Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures, Tables and Boxes
- Notes on Contributors
- Foreword: Understanding and Enhancing Human Development Among Global Youth – On the Unique Value of Developmentally Oriented Longitudinal Research
- Introduction: Measuring Sustainable Human Development Across the Life Course
- 1 Exploring the Potential for Gender Norm Change in Adolescent Girls: Evidence from ‘Real Choices, Real Lives’ Longitudinal, Qualitative Study Data
- 2 Unequal Educational Trajectories: The Case of Ethiopia
- 3 Early Life Transitions Increase the Risk for HIV Infection: Using Latent Class Growth Models to Assess the Effect of Key Life Events on HIV Incidence Among Adolescent Girls in Rural South Africa
- 4 Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals: Evidence from the Longitudinal Parenting Across Cultures Project
- 5 Achieving Gender Equality: Understanding Gender Equality and Health Among Vulnerable Adolescents in the Sustainable Development Goals Era
- 6 Capturing the Complexities of Adolescent Transitions Through a Mixed Methods Longitudinal Research Design
- 7 Child Well-being Across the Life Course: What Do We Know, What Should We Know?
- 8 Mauritian Joint Child Health Project: A Multigenerational Family Study Emerging from a Prospective Birth Cohort Study: Initial Alcohol-related Outcomes in the Offspring Generation
- Conclusion: The Future of Longitudinal Research
- Index
1 - Exploring the Potential for Gender Norm Change in Adolescent Girls: Evidence from ‘Real Choices, Real Lives’ Longitudinal, Qualitative Study Data
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2022
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures, Tables and Boxes
- Notes on Contributors
- Foreword: Understanding and Enhancing Human Development Among Global Youth – On the Unique Value of Developmentally Oriented Longitudinal Research
- Introduction: Measuring Sustainable Human Development Across the Life Course
- 1 Exploring the Potential for Gender Norm Change in Adolescent Girls: Evidence from ‘Real Choices, Real Lives’ Longitudinal, Qualitative Study Data
- 2 Unequal Educational Trajectories: The Case of Ethiopia
- 3 Early Life Transitions Increase the Risk for HIV Infection: Using Latent Class Growth Models to Assess the Effect of Key Life Events on HIV Incidence Among Adolescent Girls in Rural South Africa
- 4 Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals: Evidence from the Longitudinal Parenting Across Cultures Project
- 5 Achieving Gender Equality: Understanding Gender Equality and Health Among Vulnerable Adolescents in the Sustainable Development Goals Era
- 6 Capturing the Complexities of Adolescent Transitions Through a Mixed Methods Longitudinal Research Design
- 7 Child Well-being Across the Life Course: What Do We Know, What Should We Know?
- 8 Mauritian Joint Child Health Project: A Multigenerational Family Study Emerging from a Prospective Birth Cohort Study: Initial Alcohol-related Outcomes in the Offspring Generation
- Conclusion: The Future of Longitudinal Research
- Index
Summary
Introduction
The targets outlined by Sustainable Development Goal 5 – to achieve social, economic and political gender equality, eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls, and ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive healthcare and rights – underscore the persistence of gender-based discrimination in almost all public and private spheres, and, despite progress, the scale of the work still needed to realize an equal and equitable society (United Nations, 2015). As global goals, the SDG targets and indicators inevitably lack nuance in terms of implementation, leaving governments and stakeholders space to adapt and implement according to context. However, the notion of gender equality in particular can remain superficial when measured according to female–male ratios and quotas, legal frameworks and quantitative data – making the SDG 5 indicators relatively limited in terms of reflecting the lived experience of individuals in society.
The negative outcomes of gender inequality which SGD 5 seeks to redress, and which disproportionately affect women and girls, are increasingly well-documented and understood. However, while there is a growing emphasis in the international development community on gender transformative interventions, understandings of the often deep-seated social norms at the core of persistent gender inequalities, and importantly how norms can change, remains limited, hindering progress on the SDG 5 objectives.
Gendered social norms are reproduced during the process of gender socialization which begins from birth as an individual interacts with various social- and structural-level concepts of gender. These are the norms which hold in place the socially constructed set of ‘acceptable’ behaviours for males and females, transgression of which can bring social – and sometimes violent – consequences. Conceptualizations of gender vary between contexts and are often rooted in historical, religious and socioeconomic factors, but in all cases where what is ‘acceptable’ for males and females differs, gendered norms impact individuals’ equal opportunities, treatment and rights in society, reinforcing and perpetuating inequalities. Norms dictating what it means to be ‘masculine’, for example, are increasingly regarded as a core driver of sexual and gender-based violence (Abebe et al, 2018), hence better understanding of the gender socialization process is highly valuable in achieving SGD target 5.2 – to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Sustainable Human Development across the Life CourseEvidence from Longitudinal Research, pp. 25 - 42Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2021