The gender socialisation framework posits that gender can be framed as a product of social construction. This means that the preconceived understanding of what it is to be a man or a woman is created and reinforced through interactions with society (Hlalele & Brexa, 2015).
Consequently, established social norms help determine behaviours deemed appropriate and desirable for both men and women. Throughout their lives, individuals operate within a social context where they observe and learn about gender roles and stereotypes and adopt their gender identities (Ellemers, 2018; Hentschel, Heilman & Peus, 2019; Hlalele & Brexa, 2015).
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Gender socialisation is made up of two concepts, which are gender and socialisation. West and Zimmerman (2009) define gender as the social dimension of being male or female. To illustrate, the authors refer to a concept called ‘doing gender’ to suggest that gender roles in society are not innate. Rather, individuals are socialised into specific culturally permissive roles based on the anatomy that makes them either female or male (West & Zimmerman, 2009; Schilt
& Westbrook, 2009). In other words, gender is a social construct that defines the collection of characteristics and behaviours culturally associated with maleness and femaleness. From birth, girls and boys are thus socialised into specific gender roles that often subordinate and assign girls into low social statuses when compared to boys.
Within this context, scholars who study masculinities have extended the notion of ‘doing gender’ to speak about ‘doing masculinity. That is, the socially accepted behaviours of men that place them at the top of the social hierarchy and warrants them unmerited power over women (Gelfer, 2016; Narasati, 2019). Meaning that women are considered and treated as inferior to men. In turn, women are often excluded from decision-making processes in their communities and families, and their values are reduced to domestic work (Gomez, Perdiguero
& Sanz, 2019; Routray et al., 2017, Williams, 2019). Therefore, gender is understood to be a manifestation of a process that assigns women and men specific roles and responsibilities, thus leading to certain forms of cultural behaviours through social interactions (Basu et al., 2017;
Janssen & Busa, 2018; Martinez et al., 2019). Within this setting, society projects behaviours, beliefs, attitudes, roles, and expectations onto the individual according to their biological make- up (Oakley, 2015; Perales, Jarallah & Baxter, 2018). Thus, in several rural communities, because women occupy a low social status, they are assigned roles in their households and communities that disadvantage them (Bieteru, 2019; Carmi, Alsayegh & Zoubi, 2019).
More so, women usually take on the responsibility of conducting unpaid household work, such as cleaning and washing, that requires water (Awang, 2019; Das, Pradhan & Nonhebel, 2019).
Thobejane and Florence’s (2018) investigation of the dynamics in the division of labour between married men and women within households in the rural areas of Mpumalanga in South Africa found that even when both men and women were employed full-time, women still conducted a disproportionately higher share of the housework. The authors further argued that men did not see doing housework as a contribution to bettering their lives. Moreover, men reported that doing housework challenged their authority and masculinity (Thobejane &
Florence, 2018). In cases where access to reliable water is limited or non-existent, rural
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communities are profoundly affected. They cannot carry out their duties, which places an extra burden on women. This leads to conflicts within the household and further intensifies gender inequality (Harris et al., 2017; Pommells et al., 2018).
On the other hand, socialisation is understood to be a process where people adopt certain behaviours that they believe are appropriate for their gender identity and are prescribed by their culture (John et al., 2017; Notshulwana & de Lange, 2019). Through socialisation, people take on beliefs, feelings, and behaviours deemed appropriate to a particular role in their society (Ely
& Gleason, 2017; Kennedy & Widener, 2019; Schneider & Bos, 2019). Put together, these concepts (gender and socialisation) merge as a single idea referred to as ‘gender socialisation’
which refers to the socially determined roles, behaviours, and responsibilities imposed on individual males and females by society.
As a framework, gender socialisation highlights the social inequalities that exist between men and women (Mayeza, 2018; Heise et al., 2019). In this study, gender socialisation provided a lens for analysing gender inequalities that arise in rural communities where water services are scarce and access to safely managed water is limited. Therefore, this framework assisted me in analysing the different roles played by men and women in a context where access to safe water was limited. One study from Zambia revealed how women’s roles as caretakers of households assigned them to perform tasks such as collecting water, cooking, and washing clothes (Rajaratnam et al., 2016). Rajaratnam et al. (2016) concluded that these gendered performances stemmed from a culture of gender socialisation of women from early childhood. Indeed, women’s involvement in these tasks restricts their mobility and limits the time they spend on other economic and income-generating activities. Ultimately, gender socialisation restricts women into positions that limit their economic growth and, ultimately, financial independence (Aguene, 2020; Boateng et al., 2021; Sefer, 2020). Given this context, gender socialisation reveals how men and women have been conditioned differently in terms of their interactions with water and the perceived significance water has in their respective lives. Van Aken and De Donato (2017) argue that access to water is characterised by inequalities and is regulated by gender-differentiated roles and responsibilities, further influenced by tradition, religion, customary law, and geography as well as the historical and socio-political context.
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