Men’s Perceptions of Women’s Rights and Changing Gender Relations in South Africa: Lessons for...

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MEN’S PERCEPTIONS OF WOMEN’S RIGHTS AND CHANGING GENDER

RELATIONS IN SOUTH AFRICA:

Lessons for Working with Men and Boys in HIV and Antiviolence Programs

Shari L. DworkinUniversity of California at San FranciscoChriStopher CoLvinUniversity of Cape town, South africaabbey hatCherUniversity of California at San FranciscoDean peaCoCkSonke Gender Justice, South africa

emerging out of increased attention to gender equality within violence and hiv prevention efforts in South african society has been an intensified focus on masculinities. Garnering a deeper understanding of how men respond to shifting gender relations and rights on the ground is of urgent importance, particularly since social constructions of gender are implicated in the hiv/aiDS epidemic. as social scientists collaborating on a rights-based hiv and antiviolence program, we sought to understand masculinities, rights, and gender norms across six high hiv/aiDS seroprevalence provinces in South africa. Drawing on focus group research, we explore the ways that men who are engaged in hiv and antiviolence programming can often be simultaneously resistant to and embracing of changes in masculinities, women’s rights, and gender relations. we use our findings on men’s responses to changing gender relations to make suggestions for how to better engage men in hiv and antiviolence programs.

Keywords: masculinity; gender equality; women’s rights; South africa, hiv prevention

INTRODUCTION

It is widely acknowledged that gender inequality fuels the twin, synergistic epidemics of HIV/AIDS and violence in South Africa and elsewhere

(Kalichman et al. 2007; Kalichman and Simbayi 2004; Jewkes et al. 2009).

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98 GENDER & SOCIETY / February 2012

Young women, for example, are disproportionately affected by HIV—women aged 15 to 24 are four times as likely to be infected as men of the same age (UNAIDS 2010). Uneven power relations in sexual decision making and fears of violence leave women in a position where condom use and negotiating safe partnerships is difficult or, at times, impossible (Dunkle et al. 2006; Hoffman et al. 2006). And in South Africa, not only are HIV rates among the highest in the world (UNAIDS 2010) but rates of domestic and sexual violence are also among the highest (Dunkle et al. 2006; Jewkes et al. 2006a, 2006b, 2008, 2009). Nearly 30 percent of South African men, for example, report having committed an act of rape and nearly half report that they have been physically violent to an intimate partner, with fully 15 percent reporting that they perpetrated domestic violence in the past 12 months (Jewkes et al. 2009).

The twin epidemics of HIV and gender-based violence have led to renewed effforts to address gender inequalities in South African society. Most of these efforts have focused on empowering women structurally or interpersonally to better negotiate their sexual partnerships or to shift social norms concerning violence against women (Dworkin et al. 2011; O’Hara et al. 2003). This heightened attention to gender equality, however, has also catalyzed a new focus on masculinities. Here, the emphasis has been on the development of HIV prevention and antiviolence programs that intervene with men and boys to promote more gender equitable and democratic gender relations. In South Africa and globally, programs are increasingly linking gender and masculinities to ongoing work in HIV and violence prevention (Barker, Ricardo, and Nascimento 2007; Jewkes et al. 2008; Pulerwitz et al. 2010). Several programs in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere have shown that rigorously designed and well-implemented interventions can bring about positive changes in men’s gender- and HIV-related attitudes and practices, with benefits for women and for men themselves (Barker et al. 2010; Jewkes et al. 2008; Kalichman et al. 2009; Pulerwitz et al. 2010).

This article reports on findings from a formative research project that sought to explore men’s attitudes about gender relations in the context of the development and implementation of an antiviolence and HIV prevention intervention called the One Man Can (OMC) Campaign. The OMC Campaign was designed and implemented by Sonke Gender Justice Network, an NGO in South Africa, and aimed to (1) examine the links between gender, power, and health (alcohol use, violence, HIV/AIDS); (2) reflect on masculinities as these are practiced in relationships with women, other men, and the broader community; and (3) use a rights-based approach to reducing violence against women and HIV risks. The program worked to achieve these goals



Dworkin et al. / CHANGING GENDER RELATIONS IN SOUTH AFRICA 99

by actively engaging with men and boys on the ground in the process of understanding, reflecting on, and reconfiguring masculinities and gender inequalities in their families and communities. We use our findings on men’s responses to shifting gender relations to make suggestions for how to bolster engagement with men in HIV and antiviolence programs that embrace gender equality as a central goal.

