| dc.description.abstract | Men and women in Ghana have different roles to play, undertake different activities and are subject to different restrictions (Chao 1999). In western discourses static thinking in dichotomies, in which men and women are often placed, causes genderinequality to come forward as a recurring theme (Mills 2003, Awumbila 2001, Canagarajah 2003). Genderinequality implies that women and men have different chances and possibilities within the social structures they are living their lives (Awumbila 2001), and suggests this is always negative. Empowerment of the marginalized groups, as a western, top-down approach, would help to better the lives of these people (Chant & Jones 2009). In western literature the approaches to gender and empowerment are often looked at from western standards and values, and leave small space for the social and cultural context in which these ideas and approaches are located. Moreover, it forgets to include local relations, interactions and changes that occur in the daily lives of people (Archibald & Wilson 2011). The dominant position from which the western world looks at differences in cultural en social expectations that surround gender and gender roles, so we argue in accordance with Chandra Mohanty (1988), is not fair to the people that grow up within different social spheres. This thesis therefore focuses on the perspectives on masculinity and femininity, as gender identities, and gender roles of young male and female students of the Accra High School, Ghana. Our focus on young people comes from the fact that we see them as an important category for transformations, as our research results have shown. Young people find themselves in a transitional phase between continuity and change, with social structures that influence and are influenced by personal ideas and expectations (Honwana & De Boeck 2005, Bourdieu 1990). Through different socialization-processes gender and gender roles are constructed, but these reproductions are never perfect (Ortner 2006), which our results will show. | |
