Young Men with Traditional Gender Role Ideologies are More Likely to Have Unsafe Sex With Female Partners and Inflict Violence Upon Them

NEW YORK CITY, Aug. 29???Young heterosexual men with traditional masculine gender role ideologies???for example, a belief that husbands should not have to do housework, or that women should not perform a ???man???s??? job???are much more likely to have unsafe sex with female partners and inflict violence upon them, according to a study in the current issue of the Journal of Urban Health: Bulletin of The New York Academy of Medicine.

Researchers from the Boston University and Harvard University Schools of Public Health found such men twice as likely to have perpetrated violence on their main sexual partner within the past year. These men were also twice as likely to have had unprotected vaginal sex with their main partners, heightening the women???s risk of HIV infection.

Results of the study indicate that helping young men to reshape their gender role beliefs may be a useful way to curb intimate partner violence and reduce the spread of HIV to women, for whom sex with men is the primary infection route. ???Prevention efforts for young men are lacking,??? said Victoria Frye, MPH, DrPH, of the Academy???s Center for Urban Epidemiologic Studies. Frye co-organized the Journal of Urban Health???s special issue on Men???s Role in the Heterosexual HIV Epidemic. ???These data suggest a concrete area where interventions and programs for young men might focus: their beliefs about and attitudes towards women and gender roles.???

Lead author M. Christina Santana, MPH, of the Boston University School of Public Health, and colleagues designed a brief survey on sexual risk and intimate partner violence (IPV), and invited 18- to 35-year-olds at a Boston community health center to complete it between April 2004 and February 2005. More than 300 men completed the self-administered survey. They discussed the extent of their sexual risk behaviors, such as unprotected sex, forced unprotected sex, and multiple sex partners; as well as of IPV, which involves perpetrating physical or sexual violence upon their female partner.

???It is important to recognize the gender and relationship ideologies young men hold,??? Santana said. ???When these ideologies are accepting of male hypersexuality and female submission to male partners, young men???s related risky behaviors will follow.???

Participants in the study, entitled ???Masculine Gender Roles Associated with Increased Sexual Risk and Intimate Partner Violence Perpetration among Young Adult Men,??? were predominantly low-income Hispanics (75 percent) and African-Americans (22 percent). More than half (55 percent) were not born in the continental United States. Sixty-five percent had been in the intimate relationship for more than one year.

The Journal of Urban Health is published bi-monthly by the Academy and is edited by David Vlahov, PhD, director of the Academy???s Center for Urban Epidemiologic Studies. Founded in 1847, The New York Academy of Medicine is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit institution whose mission is to enhance the health of the public. The Academy is a leading center for urban health policy and action working to enhance the health of people living in cities worldwide through research, education, advocacy, and prevention. Visit us online at www.nyam.org.

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Posted on August 29, 2006

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