S O C Nce N D S T R Ourn Arts And Social Sciences Journal .

Citation: Ali TS, Karamali N, Malik O (2014) Women’s Perception and Attitude towards Male Dominancy and Controlling Behaviors. Arts Social Sci JS1: 004. doi: 10.4172/2151-6200.S1-004Page 2 of 7in Karachi, Pakistan. Karachi is a division within the Sindh provincewith about 16 million inhabitants and 18 sub divided towns [9]. In thisstudy, 759 married women aged 25–60 years, living in two of the townswith approximately 720,000 inhabitants, were included. About 93.7%of the people responded to the study. However, due to close mindedattitudes concerning women’s movements and decision-making inPakistani society [3,6,10-12]. It was necessary to involve a healthorganization that maintained a surveillance system for data collectionand involve health workers in the project who are known in thecommunity. When contacting government health facilities we foundout that they lacked resources, therefore we were advised to contactthe Health and Nutrition Development Society (HANDS). HANDS isa nongovernmental organization that works strongly with governmenthealth services, providing several services in the community like basichealth facilities, primary education, income generation and institutionsto empower communities in the lower and middle income areas ofKarachi [3]. All the staff working in HANDS’ are trained and responsibleto facilitate the local health care services at the primary care level i.e.maternal and child health, immunization, oral rehydration therapy,control of diarrheal diseases, nutrition counseling, growth monitoring,minor illness treatment etc. with the established field sites to follow upon these activities [3]. Community midwives who were trained for 18months gave their services for general antenatal and post natal care,assistance during delivery and family planning counseling and services[3]. They were also indulged in the data collection procedure for thisstudy.HANDS have established 10 health field sites in its two major townsi.e. Gadap and Bin Qasim, where it manages all the health facilities. Sixof these health field sites were randomly chosen for this study in orderto collect data. The residence of these towns belongs to different ethnicgroups and lower and middle socioeconomic strata [3]. Therefore,data collected from these two towns can be generalized to these twosocioeconomic groups of Karachi [13,14].Data collectionThe questionnaire developed by the World Health Organizationfor public health research, which emphasized on interpersonal violencewas used for this study [3]. This questionnaire was named “Multicountry study on Women’s Health and Life Experiences.” It was crossculturally appropriate and was developed for use in different cultures.This questionnaire has been used for more than 15 countries so far. Theabuse questions were developed on the basis of other abuse assessmentscales like Index of Spouse Abuse and the Conflict Tactics scales andthey have recognized reliability and construct validity [15,16].This instrument was translated into the National language ofPakistan (Urdu) which is mostly spoken and understood by all peopleliving in Pakistan. Based on our cultural context, few items wereexcluded from this instrument, such as women’s alcohol consumptionpatterns, their role as heads of the households and multiple sexpartners of their husbands [3]. Both face and content validity of thequestionnaire was tested by the experts, including a psychologist, anepidemiologist, a sociologist, a community-based medical doctor, thefield supervisor, a public health specialist, and the data collectors. Thefinalized version of the questionnaire contained items related to thesociodemographic and psychosocial factors which includes attitudesand perceptions of women, reproductive and general health, variousforms of violence, and its frequency, and any health effects pertainingto the violent behavior, attitudes to gender issues, health care seekingArts Social Sci Jbehavior and women’s perceptions towards men’s controllingbehaviors and coping strategies [3].The data was collected by community mid wives coordinatedby HANDS during the period of March-August 2008, either at therespondent’s home or at a health facility, depending on the respondents’comfort level. Data was collected through multistage random samplingtechnique in the selected field sites [3]. In each field site, and via thesurveillance system set up by the community midwives, the requirednumber of households was randomly selected (through computergenerated numbers using the software of Epi InfoTM)from the listof all household in which women of the required age resided. At theinitial stage 10 