Changing Gender Relations in the Household

One of the most important institutions in the lives of poor people is the household. Poverty interventions directly or indirectly affect and are affected by the household and gender relations, and hence the importance of exploring intra-household gender dynamics. The household is a basic unit of society where individuals both cooperate and compete for resources. It is also a primary place where in which individuals confront and reproduce societal norms, values, power, and privilege. Gender norms expressed within the household are reinforced and reflected in larger institutions of society. “Gender relations are not confined to the domestic arena — although households constitute an important institutional site on which gender relations are played out — but are made, remade and contested in a range of institutional arenas” (Kabeer 1997). In other words, this is not simply a story of the household and its members, but about the shaping of gender identities by larger institutions, and the ongoing participation of family members in creating new gender norms.