Domestic conflict as a possible outcome of gender role change: Experiences and perceptions from rural and urban Ghana

The patriarchal power system that dominates most societies creates an inherent conflict. With the recent gender-transformative drives however, the capacity of most women has been strengthened, through access to education and paid work, enabling them to have access to and control over certain resources and power they were previously denied. This new resource and power redistribution within the household is often assumed to have the potential to create an avenue to either increase or reduce domestic conflicts. More importantly, domestic conflicts are generated within the household when a change in the function of one spouse does not lead to a corresponding change in the role of the other. Using the mixed research method approach, 400 questionnaires were administered to households in rural and urban areas in the Ashanti region of Ghana in addition to in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. This paper examined domestic conflict as a possible outcome of gender role changes in rural and urban communities in Ghana. Particularly, the paper focused on how resource and power redistribution facilitate or reduce domestic conflicts. It was found that, when both partners assist each other in their traditionally assigned roles, domestic conflicts were greatly reduced in both rural and urban spaces. However, threatened superiority of men, male insecurity, and perceived female arrogance were found to be the main challenges to gender role change.