women refused to participate in the interview but theywere replaced by a neighbouring woman of the same age. There was adropout rate of 6.3% (41 women in the middle of the study who were notreplaced). Only one woman was selected from each household basedon the criteria, either the youngest or the oldest woman was chosen ifthere was more than one eligible woman in a household. From eachhousehold, information related to the husbands was obtained on thebasis of the current husband of the woman.Sample size calculationSample size calculation was done based on estimated exposurerates in Karachi, Pakistan. Using the Epi-info version of sample sizecalculation at the confidence level of 95% with error bound of 5%, asample of 644 married women from all three field sites were required.We aimed for 800 participants but 810 were approached. At last 759women were included in the study.Data collectors’ trainingUnder the collaboration of the Women Lawyers’ Association (anon-government organization that supports women’s legal rights) andHANDS, six week training was conducted for community midwivesby the main author of the study and a psychologist. This trainingprovide all the justification behind this study, causes and prevalenceof IPV, vulnerability of women, ethical considerations, interpersonalcommunication and interviewing skills. Two interviewers quit duringtraining period and only four data collectors continued till the end ofthe study.All the interviews were conducted in the local language, Urdu and itwas ensured that privacy while conducting interviews was maintainedby taking interviews at the respondent’s home preferably or at a nearbyschool or HANDS facility otherwise. To the participants’ householdmembers, this study was presented as a women’s health study and nosensitive questions were asked till the conversation was safe from beingoverheard by any one. Internal rigor of the study was ensured and dataquality was maintained through re-interviewing 5% of the participantsrandomly where only minor differences were detected in the responsesgiven.Statistical analysisSPSS (v 10.0; SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL) was used for all statisticalanalysis. In the bi-variant and multi-variant analyses, 95% confidenceinterval (CI) was used to figure out the association between women’sperception and male controlling behaviour. After putting bi-variantanalyses into the multivariate model, final models were displayed.Results are displayed in table format in this paper.Ethical considerationsThe ethical principles of violence research stated by the WorldViolence Against Immigrant Women: A Global Perspective Throughout the Life-CycleISSN: 2151-6200 ASSJ, an open access journal

Citation: Ali TS, Karamali N, Malik O (2014) Women’s Perception and Attitude towards Male Dominancy and Controlling Behaviors. Arts Social Sci JS1: 004. doi: 10.4172/2151-6200.S1-004Page 3 of 7Health Organization were followed in this study [3]. During the researchphase, all participants were informed that their participation is entirelyvoluntary and they have complete freedom to participate or to withdrawfrom the study whenever they wish to do so without any consequences.Before starting interviews, data collectors secured all the writtenconsents from all the respondents. Support was also provided to thosewomen who requested for it on revealing their experience of violenceby Pakistan women lawyers association and social security departmentfor women, which is located in the Sindh secretariat. The femalelawyers and social workers counselled the clients. They also offeredfurther support for divorce cases and provided income generationschemes to the victims of violence. Ethical Review Committee of AgaKhan University in Karachi, Pakistan granted the approval on ethicaland human subject considerations. The collaboration with the HANDSorganization secured the data collection process, as unfamiliar womenwho introduced themselves as data collectors would hardly havebeen accepted by the families. Moreover, unfamiliar data collectorsmight have been at personal risk by the households. The women whoparticipated in the study were provided with full support by the mentalhealth care professionals and free consultation services by lawyers. Inaddition, lawyers also gave awareness sessions to the women regardingtheir rights.CharacteristicsResultsAge group (years)Socio-demographic dataThe study depicted the socio demographic status of the participants.Table 1 shows that majority of the women were housewives (85.5%)and about half of them had no formal education (47.6%). Of the malespouses, 36.2% had no formal schooling and 65.9% were unskilledworkers. Of the