Pathways to Empowerment: Case Studies of Positive Deviances in Gender Relations in Ethiopia

"The results shed light on alternative empowerment pathways that could potentially inform the design of transformational interventions."

There is a growing recognition that social norms act as structural barriers to progress toward achieving gender equality worldwide. In Ethiopian agriculture, gender norms discourage women from owning assets through which they might acquire more agency and empowerment, even though women are primarily responsible for major agricultural activities. This study uses an interpretative phenomenological approach to assess how Ethiopian women have managed to achieve expanded agency while living within a constraining normative environment.

Following a literature review is an explanation of the study's theoretical framework. The theory of planned behaviour (TPB) stresses the importance of three components - attitude, perceived behavioural control, and subjective norms - in explaining and predicting behaviour. Together, these components can lead to a positive or negative intention to perform a given behaviour.

The study was conducted in four target sites of the CGIAR (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research) Research Program on Livestock  in Ethiopia across three main regions: Oromia, the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Region (SNNP), and Amhara. Data were collected in 2019 through step-wise stages (e.g., focus group discussions (FGDs) and key informant interviews, or KIIs) addressing the gendered contexts of empowerment resources within which positive deviant gender relations are practiced, and why and how individuals or households decide to deviate from the normalised but harmful gender norms in rural Ethiopia.

The study highlights the gender context across the study communities, covering systems of access, ownership, control of resources, decision-making, and valuations of gender roles. For instance, social norms do not allow free movement of women (e.g., visiting relatives and marketplaces, or participating in community events) unless accompanied by male spouses or elder men in the family. The FGDs revealed that women's contribution in agriculture is immense and takes much of their time, yet this involvement goes unrecognised and unvalued.

The researchers then present findings related to positive deviance in gender relations, with a particular emphasis on the nature and types of deviant behaviours and decision factors for adopting deviant but desired gender relations. The research revealed that women have the capacity to deviate and that the intentions that lead to new behaviours emerge not only from individuals' attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control, as suggested by the TPB, but also in combination with demographic and economic factors - for example, the struggle for survival combined with educational attainment and exposure. The majority of the 18 individual livestock keepers who were identified by community as practicing some forms of changed gender roles in agriculture and other aspects of their livelihoods are married or widowed women who are heads of household. Individuals who choose to follow a different course of livelihood activities against normative social and cultural practices experience various kinds of discouraging influences from family members and peers. For example, one woman who spoke in public as a member of a credit and saving association said that other women have given her the nickname "wondiye", characterising her with a masculine identity deemed inappropriate for a woman.

Despite the challenges, positive-deviant individuals who shared their stories for the study have witnessed positive gains in all dimensions of their empowerment: economically, socially, and politically. Their engagement in the new behaviours (e.g., plowing, harvesting, and threshing) enabled them to have better access to information services, asset accumulation, and active participation in decision-making. Women who have managed to take part in the "roles of men" are able to break social barriers and regularly contact extension agents, in spite of their gender, to access extension services. Women report feeling proud, more confident, and valuable when they see their spouses engage in domestic chores and when they themselves are able to engage in men's roles as well. Finally, women (and men) who were able to overcome the effects of social norms are often active in local politics. They speak in public, representing fellow members of the community, and actively engage in community affairs.

Conversely, this study also found that, in some cases where women are able to achieve a higher level of empowerment, men engage in repressive behaviours that further discourage women from pursuing more empowerment pathways. Men's desire to maintain the status quo within the household, community, and institutions not only serves as a blockage to progress toward gender equality but in some cases is a cause for gender-based violence against women.

Some individuals who experienced changed but desired gender relations took measures in order to avoid the negative impacts arising from departure from a subjective norm. For example, they coped by migrating to other areas to escape people in their social circle after they decided to start new desired behaviours that were not socially ascribed to their gender.

Based on the findings, the researchers suggest that individuals engaged in positive-deviant behaviours might serve as role models, and "efforts to support such champions could play an important role in unlocking new approaches to gender transformation. When a critical mass of such individuals is achieved, sustainable social transformation can be realized. Hence, it is recommended that a public extension approach should consider ways to include them."