Changing Gender Roles

Changing Gender Roles
By James Achanyi-Fontem
The role of the family in sexual health, and in particular in gender socialisation, has changed tremendously due to a number of factors. The rise of the level of education among 10 million people, the change from a state- run economy to a liberal economic system and the change from a one-party to a multiparty system, which came with more freedom of speech, have all affected gender roles and socialisation from household to country level in Cameroon . More recently, large scale rural-urban migration, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, privatisation and globalisation forces have fuelled a national debate on the role of the family in sexual health and gender socialisation. While the anti-AIDS campaign calls for parents to talk openly to their children about safer sex, the free market economy requires parents to work around the clock to ensure basic family income.
Male Gender Socialisation
From a young age, boys in Cameroon are socialised according to gender norms. They are exposed to social pressure from their families, the community and institutions such as schools, companies and government offices to act according to the dominant model of accepted male behaviour. Social expectations also have a strong influence on men's later role in marriage and family life, sexuality and reproduction.
Although there is some evidence of changing male and female gender roles, the dominant features of masculinity in Cameroon continue to be economic autonomy and marriage. Most girls and women still consider it men's responsibility to provide for the family. This is the major reason for young men to migrate to urban areas, as the attempt to fulfil this rigidly defined social expectations. Economic success is also essential to meet another key socio-cultural expectation: marriage. Getting married and having a family is a central goal in life for most Cameroonian youths. However, many young men feel unable to compete with older, working men in the sexual economy; as they are unable to meet the financial demands of young women. Without financial resources a man cannot expect to marry or even satisfy a girl friend. The rising unemployment rates further decrease young men's access to financial resources and prevent them from fulfilling men's social expectations. Most of them will delay marriage until they have sufficient funds or employment. This delay has implications for their male identity and leads to much frustration among young men, as marriage is considered an essential rite of passage from adolescence to adulthood.
The position of girls and women in Cameroon
In this context where men are expected to be the breadwinner, boys are commonly regarded as an asset and an investment to parents when they get old. This is why boys get preferential treatments in many aspects of life, including education. This social preference for boys by family, community and legal system gives them more options to succeed in life than girls. Many still regard girls merely as persons who should get married with the family benefiting from dowry paid by the husband's family.
In school, girls are often assigned domestic activities, such as fetching water for teachers and cooking for the bachelors, limiting their time for study. Boys are given more time after school for sports, while girls are usually assigned household chores. A recent UNICEF report estimates that three million school-aged children are out of school, half of them girls. Among factors preventing girls from finishing school are adolescent pregnancy and forced early marriage because of economic gains for the family. Another factor is gender-biased socialisation in school, which reinforces traditional gender roles by promoting assertive behaviour for boys and passive behaviour for girls. Girls are also expected to care for the sick and young siblings, preventing them from attending school regularly.
The school period is also a time of biological changes, but access to sex education is often non-existent. Cameroon's parenthood system has changed enormously. The extended family system, which allowed grand parents to teach grand children on community values, is disappearing more and more. Many communities have abandoned the traditional training that prepared children at the age of 13 for the transition from childhood to adulthood. This training prepares them for the roles and responsibility of parenthood, and addressed issues related to sexuality, gender roles, taking care of the community, children and neighbours.
A recent survey in Cameroon revealed a rise in female headed household due to the increased death of partners, especially due to AIDS, and a wave of broken marriages, mostly caused by social havoc as a result of globalisation and structural adjustment programmes. Many men who were breadwinners face a massive lay off from their job due to privatisation. Frustrated unemployed men in cities and peasants who cannot generate enough income from their produce release their anger by victimising their wives. This in turn leads to children being raised without both parents.
These biological, cultural and socio-economic factors have an impact on gender socialisation at the household and community level, rendering girls increasingly vulnerable for sexual and reproductive health problems. Many girls are an easy prey for men who convince them to have unsafe sex for small cash. As a result, many get pregnant and are subsequently sent away from school. Also, many girls contract HIV and other STIs.
Sex Education and Sexual Health
Despite the serious HIV/AIDS situation and the many education campaigns, many parents still avoid talking to their children in-depth about sex and sexuality, which remain taboo topics. Till the late 1970s, in many parts of the country special traditional sexual health training was given to boys and girls at age 13, openly discussing sexual and reproductive issues. Girls were taught how to become good mothers and boys were taught how to become good fathers. New socio-economic patterns, urban-to-rural migration and formal education systems have led almost all 238 ethnic groups in Cameroon to abandon this sex education.