RIGHTS, GENDER, AND MASCULINITIES IN SOUTH AFRICA

South Africa has undergone dramatic changes in the realm of politics and gendered rights in the past 15 years, including the end of apartheid, the emergence of a vibrant democracy based on a widely admired constitution, an increased percentage of women participating in public office and in the formal economy, commitments to advancing women’s and children’s rights, strong attempts to redress past workplace inequities, and visible and far-reaching government and civil society efforts to transform gender norms and prevent and treat the largest HIV and AIDS epidemic in the world (Banda 2005; Marais 2007; Walker 2005). Guided by the 1996 constitution and the bill of rights, legal and policy frameworks are now in place that recognize rape in marriage as a criminal offense, provide harsher penalties for child abuse and domestic and sexual violence against women, require women to be paid the same as men for equal work, seek to improve the status of girls’ education, and press for women’s and Black economic empowerment (Geisler 2004; Hassim 1999; Morrell 2002; Posel 2004).

Although this shifting and complex terrain of gender relations is often framed through the lens of women’s rights and empowerment, men and masculinity are, of course, centrally implicated in these processes. As formal legal protections are strengthened and government, civil society, and the private sector commit themselves to promoting women’s rights and gender equality, men’s understanding of their own gender identity and relationships are changing in response (a process of shifting gender relations similar to the one in the United States described by Kimmel (1986, 2000) is described by Morrell (1998, 2002) in South Africa.)

A growing literature on masculinity in South Africa has emerged to describe and explain these changes. Several scholars have argued, for example, that an emphasis on women’s rights, new legislation that protects women, and the growth in human rights discourses in public and at the community-level discourse pose challenges to male domination over women, leaving some men with considerable uncertainty about masculinity, frustration, or




anger at women’s perceived gains, and/or feelings of a sense of irrelevance in the domestic sphere (Hunter 2005; Morrell 2002; Shefer et al. 2008; Sideris 2004; Walker 2005; Wood 2005). Others have added that continued patterns of labor migration, economic marginalization, and high unemploy-ment have intersected with improvements in women’s status and rights, resulting in a perceived loss of men’s social, political, and economic power in South African society (Morrell 1998, 2002; Wilson 2005). Researchers further report that some men have adapted to feelings of disempowerment and alienation by constructing masculinities through seeking more sexual opportunities, enacting “hypermasculinity,” engaging in violence, and detach-ing from family life to seek self-worth and status in all-male contexts (Richter and Morrell 2005; Walker 2005; Wood and Jewkes 1997).

On the other hand, the masculinities literature in South Africa also suggests that some men have embraced these rapid changes and have pressed forward with shifts in masculinities by building gender-equitable responses and participation in broader social movements for antiviolence and HIV/AIDS prevention (Colvin, Robins, and Leavens 2010; Peacock, Khumalo, and McNab 2006; Peacock and Levack 2004). In still other cases, men are responding to social and political shifts by reflecting on and critiquing past modes of masculinity without necessarily having a firm grounding or commit-ment concerning what masculinities are replacing these prior forms (or merging with the past to create new modes) (Hunter 2004, 2005; Montgomery et al. 2006; Morrell 1998, 2002; Posel 2004; Robins 2008; Walker 2005).

Walker (2005), borrowing from the notion of “crises of masculinity” in the United States, has argued that men have been responding to rapidly shifting gender relations in contemporary South Africa with a similar sense of crisis and uncertainty. Given that most HIV and antiviolence interven-tions are rights-based and explicitly focused on gender equality, it is criti-cal that these interventions understand and engage effectively with these diverse and ambivalent reactions to changes in gender relations. This engage-ment should not be designed to validate the notion of a “crisis”—an idea that has the potential to undermine progressive change—but rather to find inno-vative ways to meet men “where they are” so as to develop meaningful and sustainable participation and engagement in programs that seek to reduce violence and HIV risks for women and men.

METHODS

The data for the current study were collected through an academic–NGO collaboration between the University of Cape Town, South Africa,




the University of California at San Francisco, and Sonke Gender Justice where Sonke’s One Man Can program is being launched. Sonke is an NGO in South Africa that is dedicated to reducing violence against women, reduc-ing HIV/AIDS risks for both women and men and promoting more gender-equitable relationships. In this study, we draw on focus group data to understand how men across six provinces in South Africa perceive women’s rights, masculinities, and changing gender relations. The study was held during 2008-2009, and the sample includes 78 men from nine focus groups across six provinces (Limpopo, Eastern Cape, Gauteng, Kwa-Zulu Natal, Mpumalanga, and Free State) in South Africa. All participants were Black South African given that this particular population is disproportion-ately affected by HIV (Marais 2007) and is the focus of One Man Can interventions. As is typical in focus group methodology (Krueger 2000; Morgan 1996), focus groups were selected to be homogenous groups of 7 to 12 men in order to ensure that men were comfortable discussing these highly sensitive topics with one another.

Men were recruited for participation in the focus groups through the community-based NGOs with which Sonke Gender Justice partners for the One Man Can Campaign, all of which involve gender equality and/or health (violence and HIV-related) initiatives. Inclusion criteria for the cur-rent study included being male, 18 years or older, and residing in the com-munities under investigation where Sonke is planning or launching One Man Can activities. The provinces for this study were selected given that these are areas with very high rates of poverty, high HIV seroprevalence rates, high rates of violence, and high levels of gender inequality (Colvin 2011). Focus group interviews were conducted by male researchers with either masters- or Ph.D.-level training and experience in conducting interviews that contain sensitive topics related to masculinities and gender relations.

