Abstract
Gender-based violence (GBV) is a worldwide phenomenon that has become a precarious social issue in South Africa, particularly amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. GBV disproportionately affects many women and girls by way of physical, sexual, emotional, psychological, financial, or structural violence across various cultures and socio-economic settings throughout the country. Owing to the escalation of GBV globally, there has been an increased interest in determinants like systemic inequality between genders that motivate violent behaviour towards women and girls. Nevertheless, there is a dearth of literature that focuses on the potential impact of cultural constructs such as gender role socialization on the occurrence of violence and how people’s attitudes towards gender roles and violence against women may influence the perpetration of GBV. Many cultures in South Africa are governed by patriarchal structures that encourage conservative gender norms which maintain the low status of women. For this reason, understanding the socio-cultural embedded constructs may elucidate the determinants for violent behaviour towards women. This information may play a role in developing preventative intervention strategies as well as strategies that treat mental illness emanating from GBV. Thus, the present study aimed to investigate if adults’ attitude toward gender roles is a predictor of attitudes toward violence against women and whether
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there are gender differences in the relationship between attitudes towards gender roles and gender violence. To achieve this, data was collected using University of Johannesburg participants (N = 217) across the psychology undergraduate cohort. The Gender Roles Attitude Scale (GRAS) was used to measure if individuals held traditional or egalitarian gender role attitudes. The Attitude Towards Male Dating Violence subscale (AMDV) was used to measure the attitudes of individuals towards violence against women. The data from these two scales were examined using a multiple regression analysis to determine if attitudes towards gender roles predict violence against women and if gender moderates this relationship. The findings supported the hypothesis that gender role attitudes can predict attitudes towards violence against women. A positive correlation between traditional gender role attitudes and attitudes towards violence was found. Although clear gender differences on each of the gender roles subscales were not found, men’s gender role attitudes were significant predictors on the egalitarian subscale and women’s gender role attitudes were significant on the traditional subscale. Thus, it was concluded that traditional gender role attitudes in SA that emphasise domination of men over women, can predict attitudes towards violence against women. These findings provide valuable information in understanding how sociocultural constructs like gender role socialisation may contribute to attitudes supportive of GBV.