Attitudes of High School Students Regarding Intimate Relationships and Gender Norms in New Providence, The Bahamas

Abstract

This paper reports the attitudes and actions on relationships with the opposite sex of 1,002 Grade 10 and Grade 12 students in New Providence. Girls were more likely than boys to use aggressive behaviours in teen relationships. Some of the behaviours noted in teen relationships informed expectations of marital relationships, such as restricted access to friends of the opposite sex. The students endorsed a number of sex-related stereotypes, such as a man being the head of the household. Both male and female students indicated that it was acceptable for men to control their wives. Participation in aggressive and controlling behaviours by teens points to the need to educate students about how to develop more respectful relationships.

Learning Gender-based Attitudes in The Bahamas

“…There were differences, usually in degree, between these attitudes for male versus female participants. These results are consistent with those reported by Bahamian school children on gender roles (Nicolls et al, 2014). As in Nicolls et al (2014), our participants confirmed that attitudes towards women are formed at an early age.…”

“…Questions focused on acts of violence in the home of the respondents when they were growing up, as well as their sources of news in general as well as information relating to women's issues. Questions regarding attitudes towards women were drawn from Nicolls et al (2014) and the Latin American Public Opinion Project survey (Vanderbilt University, 2014). With regard to attitudes and how much respondents paid attention to various information sources, a 10-point scale was used, from zero to nine, with zero indicating complete disagreement or not an information source.…”

“…The Bahamas has a higher tolerance than other territories in the Caribbean for accepting that a man can discipline his wife for her behaviour (Sutton & Ruprah, 2017). Nicolls et al (2014) demonstrated that by the time they reached high school, students had already learned that the man should be the head of the household, a woman must submit to her husband, and that a woman's place was in the home. Further, that study indicates that young, yet-to-be partnered women had already learned to expect that a future intimate partner could express love for them by hitting.…”

A Cross-cultural Comparison of Interpersonal Violence in the Lives of College Students from Two Colleges from The Bahamas and the United States of America

“…Bahamian and American students had different attitudes towards gender roles with Bahamian students being more supportive of the traditional stereotype of the man as the breadwinner and by implication the head of the household, a view expressed by Bahamian politicians (Cartwright-Rolle, 2014), even though this contradicts the current norm of both parents having a job (Nicolls et al, 2014). Frequency of spanking was linked with student attitudes towards gender roles in the American group but not in the Bahamian group.…”

A review of the literature on corporal punishment in The Bahamas, with an emphasis on its use in schools

“…Therefore, while considering the use of corporal punishment in schools, its use outside of the educational setting cannot be overlooked. Further, we should be aware that the use of "corporal punishment" inflicted on children is part of an accepted part of the violence continuum, where physical punishment can be inflicted, usually on women, for not doing chores or being unfaithful (Nicolls et al, 2014;Sutton & Álvarez, 2016). The end point of this continuum is violence associated with the home which can end in death, as illustrated by domestic related homicides being the fourth most common motive associated with homicides between 2010-2015 (Hanna, 2017, p. 5).…”