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Survey shows “patriarchy is alive and well” in Southern Africa | An observer’s perspective

Marinda Weideman
Marinda Weideman Sep 22, 2021
Survey shows “patriarchy is alive and well” in Southern Africa | An observer’s perspective

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Despite efforts to raise awareness in order to enhance women’s access to education, their role as family members, and their representation within society, patriarchy still holds the upper hand in Southern Africa.

Some Southern African countries have gender equality enshrined in their constitutions and efforts have been made to implement the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Nevertheless, women are still discriminated against, mistreated, married by force, trafficked, and regarded as domestic help.

A recent survey conducted in 15 Southern African countries shows that in spite of progress made in terms of gender attitudes, many societies remain gender blind and harmful attitudes towards women continue to prevail.

By Dr. M. Weideman (data courtesy of Gender Links)

Gender Link’s launched its Gender Progress Score (GPS): Gender Attitudes in Southern Africa Report on the 30th August 2021. The overriding findings of the GPS are that “patriarchy is alive and well” in Southern African and that this holds true across gender, age, and levels of education.

The Gender Progress Score (GPS) is a 25-question survey designed to gauge gender attitudes and enable a better understanding of different perspectives of gender equality to inform strategies for change. Each question has four Likert-scale responses whereby respondents can strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree with a statement. The responses are rated on a scale of zero (least progressive) to 100 (most progressive).

The survey includes questions on contentious issues such as polygamy, choice of termination of pregnancy, sex work, and sexual orientation which are organized into six clusters, namely gender-based violence, harmful practices, sexual, reproductive, and health rights, sexual diversity, media, and general questions.

The survey data was collected by the country focal networks of the Southern African Gender Protocol Alliance between 2019 and 2021. The process was coordinated by Gender Links.

Fifteen countries and 34,323 respondents participated in the survey meaning that the results can be considered to be representative.

The survey results show that although gender attitudes in the region are increasingly progressive, with an overall regional score of 61%, many societies remain gender blind or blinkered and women’s rights activists must continue to work towards a transition to more gender-equitable attitudes.

The following findings demonstrate the extent to which harmful attitudes and norms prevail.

  • Only 58% of women and men in the SADC region agree or strongly agree that “women and men should be treated the same”.
  • 52% agree or strongly agree that “a woman should obey her husband”.
  • 31% agree that “a woman needs her husband’s permission to do paid work”.
  • 28% of men and 18% of women agreed that “a man should have the final say in all family matters”.
  • 28% of men and 18% of women agreed that “if a woman works, she should give her money to her husband”.
  • 26% of men and 20% of women agreed that “children belong to a man and his family”.
  • 20% of men and 15% of women agreed that “if a wife does something wrong, her husband has the right to punish her”.
  • Only 27% agreed that a woman should be able to choose to terminate a pregnancy in the first three months of her pregnancy.

These patriarchal attitudes are not limited to a particular gender, age, or educational group. In fact, the survey found that women hold attitudes that are, on average, only marginally more progressive (scoring 63%) than those of men (scoring 59%). In four countries, Angola, Botswana, Malawi, and Namibia, gendered responses were on a par. This suggests that advocacy and work to change attitudes and behavior should focus on women as much as men.

Those respondents with tertiary education had slightly more progressive attitudes (scoring 63%) compared to those with only a primary school education (58%).

The prevalence of patriarchal attitudes among youth does not bode well for future gender equality in a region where the majority of the population is young. Respondents aged 18-25 had the highest scores (at 63% only marginally higher than the average) and those aged 18 and younger had the lowest scores (scoring 58%).

However, not everything is doom and gloom and there are indications of a move to more progressive attitudes. Comparatively positive findings include:

  • Only 17% of respondents agreed with the statement “there is nothing a woman can do if her husband wants to have many girlfriends”.
  • Only 13% agreed with the statement that “if a man beats his wife, it shows that he loves her”.
  • Only 12% agreed with the statement that “families should spend less money on the education of their daughters than on their sons”.

As Gender Links states in a press release, this data shows that “there are no shortcuts to accelerating advocacy campaigns to change attitudes and behaviors that perpetuate gender inequality”.

The entire database is available on the Gender Links website as open-source information. The data is also available per country. The full database can be accessed here GL 2021 Gender attitudes in Southern Africa Report (google.com) or here Southern Africa Gender Progress Score: Gender Attitudes – Gender Links