“Men spoke of hiding their supportive behavior or exaggerating their authority in household decisions,” Ishungisa said, “so they could be seen as strong men in the community and avoid the potential costs of being seen as breaking with tradition.”
The researchers believe that these results support the theoretical explanation that gender roles do not reflect fixed or innate preferences, but are socially performed, a so-called “gender performance.” From this perspective, social expectations have a powerful influence on behavior.
If misperceptions of others make patriarchal norms resistant to change, interventions that promote women’s empowerment may benefit from generating more open dialogue among men, which may help reverse problematic misperceptions and enable men to be more comfortable accepting changing gender roles at home and in public.
“Our study certainly supports the idea that combating persistent misconceptions about others in our communities can be a useful strategy in promoting women’s empowerment,” Lawson said. “There is still much to learn about the dynamics of social learning regarding gender roles, and anthropologists who study cultural evolution and social learning strategies have a lot to contribute to these discussions.”
The research was funded by the Society for Cultural Evolution Transformation Fund, supported by the John Templeton Foundation, and conducted as part of an ongoing collaboration between the Institute for Applied Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the National Institute of Medical Research in Mwanza, Tanzania.
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