Work

Masculine norms and sexual health implications for young men in Zimbabwe

Year: 2025

Type: book-chapter

Abstract: Masculinities can be ‘toxic’ and a danger to the sexual health of both men and women. Whilst this is well established, particularly in research with older men in the context of HIV in Southern Africa, little has been done to quantitatively investigate the contours of young masculinities and how they, in different ways, affect the sexual health of young men. Building on a nearly two-decade-long research programme on masculinities in eastern Zimbabwe, this chapter presents an updated binary masculine social norms scale for measuring four dimensions of young masculinities. This chapter first explains the process of validating the scale. This is followed up with an exploration of how different masculine social norms in varied and complex ways affect the sexual risk behaviour and use of HIV services among young men in eastern Zimbabwe. The chapter ends with a discussion of the implications of being able to break down ‘masculinities’ into discrete dimensions for policy and practice.

Source: Routledge eBooks

DOI: 10.4324/9781003468394-7