When men speak women listen': Gender Socialisation and Young Adolescents' Attitudes to Sexual and Reproductive Issues.
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2001
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Abstract
Despite several indications to the contrary, approaches to population and fertility issues continue to assume, either explicitly or implicitly, that women’s sexual and reproductive behaviours are central to bringing about change. While it is true that programme efforts in Family Planning and Reproductive Health are paying greater attention to the “male role”, issues of gender relations (and inequalities) receive much less attention in the conceptualisation of these programmes. The discourse on gender relations in Africa often start by pointing to issues of patriarchy; however, while this helps us to understand the status of women and men it usually neglects to explain how gender is constructed. Where the reproductive health lens is thrown on
males, it is usually in the form of exhortations to men to have fewer children, or to be
“responsible”, without consideration to why men have as many children as they do, or how and why men are “irresponsible”. There has been little examination of how girls and boys, who grow up into men and women, learn certain behaviours and attitudes. Attitudes to gender roles, formed in growing up years, have implications for later sexual behaviour. This paper discusses findings from separate Focus Group Discussions among boys, girls, and parents, in two communities in Ghana on the kinds of attitudes expressed with regard to specific gender roles and sexual and reproductive behaviour. The FGDs also point to some of the ways adolescents
recognise sex-role disparities in their own socialisation and that of other young people. The two communities reflect two lineage types – one matrilineal and the other patrilineal. The data show that with few exceptions patriarchal attitudes essentially prevail across age, sex, and lineage type. The paper concludes by suggesting programmatic implications for strengthening the abilities of young males to be "responsible" in their sexual relations.
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Ampofo, A. A. (2001). "When Men Speak Women Listen": Gender Socialisation and Young Adolescents' Attitudes to Sexual and Reproductive Issues. African Journal of Reproductive Health, 196-212.