families, 22.4% had more than four children, and65.0% of the households contained five or more members.Educationn 759%25-3544758.936-452283046-608411.1No formal education36147.6Primary school (less than 6 years)17523.1Secondary school (6-8 years)11014.5Secondary school (9-10 years)8711.5Intermediate (11-12 years)172.2Higher education (more than 13 5Unskilled workers182.4Skilled workers516.7Low and medium level .9No formal education27536.2Primary school (less than 6 1.7RespondentsAge group (years)EducationNoOccupationHusbands/partnersLower secondary school (6-8 years)Higher secondary school (9-10 years)Intermediate (11-12 years)Perceptions on male dominancy, autonomy and reasons forphysical violenceHigher education (more than 13 years)Table 2 and 3, reflects the overall opinions of the women in relationto male dominancy, autonomy and controlling behavior of their malepartners.EmployedMajority of the women shared their opinion that family should beruled by the husbands (96.7%), where literate women were more in thisopinion (52%). Another important finding women reported that wifeshould always provide sex to husband as per his needs (88.9%) whereliterate women reported more as comparative to illiterate women(52.9%), though the p-value is not significantly different (P-value:0.521). Forty nine percentage of the women thought that even if theirhusbands mistreat them; none of the family members should intervene,where illiterate thought more than literate with a P-value of 0.004.It shows that few women were members of women organizations(n 96), of these 6 were the members of religious organization, onewas in a health group, and one belonged to economic and saving club.Among those who were the members of the organization 66.7% (n 64)of women were literate with the P-value of 0.003, showing that literatewomen are more participating in any organization. Out of 96 womenwho are members of the group, 74.2% (n 23) reported that they wererestricted to participate in the group or organization. Mainly wererestricted by their husbands (n 27, 87%).In terms of engagement in other relations, 39.7% women reportedthat women could choose her friends without husband’s interference,where illiterate women have this opinion more than the illiterateArts Social Sci JOccupationUnemployed131.7Unskilled workers50065.9Skilled workers14519.1Low and medium level professions10113.3Low24231.9Medium low17222.7Medium high20226.6High14318.8Family factorsSocioeconomic statusNumber of Children0 children415.41-2 children24932.83-4 children22129.15-6 children17022.4Greater than & equal to 7 children7810.31-4 family members266355-17 family members49365Number of family membersTable 1: Socio-demographic and Psychosocial factors of respondents and theirhusbands (n 759).Violence Against Immigrant Women: A Global Perspective Throughout the Life-CycleISSN: 2151-6200 ASSJ, an open access journal

Citation: Ali TS, Karamali N, Malik O (2014) Women’s Perception and Attitude towards Male Dominancy and Controlling Behaviors. Arts Social Sci JS1: 004. doi: 10.4172/2151-6200.S1-004Page 4 of 7S #.CharacteristicsFrequency (n)%literacyChi square P-valueLiterate (%) Illiterate (%)Male dominancy1.Family should be ruled by husband yes73496.7385(52.5)349(47.5)2.Its wife to always perform sex with husband yes67588.9357(52.9)318(47.1)0.047*0.5213.If husband mistreats his wife, others should not interfere yes37249.0176(47.3)196(52.7)0.004*Autonomy1.If women is the member of any group or organization9612.664 (66.7)32(33.3)0.003*2.If women could choose her friends29739.1118(39.7)179(60.3)0.000*3.If husband restricted wife of seeing your friends9612.646(47.9)50(52.1)0.6184.If women could refuse to have sex with her husband22729.9130(57.3)97(42.7)0.222Table 2: Women’s opinion about gender relationship (male dominancy and autonomy) n 759- general perception. (*P-value significant at 5% alpha level).CharacteristicsN%literacyChi square p- valueLiterate (%)Illiterate (%)In your opinion, does a man have a good reason to hit his wife IF?1.2.3.4.5.6.She does not complete her household work to his 25.0)45(75.0)0.0001*She disobeys 5.0)0.0001*She asks him whether he has other 22.7)68(77.3)0.0001*He suspects that she is .1)46(71.9)0.0001*She refuses to have sexual relations with .0)10.11(100.0)0(0.0)0.3190Without any reasonYes-In your opinion can a wife refuse to have sex with her husband

culture the acceptance of male dominancy exists or not. The aim of this paper was to assess the proportions of women’s perceptions and attitudes towards male dominancy and partner controlling behaviours in urban Pakistan, as part of a larger project on violence against women. Methods Study design and population