Currently big gaps in sex education exist, as the primary school system has no reproductive and sexual health curriculum. Many boys and girls enter puberty before completing their primary school. Hence at this important stage in their lives, boys and girls are forced to learn about sex and sexuality from their peers.
With the coming of HIV/AIDS in Cameroon in the early 1980s, most young men and young women were, regarded as HIV-risk-free group. During the early 1980s and early 1990s, many men turned to schoolgirls for their sexual needs. As a result, many adolescents especially girls were infected with HIV and are now dying of AIDS related illnesses. Sixty percent of new HIV infections in Cameroon occur among youths under 25 years of age, mostly between 17 and 19 years of age.
Condoms have become associated more with HIV prevention than with birth control. Both young men and women dislike them and at their best the use is irregular. After a degree of trust is established, prevention of pregnancy is diverting from condom use, to focus on knowledge of safe days. Society always views pre-marriage pregnancy as an unfortunate out comes of sexual activity, bad luck or an accident. Young men usually deny their responsibility for a pregnancy and abandon the girl for a number of reasons. The inability to take care of the expectant mother and the unborn child; the fear to be taken to court (if the girl is still in school); and the boy's doubts about this actual fatherhood, assuming the girl has had other sexual partners. Young men, particularly if they are unemployed, feel inadequately prepared to meet the demands and costs of supporting a girl through her pregnancy.
Gender Relation, Economic Power and Rape
Several studies have revealed that the expectation of some form of exchange in the relationships between young men and women plays a significant role in sexual coercion and rape. Young men make a distinction between forcing a girl or woman to have sex using violence or raping her, and forcing a woman to have sex after having incurred some expenses. The latter often referred to as date rape by most young men.
The same studies show that, although economic factors play a key role in structuring sexual relationships between man and woman, monetary gain is not only reason for women to have sexual relationships: sexual desire and satisfaction are also important. However, some young men's frustration at their lack of money is directed towards women, who supposedly only want sex for money. Rape cases are also commonly reported in the Cameroon media.
Despite this pervasive situation, most young men in contemporary Cameroon express their desire for real love, trust, respect and a monogamous relationship, reflecting the prevailing socio-cultural norms among men in the country. Although all young men have a strong desire to get married and have a family, for most of them this is out of reach in the immediate future because of inadequate financial resources.
Issues of gender and financial resources also interact to impact on sexuality. The power imbalance between men and women determines how sexuality is expressed and experienced. In this context, of gender inequity, male sexual pleasure supersedes female pleasure and men have greater control than women over when, where and how sex takes place. In a patriarchal society where men are expected to act as heads of the household but are often unable to fulfil this norm due to poverty and unemployment, sexual promiscuity becomes a means of demonstrating masculinity. At the same time, women and girls faced with even fewer opportunities for direct access to income, little access to decision-making power, as well as a socialisation process that reinforces low self-esteem, often turn to transactional sex to fulfil their daily needs. In this manner, within and outside marriage, women's bodies are often turned into a tool for negotiation and exchange.
Changing Gender Relations
The work place has been the main place for changing gender relations in Cameroon. While paid jobs (for men too) have become increasingly scarce as a result of the economic crisis and subsequent economic restructuring, women have entered the informal sector, usually as business owners to ensure their families' income. Women are also increasingly visible in paid jobs and government positions.
This change in women's position can be attributed partially to Cameroon's participation in the 1995 United Nations Fourth World Conference on women in Beijing, which stressed equal rights for men and women. Cameroon is among very few sub-Saharan African countries whose constitution refutes any kind of discrimination based on sex, and recognises gender equity and equality. However, despite all these efforts, few women have been appointed to higher government positions.
In Cameroon's current socio-economic climate brought about by globalisation, privatisation, economic liberalisation and a reduced role for the state in providing health and education, there are no easy or fast solutions to the problems of unemployment and gender imbalance among the youth. Changes will require long-term commitment from government as well as the communities to which the youth themselves belong. NGO initiatives can also play an important role in facilitating change.
Advocating for social change towards gender equity
The Cameroon Link Gender and Development Councils in Bonaberi is an NGO advocacy strategy for social transformation towards gender equality and equity, equal opportunities and equal access to, and control over resources by women, youth and other marginalised groups. In 2002, together with some 10 NGOs, Cameroon Link created the Feminising Activist Groups, a pressure group committed to facilitate social change in Bonaberi and beyond.