Where translation was necessary, a translator with experience in gender relations, masculinities, violence, and HIV/AIDS research worked with the focus group facilitator. Verbal informed consent was obtained before the inter-view began and all focus group sessions were audiotaped and transcribed first into their original language and then into English. Focus group discus-sions ranged between 1 and 2 hours. The interview guide focused on the roles of women and men in South African society, perceptions of changing gender relations in South Africa, and masculinity-related beliefs and prac-tices in families, households, relationships, and communities. Participants ranged from 18 years to 70 years old in this sample and had a median age of 32. Participant ethnicity was generally homogenous within individual focus groups. The ethnic groups represented in the sample included the following African language-speaking groups: Xhosa, Zulu, Tswana, Sotho,




and Venda. This research protocol was approved by the Faculty of Health Sciences Human Research Ethics Committee at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and at the University of California at San Francisco, USA.

To begin the coding process, two researchers extracted excerpts of the transcribed interviews relating to men’s perceptions of changing gender rela-tions and women’s and children’s rights. After reviewing these excerpts, we generated a codebook and subsequently wrote analytical memos to capture main themes and to lift multiple subcodes to a broader thematic analysis (Lofland and Lofland 1995). We also generated an analytical matrix where we mapped and charted primary and secondary codes across the entire sample as suggested by Lofland and Lofland (1995). This process helped to ascer-tain recurrent themes and responses concerning patterns related to the above domains. Given that only one or two focus groups per ethnicity and region was carried out, an n of 1 or 2 for each does not offer enough data to make ethnic and regional comparisons. Also, we made the deci-sion to include a large age range in this sample so as to include some cross-generational differences in perspective that are often central to rights analyses; however, we did not have a note-taker who could keep track of the age or ethnicity of the individual participant speaking in the focus groups. This means that we are limited in our ability to analyze the quotes presented based on age, region, and ethnicity, but we are certainly able to characterize the general trends across a large number of provinces in this preliminary study. Finally, men in this sample were recruited by partner organizations of Sonke Gender Justice Network (invested in gender equality and health), and many had already attended sessions of Sonke’s One Man Can workshop activities. Therefore, these men might not be representa-tive of the broader community in terms of their attitudes, beliefs, and practices related to gender equality and women’s rights.

FINDINGS

The frame of “rights” as a way of interpreting changing masculinities, gender norms, and gender relations was a powerful theme across groups. We begin our review of these findings with an analysis of how changes in rights and gender relations were perceived in the occupational structure and the impact that perceived economic destabilization has had on men’s sense of themselves as men. We then move to look at the ways men perceived the impact of rights in their personal relationships and domestic spaces and prac-tices. Finally, we examine perceived changes in community participation and leadership as a result of the increasing political rights of women.




SHIFTS IN THE OCCUPATIONAL STRUCTURE: “MEN ARE FRUSTRATED; THEY CAN’T QUALIFY FOR THAT POST”

All of the focus group participants shared the common belief that men should provide economically for their family. Men stated that being a man means “having a family,” “responsibility,” and that “you have to work for yourself and your family.” At the same time, men expressed considerable frustration when they were not able to live up to this expected role. Given dramatic underemployment and poverty and increased shifts toward a ser-vice sector economy where women are disproportionately located (Colvin, Robins, and Leavens 2010), it is not surprising that men characterized gender relations in terms of men being in dire need of jobs. There were also widely held perceptions that employers prioritized hiring women over men as a result of rights-oriented employment equity legislation:

Let me tell you, in response to changing times, the times are changing. Men are frustrated . . . they go look for opportunities and then . . . women are being taken . . . and men are taken away . . . because now they can’t qualify for that post. And men feel frustrated . . . because now they can’t provide for the female, a woman has taken those opportunities. And now it all falls back to that – you know, times are changing. Times are really changing. And women, they are becoming more empowered. (FGD 1: Urban, Gauteng Province)

Men in other focus groups agreed with this common perception and articulated that they were being passed over for jobs even within occupa-tions that were previously male-dominated. Men typically saw this process in terms of a zero-sum game, or one that explicitly takes away men’s power. For example, many men reported similar themes, including views that:

Ja, there are people [women] that are working on a contract and doing the hard labor, you know the work that’s supposed to be done by a man. And the others are using the wheelbarrows and . . . the hard stuff. (FGD 3: Rural, Kwa-Zulu Natal Province; parenthesis added)

Indeed, research has shown that in contexts of rapidly shifting gender relations, men frequently view power as a zero-sum game where women gain and men lose (Dworkin et al. 2011; Krishnan et al. 2010). Women’s entrance into male-dominated occupations in particular has elicited resis-tance along these lines across numerous countries and in many regions of the world (Acker 1990; Blumberg, forthcoming; Davey and Davidson 2000).




