Gender and social Norms in Agriculture 5 2019 re sakss conference presentation edward bikketi
1. Gender and Social Norms in
Agriculture
Presented By Edward Bikketi
INCLUDOVATE
2. What are social norms?
A category of collective belief referring the social environment –
specifically expectations one has about a peer or reference group
or agreed upon expectations and rules guiding behaviour of a
given group
3. Disciplinary Trajectory on Social
Norms
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Social norms theory
focusing on public
heath
Realisation by the cluster of
disciplines and research that
social and non-social factors
determine one’s action (on off
and habitual behaviour)
Social psychology and behavioral
economics research observing that
people make mental shortcuts through
rational choice theories.
Social psychology theories
acknowledging the influence of social
environment and peer groups as
effective behaviour-change strategies
One way behavioral change
models – Theories of diffusion
focus on lead farmer
Economics, Ag-Econ
Social Psychology, Gender,
sociology, Anthropology
4. Framing of
Social
Norms
In sum, social norms refer to
the desire for social approval
or risk of sanction from
one’s peer group, which
appears to have a greater
influence on behavioral
outcomes than individual
attitudes and internal beliefs
alone(Mayne et al. 2015)
5. Social Norms Impeding Women’s Advancement
Norms assigning domestic work to
women
Norms of sexual decorum & fear of sexual violence
as retribution
Norms of decorum and reputations e.g. prohibition
of interactions between men and women in work
places
Norms about mobility e.g. women working outside home or in
distant places
Norms of ownership access to & control of
assets and resources
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6. Gender Norms & Economic Empowerment
The informal unwritten social rules that
determine socially acceptable behaviour for
men and women – shaping opportunities and
constraints for empowerment.
Gender norms internalized into women’s and
men's consciousness can foster or undermine
women’s economic empowerment.
Gender norms and roles can be potent
posing systemic challenges towards
empowerment.
7. Gender Norms in Agriculture
No single set of norms or regional norms exist
They are context-specific and localized (culture and as well as economic contexts)
This has required empirical studies that can explain how norms operate
GENNOVATE by CGIAR (Petesch et al 2018)
• 137 Agric communities from 26 countries in the Global South
• Local normative climate and the fluidity of norms among men and women resulting in heterogeneity
• Familiar patterns of gender norms exist that can interact with opportunity structures.
• Root categories of gender norms that reproduce unequal power relations and unequal outcomes in
male-dominated agricultural systems and structures
8. Comparisons of Agency
between men and women
Fluid evolution of norms in response
to local economies & institutions
This very fluidity of norms
contributed to heterogeneity that
affects perceptions & agency
It is important to examine masculine
and femine norms and how the interact
with women’s agency
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GENNOVATE KEY MESSEGES ON NORMS
Normative
Climate
9. Bias and framing of women
as farmers’ wives and not
farmers by extension systems
Commercialization reserving
certain jobs especial technical
high paying jobs for men
.
Characterization of target
groups based on the household
head & cash-crops vs food crops
In practice stereotyping of
crops “men’s and women’s” is
oversimplified as production
practices.
Mobility of women even when
agro-advisory and training
opportunities are available
Critical skills of negotiation and
collective participation remain
a big challenge for women
.
Capacity Skills, Confidence: Stereotyping Farmers and
Crops
10. Gendered expectation of
women as good mothers
Gender roles of bread
winner and caregiver
normalizing men’s control
over incomes and cash
crops
Influence on labour
markets and overall
productivity
Feminisation of
reproductive roles
Views of the patriarchal
value system on
productive and
reproductive work
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PRODUCTIVE VS
REPRODUCTIVE
WORK
Norms of Productive vs Reproductive Work
11. Ownership and control of resources Influences adoption and use of
technologies especially natural resource management
Vital importance of accumulation and ownership of
productive resources for sustainable engagement in
agriculture.
Bargaining power and voice in the household depends
on ownership of productive resources
Land tenure and land rights governed by the interplay
of formal and informal institutions
The role of kinship structures and religion in inheritance
of assets and productive resources
Access & Control of Productive Resources
12. IntrahouseholdInfluence andVoice
Household head
and privilege
given to men
enshrining
practices
intrahousehold
competition
Inefficiency in
allocation of
resources
Poor
information
sharing within
the households
Gender norms
tolerating GBV
as for
sanctioning and
restraint on
women
13. Transforming
Deep-Seated
Gender
norms
Diagnosing and understanding
the gender norms as ‘typical’ or
‘appropriate’ or both
Identifying the social reference
group and the local normative
climate (Petesch et al 2018)
Applying evidence-based
gender norms models in
agricultural programming
14. Influencing
individual
attitudes
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Providing Inclusive
Arenas for dialogue
& co-learning
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Promoting alternative
expectations
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Providing
opportunities for
public change
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Unpacking norms
of Masculinity5
Transforming
Social Norms
What Works in Agricultural Programing?
15. Shifting Social Norms to Influence
Behaviour: Considerations for Practice
Use “attractive” messengers e.g. role models, and opinion makers to
champion and enroll others in the cause
In communications provide “social proof” that about
relevant people in authority doing the desired
behavior or supporting the campaign
Provide people with information
comparing their behaviors with
those of their (anonymized)
neighbors
Spread new social norms by changing the
behaviors of existing reference groups
and/or creating new ones
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Notas do Editor
“Beliefs about what others do, and what others think we should do, within some reference group, maintained by social approval and disapproval, guide a person’s action in her social setting. If a harmful practice is social in nature, programs that concentrate on the education
of the individual or increase in the availability of alternatives, or provide external incentives, may not be enough to change the social practice. Programs may be more effective if they support the revision of social expectations of people throughout the community
of interest” (Mackie et al. 2015, 5).
This framing uses a social norms perspective shifts the focus from individual adoption of behaviors, of analysis to examining the broader “social ways of doing things,” or social
behaviors of a particular group. This recognizes that people’s identity as group members is also important, and it places an emphasis on relational social processes, as opposed to individual cognitive processes (Mackie et al. 2015; Reynolds, Subašić, and Tindall 2015).
Entrenched norms of masculinity also hold back gender equality, and men’s behaviors appear to be influenced less by their own personal attitudes and even enabling policies than the normative climate (what they think other men do) (Institute for Gender and
the Economy, n.d.).
World Bank reports Gender Equity and Development 2011 & Mind Society and behaviour 2015. bring out the attention to the role of gender norms in fostering or undermining women's economic empowerment
They dispel the rational choice economic theory of the economic man and argue for human sociality the tendency to act as groups determining behaviour.
Social norms can be more potent than monetized incentives even under appropriate law as and legal policies women have been known to fear social norms and sanctions (mobility sexual purity, modesty and caregiving roles).
Where a law is at odds with a strong social norms (FGM early marriages) legal changes are unlikely to influence the practices.
Lack of empirical data on gender norms
The concept of the local normative climate to address the contextual social processes by which different gender norms relax, hold tight, or perhaps tighten further to accommodate the varied and changing circumstances of community members. They examine the normative climate in a village where men but not women are perceiving significant latitude for exercising agency in their agricultural livelihoods, and then compare those conditions
Ecological transformative change with recognition of institutional biases
Behavioral nudges
Three point framework shifting norms: Shifting social expectations and not just attitudes
Publicizing change; Catalyzing and reinforcing new norms and behaviour