in Mumbai, an environment that characterises 41% of households. After reviewing the anonymised records of consultations with 1653 survivors of violence, we conducted 5 focus group discussions and 13 individual interviews with 71 women and men representing a range of age groups and communities. We based the interviews on fictitious biographical vignettes to elicit responses and develop an understanding of social norms. We wondered whether, in trying to change norms, we might exploit the disjunction between descriptive norms (beliefs about what others actually do) and injunctive norms (beliefs about what others think one ought to do), focusing program activities on evidence that descriptive norms are changing. Results: We found that descriptive and injunctive norms were relatively similar with regard to femininity, masculinity, the need for marriage and childbearing, resistance to separation and divorce, and disapproval of friendships between women and men. Some constraints on women's dress and mobility were relaxing, but there were more substantial differences between descriptive and injunctive norms around women's education, control of income and finances, and premarital sexual relationships. Conclusions: Programmatically, we hope to exploit these areas of mismatch in the context of injunctive norms generally inimical to violence against women. We propose that an under-appreciated strategy is expansion of the reference group: induction of relatively isolated women and men into broader social groups whose descriptive and injunctive norms do not tolerate violence.
Highlights
Across the world, women continue to suffer physical, emotional, sexual, and economic violence[1]
We developed a study to understand them in the context of an urban informal settlement in India, asking three questions: whose opinion matters, is the behaviour believed to be typical of the reference group, and is it believed to be appropriate
As already suggested, we should take advantage of the mismatch between descriptive and injunctive norms, given that descriptive norms intolerant of violence are likely to be magnets for behaviour and that sanctions will become less aggressive as adoption increases
Summary
Women continue to suffer physical, emotional, sexual, and economic violence[1]. Social norms literature is vast and multifaceted; the authors decided to use the Focus Theory of Normative Conduct developed by Cialdini and colleagues. The authors provide a comprehensive introduction into the role of social norms, gender norms and the social construction of masculinity, in violence against women and girls. The hypothesis is not a hypothesis for this study, since the study itself is not on an intervention exploiting the disjunction between descriptive and injunctive norms. There is a consensus that interventions should aim to change gender norms, through community mobilisation. How this should be done is less clear. We propose that an under-appreciated strategy is expansion of the reference group: induction of relatively isolated women and men into broader social groups whose descriptive and injunctive norms do not tolerate violence
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