The Norms of Power and the Power of Norms
In the same vein, the opportunities presented in the different communities are not equally distributed or open to both sexes. In fact, a community’s opportunity structure may include elements that reproduce gender inequality or women’s subordination, as noted by Sen and Grown (1987), Elson (1999), and Nussbaum (2000). For the purpose of our analysis, the structure of opportunities is comprised of the formal and informal institutions, the market, and the household. For analytical purposes, social norms—normally part of the overall structure of opportunities—is treated separately to better acknowledge their role in promoting or restraining agency. The background conditions of society governing women and men vary. Not all societies are the same, nor are the economic, cultural, social, political, religious, security, and other conditions of the 20 countries visited in the study. Within each country, communities are highly heterogeneous. Local conditions matter; they have an impact on women’s choices and preferences. Women and men constantly adapt their choices to what is happening around them. If the context does not provide fair conditions for action, this inequality is registered by households and individuals, and shapes their preferences in ways that may be detrimental (particularly women). These “adaptive preferences” have an impact on agency. What you do not see, you do not know and you cannot aspire to. For example, many of the women we interviewed reported a preference for flexible work arrangements, such as parttime work, informal sector or nonregulated work, and self-employment. It is worth asking, and we do so, if such preferences are shaped by women’s prescribed (gender) role as mothers and the opportunities available for working mothers provided by local markets. Some women have the perception that the employers prefer workers without care responsibilities; others do not have public provision of childcare in their communities. And still others do not have the qualifications to get a job. This is an example of the material and contextual preconditions to agency, in whose absence there is no real exercise of agency, merely a simulacrum of choice (Nussbaum 2006). This adaptation may lead to an inequality trap, where women’s muted preferences affect their capacity to aspire (Appadurai 2004). In the long run, it reduces their agency because of a context that affects their ability to see the pathway to achieve their desired goals.
Creating and Enforcing Gender through Norms, Roles, and Beliefs So how can we understand gender constructions of individuals and the strong hold of social norms on our behaviors and beliefs? Social norms are difficult to measure. If they appear as clear and concrete directives for actions, deriving from a given society’s values, they are easily captured in laws and formal rules. If they refer to informal, implicit rules that govern what a person can and cannot do in the pursuit of daily life, they are more elusive (Fehr and Gachter 2000; Hechter and Opp 2001; Portes 2006). Regardless of their form, compliance with the norms—and sanctions for breaking them—are to be expected. On Norms and Agency • http://dx.doi.org/10.1596/978-0-8213-9862-3
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