Reinforce Gender Inequalities Research Articles

Understanding the meanings of male partner support in the adherence to therapy among HIV-positive women: a gender analysis

ABSTRACT Background Previous literature reports that low male partner support is a barrier to women’s adherence and retention in HIV care programs. Objective This qualitative study explored the relationships between partners to understand what is meant by male partner support in adherence of HIV-positive women in four healthcare facilities in Southern Malawi. Methods We conducted 8 semi-structured focus group discussions (FGDs) with 73 participants (40 men and 33 women) and 10 in-depth interviews (IDIs) between August 2018 to December 2019. Participants were HIV-positive patients, healthcare workers (HCWs), expert patients (EPs), and couples attending the clinic. All data were digitally recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analysed using a gender-responsive grounded theory approach. Results This study confirms previous literature, which suggests male partner support is expressed by providing access to transport to the clinic and accompaniment to appointments. However, we found that men can also control access to resources and decision-making. Support is more complex than previous literature reported and, in some cases, gender norms significantly limit women’s capacity to engage in care independently of male support since women need male partner permission to access the resources to attend clinics. Conclusions This paper suggests that restrictive male-partner gender norms limit women’s power to engage in care. Most importantly, the gender analysis reveals that what previous literature describes as male partner support can sometimes hide male partner control in permitting access to resources to attend health facilities. For this reason, policies enhancing male support should consider the gender power relationship between partners to avoid reinforcing gender inequality.

Sex, drugs, and coercive control: Gendered narratives of methamphetamine use, relationships, and violence

AbstractWhile many of the motives people provide for using drugs transcend gender, there are also notable gendered differences. These differences in motive talk aid in stigma management, shape gender performances, and can encourage or constrain behavior. Using data from a photoethnography with 52 people who use methamphetamine in rural Alabama, we find that men and women articulate their motives for drug use in distinctly gendered ways. Most notably, men emphasized the benefits of sex on meth while most of the women did not. Men's stories of meth as a sex drug shaped how they interacted with women often leading them to use violence and coercion to control when, where, and with whom women used meth. Women were less likely to say that increased sexual feelings was their primary motive for using meth. They drew on gendered themes of femininity (e.g., motherhood, home keeper) when explaining their drug use. They also sought ways to resist coercive control that were intertwined with their gendered narratives of drug use. The findings point to the importance of gendered narratives in shaping interactions, and significantly, how narratives can contribute to harm and reinforce gender inequality in drug markets.

The deployment of gender for masculine balance: analyzing multi-platform K-pop performances

ABSTRACT Using content analysis of a Korean pop (K-pop) idol’s performances on a range of media platforms, this article critically examines how and when hybrid masculinities are enacted to achieve what Kathryne Young calls “masculine balance.” K-pop stars appear on a variety of platforms—television appearances, photoshoots, music videos, and on-stage performances—where they perform hybrid masculinities by incorporating feminine, androgynous, queer, and/or masculine aesthetics or expressions. Through the strategic deployment of genders on different platforms, they construct masculine balance as an ideal gender performance that embodies both femininity or transgressiveness and hegemonic or hyper-masculinities. Taking G-Dragon’s performance as a case study, this article extends our understanding on hybrid masculinity and masculine balance by describing specific contexts where men deploy feminine, androgynous, and transgressive gender aesthetics and practices and by identifying strategic ways with which men reach masculine balance and reinforce gender inequality.

The Lancet Commission on water, sanitation and hygiene, and health

The Lancet Commission on water, sanitation and hygiene, and health

Gender Bias Impacts Top-Merited Candidates.

