Female teachers' experiences: Unraveling the nexus of gender violence, health, education, and cultural norms

Abstract

Despite evidence about the importance of education and its role in bridging the gender gap, attitudes and behaviors that devalue women based on gender persist, with female teachers continually being victimized by gender violence. The current study's objective is to describe the lived experiences of Kenyan women teachers and how gender intersects with their well-being, including health, education, and societal norms, using social scripting theory. The study stands out because in our academic literature, voices of women living in both urban and rural settings of Kenya are seldom acknowledged. Data were collected through two focus groups of 15 women. Focus group discussions were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and coded using thematic analysis. The findings were grouped into five primary categories of women's experiential living, that is, dowry and early marriage, husband's polygynous marriages, marital rape and family planning, and HIV. The paper concludes that entrenched structural inequality disadvantages women, creating a gender wealth and economic gap.

Keywords

• Social script
• Reproductive health
• Family planning
• Contraception use
• Marital rape