Exploring Machista Gender Roles and Psychosocial Well-being: An Exploratory Analysis in Camasca, Honduras
Date
2019-04-20
Author
Advisors
Ariely, Sumedha Gupta
Puffer, Eve
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Abstract
There is a severe lack of mental health research in rural regions of Latin America
like Camasca, Honduras, where typically there exists a societal construct of hypermasculinity
and patriarchal authority termed machismo. Much of the current literature on psychosocial
factors of mental health in settings with machismo report gender disparities with
women experiencing worse outcomes. This study sought to characterize indicators of
machismo through division of labor and perceived parental roles, and to then use these
data to explore their interactions with psychosocial aspects of mental health.
This study recruited 53 participants (41 female) from Camasca, Honduras to participate
in orally-administered interviews. Three scales for resilience, general stress, and
parental stress were administered in addition to open-ended questions to gauge satisfaction
with and comfort discussing parental responsibilities across gender. Overall, the
majority of participants reported there are gender differences in parental responsibilities
with most explanations mentioning men working as a family’s economic provider and
women taking on childcare responsibilities. There were trends towards men experiencing
worse levels of general stress and parental stress, although there were no gender
differences in resilience. These measurements did not vary by differences in perceived
parental responsibilities. Most women reported being more comfortable discussing parental
responsibilities with other women, while men typically reported no preference. In
light of these results, machista societal organization creates a unique context in
which to study psychosocial well-being and provides a useful lens for understanding
health disparities in similar gender-rigid contexts. These results suggest that perhaps
there is an internalization of traditional gender norms, such that men and women report
stressors according to what is deemed stressful in their society, and that furthermore
gender-disparate workforces may contribute to gender-specific experiences. Gender-specific
differences may also emerge from the importance of agricultural industry, suggesting
a possible factor perpetuating machista norms.
Type
Honors thesisDepartment
Global Health InstitutePermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/18353Citation
Malo, Vincenzo (2019). Exploring Machista Gender Roles and Psychosocial Well-being: An Exploratory Analysis
in Camasca, Honduras. Honors thesis, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/18353.Collections
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