Expectations of fair competition underlie the assumption that academia is a meritocracy. However, bias may reinforce gender inequality in peer review processes, unfairly eliminating outstanding individuals. Here, we ask whether applicant gender biases peer review in a country top ranked for gender equality. We analyzed peer review assessments for recruitment grants at a Swedish medical university, Karolinska Institutet (KI), during four consecutive years (2014–2017) for Assistant Professor (n = 207) and Senior Researcher (n = 153). We derived a composite bibliometric score to quantify applicant productivity and compared this score with subjective external (non-KI) peer reviewer scores of applicants' merits to test their association for men and women, separately. To determine whether there was gender segregation in research fields, we analyzed publication list MeSH terms, for men and women, and analyzed their overlap. There was no gendered MeSH topic segregation, yet men and women with equal merits are scored unequally by reviewers. Men receive external reviewer scores resulting in stronger associations (steeper slopes) between computed productivity and subjective external reviewer scores, meaning that peer reviewers “reward” men's productivity with proportional merit scores. However, women applying for assistant professor or senior researcher receive only 32 or 92% of the score men receive, respectively, for each additional composite bibliometric score point. As productivity increases, the differences in merit scores between men and women increases. Accumulating gender bias is thus quantifiable and impacts the highest tier of competition, the pool from which successful candidates are ultimately chosen. Track record can be computed, and granting organizations could therefore implement a computed track record as quality control to assess whether bias affects reviewer assessments.

‘Congratulations for your day’: benevolent attitudes during March 8 in Mexico

ABSTRACT Sexist attitudes reinforce gender inequality, but, are they absent on Women’s Day? This research examines the extent to which, in some contexts, Women’s Day can activate sexist attitudes that reinforce structural inequalities between men and women. Based on ambivalent sexism theory, we propose that people are more likely to agree with benevolent sexist attitudes on Women’s Day than on any other day. In Study 1 (N=190) we measured sexist attitudes on Women’s Day and then one month later. We found that participants asked on Women’s Day reported more benevolent sexism than participants asked a month later. Benevolent sexism was stronger on Women’s Day for men (who scored higher for both hostile and benevolent sexism than women). In order to establish causality, in Study 2 (N=175) we used an experimental paradigm in which we made Women’s Day more salient (against the control condition). Results showed that participants assigned to the Women’s Day experimental condition indicated more support for benevolent sexist attitudes than those assigned to the control condition and again (men scored higher on both dimensions of sexism across both conditions). This research provides evidence of the potential unintended effects of International Women’s Day and the challenges that women still face.

Why Gender Equality Is Good for Men's Health and Why This Matters Now

As governments and organizations worldwide implement sweeping measures to address and stymie the health, economic, and social costs of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), societies must consider the type of world that can and should be rebuilt after the pandemic. This is the opportune moment to set in place changes that reform the structures and mechanisms that embed and reinforce gender inequalities and rebuild a society that maximizes the health and well-being of all.

Incomplete transitions to clean household energy reinforce gender inequality by lowering women’s respiratory health and household labour productivity

Abstract India has over 800 million people without access to clean cooking fuel. A well-known, but under-researched aspect of poor access to clean energy is its cost on woman’s health and well being. Here we use the nationally representative India Human Development Survey, tracking the same set of households from 2005 to 2011, to quantify the gender-related health and time-saving benefits of a shift in a household’s fuel and stove use patterns. We show that across India, the predicted probabilities of cough in non-smoking women are 30%-60% higher than non-smoking men in solid-fuel using households, but that a complete transition from solid fuels to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for cooking reduces this gap to only 3%. Exclusive use of LPG is also accompanied by reduced cooking time (~37 min) and less time for collecting fuels (~24 min) in rural households, together saving up to an hour in demands on women’s labour each day. We also find electrification reduces the probability of developing cough by about 35–50% in non-smoking men and women across both rural and urban households, and help close the gap between men and women in rural households. Despite clean energy being a long-held policy goal of Indian governments, between 2005 and 2011, only 9% of households made a complete transition to clean energy, and 16.4% made a partial transition. We suggest that government efforts in India, and elsewhere, should focus on improving affordability, supply and reliability of clean fuels in enabling a complete household energy transition and help address key issues in gender inequality.

'As Long as It Comes off as a Cigarette Ad, Not a Civil Rights Message': Gender, Inequality and the Commercial Determinants of Health.

