Shifting Harmful Social Norms

Author: DAI's Digital Frontiers, June 27 2023 - Every society has a set of social norms - many, largely unwritten, rules that traditionally define acceptable and appropriate behaviors for its members. For some societies, social norms have evolved over generations to adapt to shifting community values; however, some are still restrictive and confining, especially when it comes to women's roles, opportunities and behaviors.

For example, in many parts of the world, women's opinions and expertise are valued less than those of men. Women are told they are not as capable or knowledgeable as men, particularly when it comes to using new technologies, and that their morals would be endangered by exposure to the Internet. When girls and women have heard this enough, they begin to believe it themselves.

USAID's WomenConnect Challenge (WCC) works to address and promote positive social norms to help women navigate and harness the opportunities of digital technologies. Addressing and shifting social norms is not a quick process and takes time, as these behaviors and the beliefs they represent are deeply held, rooted in strong family and cultural traditions.

WCC has identified six different strategies that its grantees are using to demonstrate positive social norms around women and girls' access to and use of technology and shift perceptions within their communities.

Role Models

Role models have a transformative impact in tackling unconscious bias in both men and women, especially when the role models are women in positions of authority and expertise. It is one thing for a woman to be told about the theoretical benefits of starting an online business, for instance, but another thing entirely to actually hear the experiences of a woman who has successfully done it before.

In Senegal, WCC grantee United Purpose works with local radio stations to develop programs on agricultural entrepreneurship specifically designed to amplify women's voices. Guests on the shows include both men and women, who are equally presented as experts and authorities on the subject. Listeners are encouraged to record voicemail questions, which are answered by trusted female voices speaking local languages, providing more examples of women successfully breaking gender norms. More than 600,000 people are estimated to have listened to the radio shows since it started in March 2020.

Peer Mentors

Similar to role models, peer mentors are also effective at dismantling unconscious bias. They have been trained to provide useful information on various subjects and demonstrate ideal behavior in their community.

With its WCC grant, Heifer International in Nepal developed a digital platform offering agricultural extension services. The backbone of this platform is the hundreds of community-based "digital champions," equipped with Internet connectivity, that conduct outreach and introduce farmers to the platform's suite of resources, including a planning tool, farm management solutions, advisory services, market access and pricing, weather forecasts, and a farmer's diary to track expenses. During training, these digital champions take lessons on promoting gender equality and learn skills to mentor and counsel men and women to overcome social barriers, including how to inspire women farmers to engage with this digital system. Since May 2021, the platform has reached more than 72,000 people, 69 percent of them women.

Peer Networks

Groups of people with shared experiences can also reinforce new behaviors and norms. These peer networks, often started by people going through a training at the same time, provide opportunities and a safe space for participants to practice skills learned during training in real-world situations.

In northern India, WCC grantee Gram Vaani developed a mobile-phone-based platform where women could create and share news on topics such as labor rights, maternal and child health, livelihoods opportunities, and human rights. This platform provided women the opportunity to learn from their peers, safely voice their concerns, and discuss collective solutions to their most pressing challenges. A network of community leaders and volunteers then advocated for the issues to be addressed by local decision makers, leading to greater representation of women in community decision-making.

The program, called Mobile Vaani, has had a direct impact on many women. One program participant confided to a community volunteer how she had been emotionally abused by her in-laws. The volunteer gave her the confidence to speak to her husband about the issue, as well as also her in-laws, explaining why their behavior was harmful. "A lot has changed since then. My in-laws started behaving nicely with me," she said. "My life has changed because of Mobile Vaani."

Women's Collectives

Existing networks of women, such as savings groups or associations, can also reach large numbers with new norms. In 2018, WCC grantee Mali Health worked with women's cooperatives and savings groups in that country to encourage purchase and use of mobile phones for health information. Over the span of two years, the Mali Health team trained 400 women in collectives on the use of technology and social networks, helping them to understand how to navigate the Internet, access health and wellness information, and build their confidence in using technology to access this information. The collectives are not seen as a threat to patriarchal society, so technology could be embedded in their structures as a means to subtly disrupt social norms.

In the final study at the end of WCC grant activities, 65 percent of women surveyed say that the project had increased their rate of use of information and communication technology, like the Internet, and every woman surveyed displayed high levels of knowledge about maternal, neonatal, and child health topics.

Group Discussions and Trainings

Training creates opportunities for participants to learn by doing and reinforce their experiences. WCC grantee Equal Access International (EAI) set out to explore and pilot innovative approaches to combating dominant and harmful perceptions in northern Nigeria about women's use of the Internet being immoral at the root of the gender digital divide.

EAI's programming invited the participation of the whole family, highlighting the use of the Internet for education and entrepreneurship opportunities. Each segment was accompanied by a 20-minute Listening, Discussion & Action Group (LDAG) segment with selected experts who reflected on some of the issues brought up in the drama. The episodes achieved their main purpose of providing carefully crafted content for the families involved in group discussion meetings to listen to and reflect on. This was particularly important in the early sessions when group members were too shy to share their own experiences but could reflect on those highlighted in the drama, encouraging them to eventually reflect on their own.

During the endline focus groups, the radio program was highlighted by many LDAG members as particularly memorable and relatable. Group members recalled specific characters and episodes that had encouraged them to reflect on and reconsider their own behavior. EAI's curriculum also emphasizes online safety, including recognizing and preventing gender-based violence online. EAI's approaches proved so successful that, in endline interviews, no women reported that fear of community backlash stopped them from using the Internet and other technologies. This marked a significant improvement compared to the findings from the beginning of the program, two years earlier, where 40 percent of women expressed such concerns.

Edutainment

Edutainment uses popular culture to educate people by featuring fictional characters or real, relatable people to model positive behavior. WCC grantee Mediae's Shamba Shape Up program in Kenya is a great example of edutainment. The "make-over" reality show visits a different small farm, or shamba, every week and offers advice for how to improve production and management. Reaching at least 8 million viewers in Kenya, Mediae has used the WCC grant in part to produce episodes focusing specifically on how women farmers can use technology to access loans and financing, joining episodes on irrigation, crop diseases, and planting techniques. Farmers who have used practices promoted in the episodes report increased production, and therefore increased their own income.

"Before Shamba Shape Up, my shamba was just a common shamba," said Evah Kinyua, a farmer in Ngong, Kenya. "With Shamba Shape Up, when it's off-season, off the rains, we still have some [crops] in the shamba, which has been keeping us going."

Across all WCC grantees, these six strategies are rarely used in isolation. When combined, these approaches reach more people and increase the sustainability of their efforts. Repeated exposure to new social norms from multiple sources has been shown to be most effective, particularly in the long term. A broad approach - targeting men and women, young and old, and of all income levels - also increases reach and reduces the risk of backlash within a community. Changing any social norm takes time, but ensuring that everyone sees the value in that change will help it take root and allow societies to flourish.

This piece was written with support from the Training Resource Group.

Image Credit: Ricci Shryock for DAI. 

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