Intimate Partner Violence and Double Consciousness : A Case Study on Female Perceptions of IPV in Babati, Tanzania

Sammanfattning: Demographic and Health Surveys from 2015-16 as well as previous research suggest that a majority of women in Tanzania justify intimate partner violence (IPV) and that such violence is very prevalent. Semi-structured interviews with women in rural and urban Babati, Tanzania, were conducted in February-March 2016, in which women gave conditional answers to questions on justification of IPV. The aim of this thesis is thus to offer a theoretical explanation for the ambivalence informants expressed regarding IPV. To do so, the theory of double consciousness, which has not been applied to gender issues before, was applied in a qualitative content analysis of informants’ statements. This thesis will argue that double consciousness offers a plausible explanation for the conditional answers given by informants, since they reflected a two-ness among women, in the form of non-justification of IPV, but ideas about women’s obligations that are incompatible with ideals of gender equality. Women are thus aware of the gender oppression, while they still, to some extent, adapt to it.