Scholarship on the commercial determinants of health (CDoH) has sought to understand the multiple ways corporate policies, practices and products affect population health. At the same time, gender is recognised as a key determinant of health and an important axis of health inequalities. To date, there has been limited attention paid to the ways in which the CDoH engage with and impact on gender inequalities and health. This review seeks to address this gap by examining evidence on the practices and strategies of two industries—tobacco and alcohol—and their interaction with gender, with a particular focus on women. We first describe the practices by which these industries engage with women in their marketing and corporate social responsibility activities, reinforcing problematic gender norms and stereotypes that harm women and girls. We then examine how tobacco and alcohol companies contribute to gender inequalities through a range of strategies intended to protect their market freedoms and privileged position in society. By reinforcing gender inequalities at multiple levels, CDoH undermine the health of women and girls and exacerbate global health inequalities.

PLFS-2018-19 and NFHS-4: Drawing Inferences for Indian Women during COVID-19 Pandemic

Both domestic and public spaces are unequal sites of work for females. The sudden disruption in social and economic life due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, has led to work loss, increase in physical and emotional abuse on females regardless of class status aggravated by an inadequate network of support. It has reinforced gender inequality across economy and domesticity and reveals the fissures that underlie the attempts at establishing gender equality in the country. The PLFS and NFHS-4 data indicate why women are likely to be more vulnerable both in their participation in economic activities and also within the domestic sphere. As economic distress increases across the country, vulnerabilities for women will also exacerbate and increase. Incidence of domestic violence and abuse are likely to increase as more households slip into poverty.

Genderwashing: the myth of equality

ABSTRACT Genderwashing is an organizational tool that presents the myth of gender equality in organizations through discourse and text. To critique this organizational myth, this paper contributes a new perspective and theoretical definition for genderwashing. We outline how genderwashing activities are underpinned by economic over ethical motives, which are grounded in a desire to uphold an organization’s reputation, sometimes at the expense of employee well-being. Our presentation of genderwashing is grounded not only in the work of Critical Human Resource Development (CHRD), but also in Dorothy Smith’s concept of ruling relations. These lenses enable us to examine how superficial attempts to address gender inequality within organizations fail to create structural change or disrupt engrained power dynamics. Furthermore, drawing on Sara Ahmed’s work on diversity and institutional silencing, we argue that genderwashing represents an organizational stance that purports to practice equality, even while women and other marginalized individuals experience little or no advancement. In regards to gender inequalities, we focus on how one organizational text, the Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) works to reinforce gender inequalities in organizations. We conclude with a call to action for practitioners and scholars offering suggestions for how to move beyond the stultifying practices of organizational genderwashing.

Gendered Intra‐Household Decision‐Making Dynamics in Agricultural Innovation Processes: Assets, Norms and Bargaining Power

AbstractThis article explores intra‐household decision‐making in smallholder farmers' innovation uptake and use of outputs within a bargaining framework. Research was conducted in selected locations representing contrasting economic, social and agroclimatic environments in Uganda using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods (including a survey of 531 farmers). Decision‐making in innovation processes was highly gendered and shaped by intra‐household allocation of production assets as well as social norms. The findings highlight the male capture of decision‐making regarding innovation uptake and use of outputs, especially for income‐generating crops, and that this can both reflect and reinforce gender inequalities in asset ownership. © 2020 The Authors. Journal of International Development published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Effectiveness of a peer education gender and health project for men in Timor-Leste.

In response to high rates of gender-based violence and poor sexual and reproductive health indicators in Timor-Leste, a 'Men's Health Project' was implemented in two rural communities in 2013. A peer education model was utilised to engage men in issues regarding health, relationships and well-being. Community-based baseline and endline surveys were undertaken to evaluate the project in the two communities. In 2013, 401 men and boys completed a baseline survey, and 400 completed an endline survey in 2016. Significant differences were found in a number of areas, with more men in the endline survey aware of the negative impacts of alcohol, safe pregnancy practices, family planning and sexually transmitted infections. Many men reported making the major decisions in their family in both surveys. The peer education approach engaged men in health awareness and contributed to increasing knowledge of sexual and reproductive health and other health issues. However, while education and positive attitudes are an important foundation for change, other enabling mechanisms including vital infrastructure, services and health personnel must be in place to facilitate change and increase access to information and healthcare. Findings highlight the importance of engaging both women and men in processes of challenging behaviours and structures that reinforce gender inequalities. SO WHAT?: Peer education appears to be an effective model for engaging community members in gender and health issues in Timor-Leste. The Men's Health Project enabled men to participate in health awareness and issues regarding health, relationships and well-being.

