In a study designed to examine the concept of unwanted pregnancies
as espoused by Jamaican men, the respondents’ attitude
to the news that they were about to become fathers was measured
against a number of socio-economic variables. The regression
revealed that union status at the time was most strongly correlated
with a favourable reaction; that men who were married were
five times as likely as those in common-law and non-residential
unions to have been happy at the news. However, nearly 80
percent of the children of the respondents had been born outside
legally sanctioned unions.
Social psychologists recognize ambivalence and inconsistency
among the bases of attitudes and have found that a critical
issue is the function and psychological needs that the attitudes
serve. In some instances, attitudes are expressions of important
values and these values are moulded by interactions with particular
geographical settings, that is, by the socio-physical space
occupied by men and women. A large proportion of Jamaican
males face stresses resulting from poverty, high levels of
unemployment, low educational attainment and the lack of skills.
In urban areas, in particular, the need to survive pits men
against women and produce gender interactions that are fraught
with mistrust and tension. These conditions have implications
for the manner in which male identity is expressed. Exaggerated
risk behaviour and exaggerated maleness can be seen as efforts
to be ‘heard’ above the background environmental
‘noise’. The behaviours emerge in response to
conditions under which people live.
Drawing upon the results of qualitative and quantitative
surveys, this paper argues that the lack of economic
opportunity, peer pressure, cultural expectations, and
gendered noises all help to define the context in which
children are conceived. The paper argues for the existence
of several inconsistencies between attitudes and behaviours
and that the decisions made are quite natural given
the conditions of the risk environment.
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