TY - JOUR
T1 - Domestic conflict as a possible outcome of gender role change
T2 - Experiences and perceptions from rural and urban Ghana
AU - Wadei, Bernice
AU - Osei-Wusu Adjei, Prince
AU - Forkuor, David
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - The patriarchal power system that dominates most societies creates an inherent conflict. With the recent gender-transformative drives however, the capacity of most women has been strengthened, through access to education and paid work, enabling them to have access to and control over certain resources and power they were previously denied. This new resource and power redistribution within the household is often assumed to have the potential to create an avenue to either increase or reduce domestic conflicts. More importantly, domestic conflicts are generated within the household when a change in the function of one spouse does not lead to a corresponding change in the role of the other. Using the mixed research method approach, 400 questionnaires were administered to households in rural and urban areas in the Ashanti region of Ghana in addition to in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. This paper examined domestic conflict as a possible outcome of gender role changes in rural and urban communities in Ghana. Particularly, the paper focused on how resource and power redistribution facilitate or reduce domestic conflicts. It was found that, when both partners assist each other in their traditionally assigned roles, domestic conflicts were greatly reduced in both rural and urban spaces. However, threatened superiority of men, male insecurity, and perceived female arrogance were found to be the main challenges to gender role change.
AB - The patriarchal power system that dominates most societies creates an inherent conflict. With the recent gender-transformative drives however, the capacity of most women has been strengthened, through access to education and paid work, enabling them to have access to and control over certain resources and power they were previously denied. This new resource and power redistribution within the household is often assumed to have the potential to create an avenue to either increase or reduce domestic conflicts. More importantly, domestic conflicts are generated within the household when a change in the function of one spouse does not lead to a corresponding change in the role of the other. Using the mixed research method approach, 400 questionnaires were administered to households in rural and urban areas in the Ashanti region of Ghana in addition to in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. This paper examined domestic conflict as a possible outcome of gender role changes in rural and urban communities in Ghana. Particularly, the paper focused on how resource and power redistribution facilitate or reduce domestic conflicts. It was found that, when both partners assist each other in their traditionally assigned roles, domestic conflicts were greatly reduced in both rural and urban spaces. However, threatened superiority of men, male insecurity, and perceived female arrogance were found to be the main challenges to gender role change.
KW - Domestic Conflicts
KW - Gender Roles
KW - SDG 5: Gender equality
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85177189957&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/23311886.2023.2282421
DO - 10.1080/23311886.2023.2282421
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85177189957
SN - 2331-1886
VL - 9
JO - Cogent Social Sciences
JF - Cogent Social Sciences
IS - 2
M1 - 2282421
ER -