I Tried to Resist and Avoid Bad Friends

The Role of Social Contexts in Shaping the Transformation of Masculinities in a Gender Transformative and Livelihood Strengthening Intervention in South Africa

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2388262
AutoresA Gibbs (0000-0003-2812-5377, Gender and Health Research Unit, South African Medical Research Council, Pretoria, South Africa, autor correspondente), Rachel Jewkes (0000-0002-4330-6267, Gender and Health Research Unit, South African Medical Research Council, Pretoria, South Africa), Yandisa Sikweyiya (0000-0001-7153-5828, Gender and Health Research Unit, South African Medical Research Council, Pretoria, South Africa)
Ano2018
Volume21
Fascículo4
Páginas501-520
Data de publicação2018-10-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoMen and Masculinities (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1097-184X • E-ISSN: 1552-6828
EditoraSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1097184x17696173
OpenAlexW2592803721
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas25
Referências citadas43

Urban informal settlements are sites of high HIV incidence and intimate partner violence (IPV). Young men in these contexts often draw on a youthful hypermasculinity that prioritize sexual dominance and displays of violence, although many aspire to a traditional masculinity, which is less violent and uses economic provision and social dominance to control women. Working with young men, we undertook a gender transformative and livelihood strengthening intervention to reduce HIV risk and IPV perpetration. We sought to understand how the wider social context shaped the project's outcomes. We undertook thirty-eight in-depth interviews and three focus groups postintervention. We conducted thematic analysis using Campbell and Cornish's conceptualization of social contexts: material-political context, relational-network context, and symbolic context to understand how contexts shaped outcomes. For the material-political context, livelihoods improved, but the continued high levels of unemployment meant that while men may have earned more they did not establish a new relationship to the economy; they still struggled to get jobs and only secured precarious and unfulfilling work. In the relational-network context, men's main partners and family were supportive of men's attempts to change, however only narrowly toward a traditional masculinity. Men's peers were major barriers to men's attempts to change. In the symbolic context, the accessibility of a 'traditional' masculinity provided a resource for men to draw on, which contrasted with the youthful hypermasculinity. We argue that in these informal settlements the social contexts only enabled certain forms of change to occur for young men, limiting the potential for more radical gender equitable transformations

Context (archaeology · Dominance (genetics · Geography · Livelihood · Masculinity · Sociology · Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health · Gender Studies · Intimate Partner and Family Violence · Psychology · Sex work and related issues · Social Psychology