Gopalakrishnan Lakshmi, El Ayadi Alison, Diamond-Smith Nadia
Institute for Global Health Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States of America.
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2024 Dec 11;19(12):e0312465. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0312465. eCollection 2024.
Lower empowerment of women is a critical social issue with adverse public health implications. In India, deeply ingrained gender norms shape a patriarchal structure that creates systemic disadvantages for women relative to men. These gender norms-socially constructed expectations about the roles, behaviors, and attributes of men and women-perpetuate inequality and limit women's opportunities.
The aim of this study was to examine the association between community-level men's and women's gender norms on women's empowerment in India. Women's empowerment was defined using four measures: freedom of movement, decision-making power, economic empowerment, and health empowerment.
Using a nationally representative demographic health survey data from 2019-21 of 63,112 married women who participated in the women's empowerment module and 101,839 men surveyed, we constructed community-level men's and women's inequitable gender norms variables as our independent variable using attitudes towards wife-beating questions. We used random effects logistic regression models to examine if community-level men's and women's inequitable gender norms were independently associated with the different dimensions of women's empowerment.
One standard deviation increase in community-level men's and women's inequitable gender norms was associated with reduced odds of freedom of movement, decision-making power, and health empowerment. No statistically significant association was observed between community-level men's and women's gender norms and economic empowerment.
Inequitable gender norms are a risk factor that is negatively associated with several dimensions of women's empowerment. Our findings support our hypotheses that women's empowerment is impacted separately by men's and women's gender norms. Our study underscores the pressing need for concerted efforts to challenge and transform inequitable gender norms, paving the way for achieving gender equality and women's empowerment, as envisioned by the Sustainable Development Goals.
女性赋权程度较低是一个关键的社会问题，对公众健康有不利影响。在印度，根深蒂固的性别规范塑造了一种父权结构，相对于男性而言，这种结构给女性造成了系统性劣势。这些性别规范——关于男性和女性的角色、行为及特质的社会建构期望——使不平等长期存在，并限制了女性的机会。
本研究旨在探讨印度社区层面男性和女性的性别规范与女性赋权之间的关联。女性赋权通过四项指标来定义：行动自由、决策权、经济赋权和健康赋权。
利用2019 - 2021年全国代表性人口健康调查数据，该数据来自参与女性赋权模块调查的63112名已婚女性以及101839名接受调查的男性，我们使用对殴打妻子问题的态度构建了社区层面男性和女性不平等性别规范变量作为自变量。我们使用随机效应逻辑回归模型来检验社区层面男性和女性的不平等性别规范是否与女性赋权的不同维度独立相关。
社区层面男性和女性不平等性别规范增加一个标准差与行动自由、决策权和健康赋权的几率降低相关。未观察到社区层面男性和女性性别规范与经济赋权之间存在统计学上的显著关联。
不平等的性别规范是一个风险因素，与女性赋权的多个维度呈负相关。我们的研究结果支持了我们的假设，即女性赋权分别受到男性和女性性别规范的影响。我们的研究强调迫切需要共同努力挑战和改变不平等的性别规范，为实现可持续发展目标所设想的性别平等和女性赋权铺平道路。