Of particular interest are the ways in which men are describing both the loss of economic opportunity to women but also a shift in the gendered meaning of certain forms of work (and perhaps in the meaning of gender more broadly). Concern around the idea that women were taking certain jobs, for example, was both an issue of lost economic opportunity as well as an expression of a fairly significant and frequently commented on shift in the connection between masculinity and hard, physical labor (a similar shift is described in the next section in the connection between mascu-linity and drinking). “Taking men’s power” in this context thus referenced broader changes in masculinity, more than simply the loss of previously protected job opportunities. This is not dissimilar to research that examines the specificities of change in notions of masculinity when occupational requirements shift to allow women entry into jobs that require intense physical labor (Kimmel 2000; Messner 2002).

While many men across our focus groups viewed their own unemploy-ment as a symptom of their relative disenfranchisement in hiring decisions when compared with women, there were other important gendered dimen-sions of the occupational and economic domain for our participants. For example, women typically have greater access to a range of government grants that help to support households in poverty, including child, disability, and old-age grants. Women who brought in more money to the household than their male partners were viewed as particularly threatening to mascu-linity. Here, across both rural and urban settings, men referenced that they do not have access to money while women do through government grants, and this led men to articulate that they feel they have “nothing” and are “undermined” or “unsafe.”

It is important to note here that the source of a woman’s income—whether through work, government grants, and/or social or family relationships—seemed to matter less to our participants than the ways that access to money in the household and on the job disrupted gender relations. And, while some men had a positive perception of the increased number of women in the work-place, women’s presence in the occupational structure was particularly diffi-cult for them if it meant that women were supervisors and men had to take orders from women:

Let’s talk reality. You see, I understand that women are given first priority on top, but sometimes you find men who are under supervision or what. Sometimes . . . most of them . . . they didn’t respect her, it’s like they are pretending to do what she wanted to do because sometimes you can hear what they say. If I’m a woman and I say “just do this and this”—he will go to the other men and say—those women who are given powers these days, they are doing this and this. How? (FGD 5: Rural, Limpopo Province)




While most men across focus groups resisted the idea of women earn-ing more money than or supervising men, a few men within this particular focus group disagreed and saw shifts in the occupational structure as an opportunity for gender relations to change and for men to respect women at work:

Men are respecting women who are on top of them. They are respecting them. (FGD 5: Rural, Limpopo Province)

This reference to “respect” was common and is important given the cen-trality of narratives of respect for constructions of masculinity in South Africa and elsewhere (Anderson 1999; Barker 2005). While ideas of “appropriate” respect are a part of many patriarchal forms of masculinity—as well as used as justifications for gender-based violence when that respect is violated—it is noteworthy that men here were refiguring this language of respect to include women. Some men in our focus groups (though not the majority) found ways to both speak about respecting women for the capabilities they brought to bear in the workplace as well as speak about mutual respect between men and women as the basis for more gender equitable relations.

SHIFTS IN RELATIONSHIP POWER: “BABA, THIS IS NOT THE WAY YOU HAVE TO TREAT ME”

Respect is, of course, also a central concept in sexual relationships and domestic spaces and men described significant changes in this domain as well, with most agreeing that there had been an explicit shift toward women’s increasing relationship power as a result of rights-based policies and programs. Several scholars in South Africa have underscored how ineq-uitable relationships between women and men may be changing in the direc-tion of more gender equality (Harrison et al. 2006; Morrell 2005). Men from several different focus groups expressed that improvements in the protection and promotion of women’s rights meant that women would no longer tolerate inequitable decision-making in relationships:

We are living in a time whereby we are going through changing times. Women are growing into confidence and they are developing. And there are changes and it’s always being preached in the media and everywhere—women: stand for your rights. Last month we had a women’s month, and so forth. And at the beginning . . . a woman, usually women are younger than us . . . and we men are always more experienced than women . . . and at some point along the way the women grew more experienced . . . and she grew




mature and then she starts telling you stuff and things now: “hey, baba, this is not the way you have to treat me, I have been your fool for so long”—“otherwise I’ll go home.” (FGD 1: Urban, Gauteng Province)

This account addresses a number of important interrelated points. First is the perception that women’s rights are being promoted “in the media and everywhere” and are increasingly accepted as a social norm that is embraced and defended by women themselves. In addition, the participant here is referring explicitly to women’s right to decision making in the context of sexual relationships and his perception that women have grown more assertive in expressing what they do—and do not want—from these relationships. This is consistent with recent work examining the link between shifting gendered power relations and HIV risk among women and men in South Africa (Harrison et al. 2006).