You’re making us all look bad: Sexism moderates women’s experience of collective threat and intra-gender hostility toward traditional and non-traditional female subtypes

Across two studies ( Ns = 265 and 735), we investigated whether women’s endorsement of hostile (HS) and benevolent sexism (BS) moderates their experience of collective threat and subsequent hostility toward traditional and non-traditional female subtypes. As expected, HS was positively associated with intra-gender hostility toward the non-traditional subtype, and these effects were mediated by collective threat. HS was negatively associated with collective threat and hostility toward the traditional subtype, but only when the target endorsed prescriptive gender beliefs that explicitly reinforced gender inequality. BS was associated with collective threat and hostility toward the non-traditional subtype, but these effects did not emerge consistently across both studies. These results suggest that women are not a homogeneous group whose members all find the same subtypes collectively threatening. Rather, the extent to which women internalize patriarchal attitudes and stereotypes influences the behaviors they find threatening and deserving of hostility.

\u201cYou relied on God and your neighbour to get through it\u201d: social capital and climate change adaptation in the rural Canadian Prairies

Social capital is increasingly recognized as a key determinant of adaptive capacity to climate change. Beyond formal adaptation infrastructure like insurance and public disaster support programmes, it can be difficult to identify the role that informal social capital—such as relationships, trust, and mutual support between community members—plays in climate adaptation. Drawing on a multi-site qualitative study in the Canadian Prairie region, this paper examines how three forms of social capital (bonding, bridging, and linking) shape rural communities’ adaptation to climate extremes. Based on in-depth interviews with 163 community members, the findings demonstrate how social capital contributes to adaptive capacity, particularly in rural areas where more formal supports may be absent or lacking. We examine how social capital is affected by existing socio-economic sensitivities, such as rural depopulation, which can reduce informal social capital while simultaneously increasing people’s dependence on it. The findings indicate the strengths and limitations of bonding and bridging social capital, particularly in the face of future climate extremes that may exceed local adaptive capacity. Further, we find that informal social capital may also reinforce gender inequality, exclusion, and inter-group differences, indicating its limitations for socially inclusive adaptation. Addressing these structural factors can help communities move past coping and toward long-term adaptation. In the face of increasing climate risks, our findings suggest the importance of public supports that are attentive to local strengths, gaps, and social relations.

Conserving and commercialising forests: tribal women and subjectivity in Bagafa forest of Tripura (Northeast India)

Two perspectives on women’s relationships to forests are usually invoked in much of the mainstream policies and research on gender and forest management in India. First, forest-dwelling women, particularly tribal women, are perceived as sharing some inherent and symbiotic relationships to forests and are, custodians of forests. These women are also seen as having significant stakes in state-led forest management projects to meet their subsistence and cultural needs in forests. Second, there is also a perception in India that forest-dwelling communities have strong desires to commercialise forests, and women work with men to garner economic benefits by unsustainably extracting forest resources. Both perspectives are often used to understand how and why tribal women use forest resources and may participate in state-led forest management projects. However, such perspectives give scarce attention to how forest management projects and other lived realities in forests have gendered consequences for women’s lives and livelihoods, the everyday emotional and physical experiences of which reinforce gender inequalities, shape gender subjectivities, and is useful to understand how and why different women may use forest resources and relate to conservation projects in certain complex ways. Through an ethnographic study of a small group of tribal women who illegally planted rubber trees in the Bagafa reserved forest of Tripura, this article examines how women’s subjectivities are produced, performed and contested at intersections of livelihood struggles in forests, aspirations for development, and forest management project-encounters, that come to shape both, their use of forest resources and approaches towards conservation projects.

