Gender norms and women's influence in food provision and preparation decision-making among commercialized Banana producing households in Isingiro district

Abstract

In patriarchal societies, women are known to have the responsibility for ensuring food and nutrition security within households. While women's roles are key in controlling and utilizing food crops, evidence about the influence of commercialization of food crops on women’s influence in decisions related to food provision and preparation at household level remains limited. In order to fill this knowledge gap, this study aimed at: i) Describing the changes in gender roles related to food provision as result of banana commercialization, ii) Determining the influence of banana commercialization on gendered beliefs towards gender norms about food provision and preparation among banana producing households and iii) Determining the factors that influence women’s influence in decision making on food provision and preparation among banana producing households. The study employed an explanatory sequential mixed methods research design involving semi-structured interviews (SSI) in 160 (80 commercial and 80 non-commercial) banana-producing households and six focus group discussions (FGDs) with 24 purposively selected couples in Rugaaga sub-county, Isingiro district. The quantitative data from the SSI was subjected to descriptive and ordered probit regression analysis in SPSS while the qualitative data from the FGDs was analyzed using thematic-content analysis in Nvivo software. Thematic-content analysis results indicated that the evolution of cooking banana commercialization had resulted into changes in gender roles, with women's roles in harvesting cooking bananas being taken over by men. The results further showed that favorable beliefs towards gender norms about men’s dominance in household level food provision were more associated with commercial cooking banana farming households than with the non-commercial ones. Additionally, results show that it was more acceptable for men in commercial cooking banana farming households to cook than in the non-commercial ones. Furthermore, more non-commercial households (68%) than commercial households (11%) had women with high influence in decisions about the quantity of food for consumption. Access to agricultural training (p<0.01), extension visits (p<0.05) and membership in farmer groups (p<0.01) enhanced women’s influence on household level food provision and preparation decisions while level of cooking banana commercialization (p<0.01) and gender norms related to men’s dominance of food provision (p<0.01) had a negative effect. Therefore, efforts aimed at increasing women's access to extension services, participation in farmer groups and transform unequal gender norms may help to reduce the negative consequences of commercialization on women’s influence in food provision and preparation at household level.