Second, this particular change is expressed in terms of women’s relative youth and “immaturity” in relationships (“usually women are younger than us”) and indeed age-discrepant sexual relationships between older men and younger women are common in much of South Africa (Leclerc-Madlala 2008; Ott et al. 2011). Better recognition of women’s rights have provided opportunities for women, even young women, he argues, to become “more experienced” and stand up for themselves. Finally, multiple concurrent partnerships are another common feature of sexual relationships in South Africa (Epstein 2007; Mah and Halperin 2010) and this social norm was also described by men as under threat from women newly asserting their rights to protest against infidelity:

They fight back. . . . You know, in the olden days our mothers used to understand that they are in a relationship of a father who is having much more than one woman. And then but today’s generation, it’s quite difficult to endure such a relationship. Instead they end up fighting to each other. (FGD 3: Rural, Kwa-Zulu Natal Province)

It is important to note that women’s growing ability to express their dissatisfaction with infidelity in relationships was tied for many men to perceptions of women’s increasing economic strength. Many focus group discussions emerged where women were viewed as being able to increas-ingly secure their own material belongings and men thought that this made it harder to both attract women in the first place as well as assert their control over them within the relationship.

Throughout the narratives above that focused on the various changes in sexual relationships and domestic spaces, there was again a concern with the ways women’s entrance into the workplace, their access to economic




resources, and their assertion of rights represented an erosion of the rela-tions of respect that had, presumably up until now, structured gender dynamics. For most men in our focus groups, “respect” was a defining feature of their masculinity. Their increasing economic marginalization—in addition to what they perceived to be women’s relative gains—led them to fear not only a decline in their traditional sources of own self-respect but also, and perhaps more gallingly, a lack of respect or deference from female partners and members of the community.

Respect also emerged as a key theme concerning the ways men thought about the “problems” with rights discourses in gender relations. When discussing women’s assertion of rights in relationships, men’s objections were more often leveled not at the abstract principles of rights themselves but at the ways in which women asserted these rights:

Men have a tendency of saying “I paid for lobola [bride price] for you to cook here for me. . . . If now you are saying that you are not going to do this, this is not clear. I have paid for you, so I am hungry now, I want food.” And if she insists that “I am tired, I am not comfortable to cook today,” that’s where the beating, the violence will start from. But the problem, you see, is in the process of an approach, the way they approach it or the way they approach their rights—women and children—it’s not appropriate. . . . The problem is the approach of demanding and in the process of demanding, saying, “this is my right, I’m not going to do a, b, c, d.” If that could change then it could be better. (FGD 8: Rural, Eastern Cape Province)

This was a common refrain among men in a wide variety of stories about women’s assertion of their rights. While previous research has shown that violence can erupt when women challenge gendered visions of labor (Krishnan et al. 2010), there is more in this account. Even among those men who agreed in principle with the content of these newfound rights, there was a general tone/perception that the assertive ways in which women were claim-ing these rights were as “disruptive” to gender relations as the rights them-selves. And this disruption was once again expressed through the idiom of respect, as yet another example of a loss of respect for men by women.

However, a minority of men in our groups said that they or a few others were changing in the direction of more equitable sharing of household roles or more equitable decision-making in relationships:

If a woman is working and the man is not working it’s difficult for a woman to say to him and especially if the child is a daughter, it’s difficult to say—Can you take care of the child, I am going to work? The man will say—No, why should I take care of the child? . . . There is a minority who are trying to change. (FGD 7: Rural, Eastern Cape Province)




Some men within other focus groups more explicitly embraced a shift toward more equity in terms of sharing of household roles, stating that more “balanced relationships” were “more fair” and that this was a desir-able trend. Yet, conversations within these focus groups were often boister-ous and contentious, with some men arguing that such men would be seen as “soft” or open themselves up to being “controlled” within their relation-ship more generally.

In the first narratives, men’s embrace of changing norms about gender is not (only) being framed as motivated by progressive changes in personal values. These changes seem to be as much framed by a notion that many men have come to be seen by their families as not earning their partner’s or children’s respect or reference themselves as being useless, especially if they are not working. Opportunities for men to contribute in new ways to domestic spaces—and cultivate new sources of respect—may, ironically, be made possible by a framing of them as a social problem in need of a response.

SHIFTS IN COMMUNITY POWER AND PARTICIPATION: “JA, IT’S GOOD THE WAY THEY HAVE

CHANGED BECAUSE NOW WE ARE SHARING IDEAS”

Men across a number of focus groups argued that women’s increased participation within communities represented a positive change and pro-vided opportunities for women and men to learn about one another, fight inequality, and foster mutual respect. For example, men offered that:

Now things are changing because in the olden days when they meet it was men only and in a civic place, or in a village it was men only and they don’t need the ladies. They need the ladies if sometimes there’s a section which they said today we’re going to say that thing, you’ll have to stay in that chair. Otherwise women won’t be there. So but this nowadays, everywhere, they are in there, and they are very important. (FGD 5: Rural, Limpopo Province)

At times, this was expressed through explanations that South African society is breaking down homosocial environments, which fosters increased interactions across women and men:

Ja, it’s good the way they have changed because now we are sharing ideas. We didn’t know the women [before]. Because nowadays when I grow up,




when I come from the field with a cow and maybe with donkeys, they said “no, no, no, you mustn’t talk with your mother, you must come . . . and then they will tell you that you are a man, you must do this and this and this.” And they’ll tell me that the woman mustn’t talk to you. That was so diffi-cult. But this nowadays, you find that when they go to school, children—look at the boys and the girls when they go to school . . . they get in the classroom [together] with the teacher inside. In the olden days, you won’t even talk with a lady, you see. (FGD 9: Rural, Limpopo Province)

Other men in this particular focus group agreed that public spaces were male-dominated previously and that their ideas were therefore the only ones heard. With a breakdown of homosocial spaces, this offered the opportunity for the inclusion of women into positions of community leadership.

Changes in women’s participation in public life were also understood as part of a shift toward a rights-focused political culture. Men across all focus groups made frequent reference to the term “50/50” which was the ANC’s (the political party in leadership at the time of the study) stated goal of equal gender representation in Parliament and the Cabinet. Although the term was originally meant to describe (as of yet, unmet) goals of gender equity in senior government leadership positions, the term has come to be applied to a wide variety of contexts. And in the context of women’s community par-ticipation, it appeared to be relatively unproblematic for the men we inter-viewed. However, when moving from narratives centered on community participation to narratives focused on men’s household authority, the nature of rights and its impacts were explained very differently.

WOMEN’S AND CHILDREN’S RIGHTS: “PREVIOUSLY A MAN WAS KNOWN AS THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE,

BUT IT LOOKS LIKE MEN ARE COMPETING WITH RIGHTS NOWADAYS”

Despite the relatively positive reception to women’s participation in community spaces, one of the common threads that ran through much of the discussion of the findings above was a sense of a loss of gendered power among men, especially in the domestic and occupational spheres. This loss is signaled for many in what they describe as a loss of “respect”—from themselves, from women and from the community—and blame for this loss is most often laid against the notion (and assertive defense) of the human rights of women and children. Two other related themes, however, can be traced through these accounts. One is the idea that rights have been imposed




from the “outside” and the other is that the past was a time of more balanced and harmonious gender relations.

Focus group discussions commonly referred to rights—especially wom-en’s and children’s—as being brought in from the “outside” and as imposed in the private sphere. The location of this “outside” space and the identity of the actors “imposing” these rights were generally left unspecified but when probed, participants would typically make reference to the South African state, its new Constitution, and the “Western” ideas picked up by ANC leaders during their long years of apartheid-era exile in Europe and the United States.

Previously a man was known as the head of the house, but it looks like men are competing with rights nowadays—it’s enforced upon them that they should be equal with their partners. . . . Men are disregarded due to the whole rights thing. And so now the women hold rights more than they used to do previously . . . and where is respecting and given paramount impor-tance to men as the head of the house? (FGD 2: Urban, Gauteng Province)

Rights were seen as problematic not only for their content and the way they were imposed from the outside but for the manner in which they were being defended in the home. Even among men who were not opposed to women’s and children’s rights, there was a clear desire for women and children to raise these issues more “carefully” and recognize the (husband’s perception of) tensions between external societal rights and his perceived right to household authority:

Oh, ja, oh, ja, this is interesting . . . if women attend the meetings or a workshop [on women’s rights], wherever she went to, when she come back home the man will say to her— “No, that’s not applying here in my house. You are taking outsider’s roles and bringing them in my house. That is not acceptable. . . .” The same apply to the children’s—they learn about their rights at school; when they get home, then the man will say, “No—whatever you learn at school belong at school. When you are outside school, here in my house, you need to follow these rules’ . . .” It sometimes does happen that women and children will talk about their rights and demand their rights. They do not come with what’s supposed to be their right and discuss that with the family. They come with that as a demand that this is my right. So I don’t know if the human rights need to be amended based on the fam-ily’s needs and wants. (FGD 7: Rural, Eastern Cape Province)

It is thus both the perceived external source of these rights and the uncompromising manner in which men feel they were being “imposed”




domestically that seemed to concern most men. In contrast to how most human rights activists would understand the protection and promotion of human rights, men in our focus groups often argued, as above, that rights were potentially acceptable but only if adapted to suit local conditions and relations of power. When this didn’t happen, men often argued that they were suffering from a loss of their rights relative to women.