Domestic Violence in a COVID-19 Context: Exploring Emerging Issues through a Systematic Analysis of the Literature

Extreme events, such as pandemics lead to a rise of domestic violence (DV) and create additional challenges for practice. The social work profession as well as many other professions works with women who have experienced DV and so it is important to be up-to-date with the emerging issues brought about by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The aim of this article is to identify emerging issues related to DV within the context of COVID-19. The article presents the results of a systematic literature search and analysis of DV within the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. A systematic search of 10 data bases was conducted. All articles in peer reviewed journals discussing DV in the context of COVID-19 were included. For the articles to be included they had to be written in the English language and to be included in peer reviewed journals between 1 January 2020 to 9 May 2020. Of the 413 articles initially recorded, 12 articles were identified which focused on DV. The analysis of the 12 identified articles offers some useful insights. It suggests that lockdown measures imposed by governments intensify perpetrators’ power over survivors’ lives, hence reinforcing gender inequality. Furthermore, it indicates that online provision of support might not be the most effective response in cases of DV and identifies appropriate emergency warning systems. Additionally, the risk of scapegoating COVID-19 for DV is identified. These insights are briefly discussed in relation to practice and policy responses.

"The role of the man is to look for food": Lessons from men's involvement in maternal and child health programmes in rural Central Malawi.

Many studies purport that in low-income countries, women are often responsible for producing, preparing and purchasing food. Consequently, policies related to food and nutrition overemphasise the role of women, underestimating the potential for cooperation and complementarity between men and women. This focus on women does not account for socially constructed expectations of women that undermine their decision-making in resource allocation. Using desk reviews, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions, our case study in Malawi sought to understand the complementary role of men in maternal and child nutrition. International agreements and Malawi’s policies were reviewed to understand how men’s involvement emerged on the nutrition policy agenda. Policymakers, stakeholders and men and women from rural Central Malawi were interviewed, sharing their experiences of men’s role in maternal and child health. The study found that men’s involvement in maternal and child health has been on the development agenda since as early as 1995. Malawi has made efforts to involve men in these areas through several policy actions and programmes. Contrary to literature suggesting that women are the main producers, procurers and preparers of food, this study found that men in rural Central Malawi are increasingly becoming responsible for providing and purchasing food. Men also play a supportive role in food preparation, helping women access diverse diets during and after pregnancy. They also take up a supportive role in household activities, providing women with assistance in housework and looking after children. The positive change in men’s roles presents an opportunity for exploring how men can contribute to food security and nutrition. Opportunities exist for designing inclusive food and agriculture policies that promote cooperation between men and women in food and nutrition. These policies can challenge misinterpretations of women’s role in food security and the underlying systems that reinforce gender inequalities.

Parents mention sons more often than daughters on social media

Gender inequality starts early in life. Parents tend to prefer boys over girls, which is manifested in reproductive behavior, marital life, and parents' pastimes and investments in their children. While social media and sharing information about children (so-called "sharenting") have become an integral part of parenthood, whether and how gender preference shapes the online behavior of users are not well known. In this paper we use public posts made by 635,665 users from Saint Petersburg on a popular Russian social networking site, to investigate public mentions of daughters and sons on social media. We find that both men and women mention sons more often than daughters in their posts. We also find that posts featuring sons receive more "likes" on average. Our results indicate that girls are underrepresented in parents' digital narratives about their children, in a country with an above-average ranking on gender parity. This gender imbalance may send a message that girls are less important than boys or that they deserve less attention, thus reinforcing gender inequality from an early age.

Informality, emotion and gendered career paths: The hidden toll of maternity leave on female academics and researchers

While the negative impact of child‐raising and caring on women's career progression in academia is well‐established, less is known about the role of academic women's lived experiences of maternity leave as an institutional practice. This article presents the findings of a qualitative study of the lived experiences of female academics and researchers in an Irish university. The analysis intrinsically links organizational structures and problems with the lived and felt dimensions of work. The findings point to the need for better structural accommodations for maternity leave which address the relationship between caring and career disadvantage within academia. The article adds to existing literature on the intersection of motherhood and academia by unpicking the specific role of maternity leave as both a lived experience and an institutional practice that can reinforce gender inequalities in academia.