It’s a woman’s thing: gender roles sustaining the practice of female genital mutilation among the Kassena-Nankana of northern Ghana (2021)
This study is a Exploratory research regarding All FGM/C with the following characteristics:
Author(s): Akweongo,P.,Jackson,E.F.,Appiah-Yeboah,S. et al
FGM/C Type(s): All
Health area of focus: None.
Objective: This study aimed at clarifying the gender dynamics that underlie social support for female circumcision in the Kassena-Nankana District of northern Ghana
Study Population: young women,young men,reproductive age women,and male social leaders.
Findings: The social systemic influences on FGM/C decision-making are complex. Men represent exogenous sources of social influence on FGM/C decisions through their gender roles in the patriarchal system. As such,their FGM/C decision influence is more prominent for uncircumcised brides at the time of marriage than for FGM/C decisions concerning unmarried adolescents. Women in extended family compounds are relatively prominent as immediate sources of influence on FGM/C decision-making for both brides and adolescents. Circumcised women are the main source of social support for the practice,which they exercise through peer pressure in concert with co-wives. Junior wives entering a polygynous marriage or a large extended family are particularly vulnerable to this pressure. Men are less influential and more open to suggestions of eliminating the practice of FGM/C than women.Conclusion
Findings attest to the need for social research on ways to involve men in the promotion of FGM/C abandonment,building on their apparent openness to social change. Investigation is also needed on ways to marshal women’s social networks for offsetting their extended family familial roles in sustaining FGM/C practices.
Geographical coverage
Region(s):Western Africa
Country(ies):Ghana