This loss of power, or as they expressed, of “rights,” was in turn used to explain the high levels of domestic violence in South Africa. Men argued that male violence frequently erupts over conflicts about rights and that women have newfound power within the judicial system to make rights-based claims against abuse:

Ja, you know, most cases the women’s rights into the family are so prob-lematic . . . that leads to violence in a way that they are so abusive that they cannot say this because one would say to you we’ll take you to court or to go and open up a case against you– that’s where the problem starts. (FGD 3: Rural, Kwa-Zulu Natal Province)

Crucially, this violence was seen by many to be the product of recent changes in gender relations catalyzed by rights discourses. In the process of making this argument, the “past” was typically invoked as a time when gender relations at home, at work or in the public sphere were in better balance and violence was unnecessary:

Women’s rights are leading to a lot of conflicts that happen nowadays as compared to previously the way things used to happen. Previously you were allowed to sort of discipline your child and your wife if there’s anything that they were doing that was against what you would regard as rules in the house. But nowadays, because everybody has rights, especially women and children...this is what causes a lot of conflicts in a lot of families. (FGD 2: Urban, Gauteng Province)

In our focus groups, there was frequent reference, as above, to a “restrained” form of “discipline” within households, especially in the past, as an acceptable form of social and physical control of women by men. Many men, however, even those supportive of women’s rights, linked increasing levels of domestic violence with the recent and hasty “imposition” of a rights framework:

Even though we are saying domestic violence has been there, not the way it is happening now—because the new rules, the democracy that we were talking about has brought a lot of change. . . . The introduction of 50–50,




which was not clearly defined to the people on the ground, it’s causing a lot of domestic violence. People don’t understand it, it was just said from the media to people, and people are misinterpreting it, taking it into their houses, starting to practice it there. (FGD 9: Rural, Limpopo Province)

In addition, therefore, to perceiving losses of gendered power in occu-pational and domestic contexts as a result of rights-based policies, men in our focus groups also believed strongly that the rights of women and chil-dren were being promoted and protected at their own expense by institu-tions outside of the social and moral bounds of their homes and commu-nities. Men perceived this loss as one closely connected to the arrival of political freedom and the fading of an imagined past of stable and balanced gender relations.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

Campaigns such as One Man Can explicitly frame masculinity in con-ventional social scientific terms—as constructed and embedded in local contexts, as situational, accomplished in interaction and strategic, and in flux (Connell 2005a, 2005b; Lorber 1994; Messner 1997; West and Zimmerman 1987; Wyrod 2008). Given the complexity of gender rela-tions, programs within HIV and violence prevention that seek to secure changes in men and boys concerning their beliefs and practices urgently need to further understand local experiences and constructions of mascu-linity that include and go beyond “hegemonic masculinity” (Connell, 2005a, 2005b). In this regard, Connell (2005a, 2005b) has urged recogni-tion of the agency of women, the plurality of masculinities, and the internal contradictions of hegemonic masculinities and possibilities for movement toward change.

Our findings do reveal some patterns similar to what Kimmel and several South African scholars on masculinities have called “masculinist” and “backlash” responses to changing gender relations, but also revealed a clear number of narratives where men embraced change and “new masculinities and identities are very much in the making” (Robins 2008, 161). In particular, the intersection between the private realm and rights appeared to be a site of solid contestation and struggle. At the same time, several men embraced the specificities of gender-related changes on the ground, particularly with regard to women’s entrance into community leadership and participation and some change in household labor arrangements.




Clearly, some men’s perceptions that women are gaining ground are due to contemporary shifts in gender relations where men have experienced job losses given shifts in the broader economy. Indeed, some scholars have argued that women have acquired new forms of citizenship in South Africa through recent changes in legislation, institutional support, and economic shifts and that their situation has been transformed from one of presence to power (Hassim 1999; Robins 2008). The results of this study show that these are common perceptions that men have about women’s perceived or actual status across the focus groups.

Scholarship suggests that women’s societal gains should not be overstated as more women than men continue to live in poverty, there are large dis-parities between women and men in employment and education, and women represent the face of HIV/AIDS in this region of the world (UNAIDS 2010). In addition, several South African scholars have suggested that dichotomiz-ing “tradition” and “culture” on one hand (e.g., as evidenced by men’s com-ments such as “not in my house!” or “people are taking it” from “outside” and “into their houses”) and “rights” and “equality” on the other hand is too simplistic. That is, new contestations, negotiations, and formations of masculine identity and citizenship are actively in process and in the mak-ing; this is particularly the case as citizens struggle to make sense of themselves within broader societal changes and given an abundance of HIV programming in the country that presses for “responsible, empow-ered, knowledgeable,” and healthy citizens (Robins 2008, 164).

Simultaneously, we are not suggesting that is it appropriate for a “crisis logic” to be used for regressive purposes of rationalizing violence against women. Rather, given the overwhelming need to bolster work with men to advance gender equality, reduce HIV risks, and decrease violence against women, we sought a deeper understanding of the “tensions men experience, when they confront the contradiction between embracing rights in the domes-tic arena and the widely held views that associate manhood with domination over women and children in the family” (Sideris 2004, 46). While it is true that women are still disproportionately in poverty and are overrepresented among the poor, rising inequalities and structural unemployment have made both men and women more vulnerable over time and this has also made it very difficult for men to provide for their families, to pay lobola (monetary exchange a man makes to the bride’s family), and to get married (Robins 2008). These structural changes provide an important context for men’s feel-ings of disempowerment and destabilization, and we therefore argue that HIV/AIDS and antiviolence programs should not discount or overlook, but




work directly with these feelings of disempowerment within the context of programs.