Research and action by Cameroon Link have shown that HIV/AIDS and many other problems related to gender imbalance and gender socialisation cannot be separated from the extreme poverty, lack of resources and the burden of work for women. Institutional settings at the national and local levels influence the socio-cultural context that shapes the ways in which men and women interact with each other, including in sexual relationships. Despite gender-equity policies, women in Cameroon continue to enjoy fewer rights and privileges than men. Their access to education and training, as well as their rights to property are constrained by existing patriarchal socio-cultural norms and values. Few women have access to positions of power and influence. This complex situation requires a gender inequity at all levels of society. Cameroon Link and its CLLS and COGESID partner organisations are committed to address the structural issue in families, communities and Cameroonian society as a whole, in its struggle for a more gender-balanced society.
Inclusion of gender perspectives in family education
Gender socialisation starts at birth, or even before. The early childhood period is often considered a "gender-politics-free" zone where children are allowed leeway in displaying behaviours and actions outside the social and cultural norms about boys and girlhood of a given society simply because they are considered too small to understand and follow. However, they learn about gender roles and characters from a very early age and are firmly rooted in a gender identity by the time they reach the age of formal schooling.
The UNESCO project "ICT-based Training in Basic Education for social Development" aims to strengthen human resources and build capacity among families, women, youth and ethnic minorities in promoting sustainable social development using the potential of information and communication technology (ICT). The project has a specific component entitled "inclusion of Gender perspectives in Family Education", which aims to generate awareness within families of gender issues related to child bearing and socialisation.
Understanding gender-socialisation processes
Family is the primary socialisation agent of young children, and particularly parents and other important care takers exert powerful influences on the formation of children's gender orientations, which are inseparable from the notion of self and relations with others. A child's early experience as a boy or girl, gained primarily at home can enhance or limit his/her subsequent development of potentials, capabilities and aspirations, and instil gender-based attitudes, views and behaviours which may be long-lasting.
Therefore it is important for parent and other family members to be aware of gender issues in the context of child bearing and socialisation of young children, and of the possible consequences of their practices that are constraining for girls and boys and to promote changes in them. Attention should be paid to the ways in which children internalise negative gender roles and stereotypes, and to the structures and mechanisms that reproduce gender inequality in education and other domains of life. Education of women and girls is proven to have enormous benefits for the family and society at large and contributes to sustainable social development. Young women who are exposed to basic education are more likely to have greater autonomy and wider life choice including the choice of a husband. They are likely to marry late and within marriage they are able to cope more appropriately with work responsibilities and family relations.
Family education programmes aim to empower parents as confident early childhood caretakers. But they do not sufficiently address and tackle the gender issues in raising children. Some of the problems not tackled include parents expectations toward girls and boys; parents as gender role models for their own children that benefits of father's involvement in child care and sharing of family tasks between the mother and the father in equal partnership.
Inclusion of gender perspectives in family education
Given this context, the UNESCO project component mentions inclusion of Gender Perspectives in family education which aims to generate awareness within families of gender issues related to child bearing and socialisation, and to promote the necessary changes in attitudes and practices. The ultimate goal is to create a family environment where young children, regardless of their sex are encouraged to broaden their range of skills and capacity to think, act and reflect on their actions and to help develop their characters fully in ways that will serve them in contemporary society.
The project component is UNESCO's contribution to the achievement of Goal 1 on Early Childhood Care and education, and Goal 5 on gender equity and equality in Education; set out in the Dakar frame work of action adopted by the international community at the world education forum in Dakar, Senegal, in 2000. In addition, it aims to contribute to the promotion of social development through mainstreaming gender in programmes and politics.
The initiative envisions the following three steps:
-Development of a prototypic module on inclusion of Gender perspective in family education for training of trainers and facilitators in family education programs ready to be adapted to different contexts, languages and ICT modes:
-Adaptation of the prototypic module to the local contexts and selected ICT module(s) of the pilot regions and
-Training sessions for the parent educators and / or community workers using the adapted module in the pilot countries. The trained educators and community workers will conduct training sessions for parents and other family members who are the ultimate beneficiary.
The long-term objectives of the training module are:
1) to create awareness among parents and other family members about gender dimensions in the context of childbearing and socialisation; and:
2) to promote attitudinal and behavioural changes within the family, so that young boys and girls are given equal opportunities to develop fully and are encouraged to perceive, value and act towards the opposite sex as equal partners in different spheres of life.
This module should eventually benefit parents and other major care givers of children aged 0 to 8.
The module will focus on a number of key themes and issues. For each theme there will be suggested activities and exercises for trainers of family education programmes, encouraging awareness self-reflection concrete actions in daily life. The module will be adapted to suit the local cultural and ICT context of the different regions.