By Trudy Simpson, Staff ReporterMANY LOCAL men still believe gender-based stereotypes and support 'justified' gender-based violence, says Dr. Veronica Salter from the University of the West Indies' (UWI) vice chancellery's Cultural Studies Initiative.
She tested men and women on gender views and attitudes to gender violence and found more men "agreed to justified violence, believed in common myths (and) held opinions that were biased against women in terms of their sexuality."
"They also upheld traditional female roles as being inferior to those of men (and said) men should always be in charge and women should play a supporting role to a man," Dr. Salter said on the final day of a recent two-day Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO) conference held at the Jamaica Conference Centre, downtown Kingston.
Dr. Salter said 64 per cent of men interviewed said what they liked best about being a man was being in a position of 'headship' not only in the household but dominant over all creation.
Many men used The Bible to justify their view, an opinion which 59 per cent of women disliked, not seeing themselves as inferior or secondary, Dr. Salter said.
Data showed over one-third of men thought men should always be in charge and that once a woman marries, she becomes her husband's possession. More than half believed women are naturally submissive and 80 per cent thought women's natural role is to be supportive of men.
Twenty-six per cent of men, compared to one per cent of women, thought men hit women because they are provoked. None of the women interviewed believed men show love by 'roughing up' partners but 17 per cent of men thought so.
Dr. Salter posited such views could be one of the reasons for increases in violence against women. According to officials, some men feel threatened by what they view as women's attempts to change the perceived status quo and may seek to control them by sexual assault.
"Women are at increased risk of sexual violence, as they are of physical violence by an intimate partner, when they become more educated and thus more empowered. The likely explanation is that greater empowerment brings with it more resistance from women to patriarchal norms," the recently-released World Health Report on violence said.
The study showed 24 per cent of men, compared to seven per cent of women, thought women did not mean 'no' when they said it in a sexual context and 27 per cent thought a man cannot rape his wife.