Our sociological findings point to four suggestions that can move the public health field forward in the area of engaging men in HIV and anti-violence programming. First, as has been noted here and by a number of scholars in South Africa, it is clear that men view gender relations as a zero sum gain where women gain and men lose. Hence, an important strategy for HIV and antiviolence programming may be to link discussions of gen-der equality and women’s empowerment with discussions of racial equality and Black empowerment in South Africa. Drawing even more powerfully on the history of racial oppression in South Africa can bolster the links made between race and gender inequalities when intervening on mascu-linities. Some of these conversations could include the ways that whites in South Africa and elsewhere frequently discuss reverse discrimination and disempowerment when gains for marginalized groups are sought. This may serve to engage men in discussions of masculinities even further, as is sug-gested by numerous multiracial feminists and critical race scholars who focus on the intersectional nature of privilege and inequalities (Collins 1990; Dill and Baca Zinn 1984; hooks and West 2000).

Second, as sociologists understand well, gender is a relational construct and there are conceptual and practical limitations to woman-only or male-only programming (Connell 2005a, 2005b). A relational approach to gen-der within programming that takes the simultaneity of masculinities and femininities into account can also minimize commonly held beliefs on the ground that engaging men “takes away” from women’s resources or lead-ership on the ground (Dworkin et al. 2011). Our own recent conversations with Sonke staff have revealed that women are in fact increasingly a part of One Man Can programming. Staff report that men are receptive, appre-ciate women’s points of view, and that the inclusion of women helps to hold men publically accountable for the claims they make about gender equality in their communities and relationships. Third, given that men commonly offered backlash narratives on a women’s rights emphasis, it will be important for programs to bolster a sociological understanding of gender inequality that focuses on not just women’s experiences with gen-der inequality, but also men’s. That is, programs should ensure that there is a simultaneous focus on gender inequality and on the costs of mascu-linities to both women and men. At the same time, however, as our results reveal, there are tensions that arise when focusing on these two themes in the same program. Hence, maximizing the synergies and minimizing the tensions around how these two strands of thought intersect within HIV and




violence programming remains an urgent priority (Dworkin et al. 2011). Finally, our results reveal that some men are changing on the ground to embrace gender equality. Hence, researchers and program developers should not assume that men are only resistant to change and should continue to seek out innovative ways to capitalize on changing masculinities and gender rela-tions on the ground.

Most HIV researchers have not spoken directly with men, but rather, speak about men. Speaking with men directly about the contextual envi-ronment that shapes their attitudes and behavior is particularly important (Doyal, Anderson, and Paparini 2009) as the interrelated epidemics of violence and HIV are shaped extensively by gender relations, dimensions of power, and social conditions (Sideris 2004). As men are being asked to change in the direction of more gender equality within HIV/AIDS and anti-violence programming, researchers and practitioners can engage even more thoroughly and carefully with men’s reactions to women’s rights, helping to minimize backlash and harmful outcomes, and garner men’s support and enthusiasm about gender equality. Only by listening to men’s voices around rights and shifting gender relations can HIV and violence interven-tions adequately engage men in working toward gender equality, social justice, and improved health. Simultaneously, however, HIV and antivio-lence programs focused on masculinities are currently not very explicit about the differences and inequalities that exist among men. Hence, multi-racial feminist insights about intersectional inequalities (Hill-Collins 1990; Dill and Baca Zinn 1993; hooks and West 2000) can and should be used to intervene on masculinities within HIV programming to press the public health realm further. Here, bolstering an understanding of the context-specific features of race, class, and gender relations on the ground that lead some men to be disproportionately impacted by HIV and have very powerful reactions to changing roles and rights should become a vital part of HIV and antiviolence efforts.

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Shari L. Dworkin is associate professor and vice Chair in the Department of Social and behavioral Sciences at the University of California at San Francisco. She is affiliated Faculty at the Center for aiDS prevention Studies. her research is focused on the intersection of gender relations and hiv/aiDS prevention.




Christopher J. Colvin is an anthropologist working at the University of Cape town’s School of public health and Family Medicine. his research interests include hiv/aiDS and masculinity, health activism, and community health workers. he is also involved in projects to better integrate qualitative methods in quantitative health research.

abigail M. hatcher is a researcher at the University of California San Francisco exploring structural drivers of health in kenya, Uganda, and South africa. She leads mixed-method formative research and intervention studies on intimate partner violence, sexual relationship power, and hiv/aiDS care and treatment.

Dean peacock is co-founder of Sonke Gender Justice network, a South african nGo working across africa to promote gender equality and reduce the spread and impact of hiv and aiDS. Dean is a member of the United nations Secretary General’s network of Men Leaders, an advisor to the nobel women’s initiative and co-chair of the Menengage alliance.



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