Efforts to restrict women’s sexual behavior date back centuries in virtually every region of the world. Now, the end of Roe v. Wade in the United States has returned such limitations on women to the contemporary spotlight.
Yet, the desire to restrict women appears to be about more than religion, education, or economic development, finds Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Anke Becker in a recent working paper called “On the Economic Origins of Restricting Women’s Promiscuity.”
Her research investigates the origin of customs and norms, such as restrictions on women’s freedom of mobility, female genital cutting, and anti-abortion attitudes.
Will women stray when men are away?
Becker, who works at the intersection of anthropology and economics, finds evidence for the theory that such customs and were designed to keep women from straying. Her findings show that they originated in societies where men were away from home for extended periods to work and found it difficult to monitor the behavior of women, for example in societies that relied more on pastoralism rather than agriculture.
In pre-industrial times, pastoralism was characterized by frequent (and often long) periods when husbands were absent from the home, making it difficult for them to monitor women’s behavior. Men were away for various reasons: taking animals out to pasture, protecting them against predators and thieves, or going to faraway markets to trade for agricultural products. This absence offered strong incentives to impose restrictions on women’s promiscuity.
“The gender gaps in labor market participation, micro-entrepreneurship, or business ownership more generally seem to also partly reflect this social norm against women.”
Becker uses historical data from the Ethnographic Atlas, an anthropological database of more than 1,200 pre-industrial societies, and links these historic conditions to modern data, such as the Standard Demographic and Health Surveys, which offer large-scale household survey data worldwide. These surveys elicit information about whether a woman has undergone infibulation, an invasive form of genital cutting that makes intercourse painful, and about how restricted she is in her freedom of movement. Becker also draws data from the World Values Survey, which examines values, beliefs, and moral attitudes in more than 100 countries, including stances on abortion.
Women in pastoral societies face more restrictions
All in all, Becker studied survey data from 100 countries covering more than 1.3 million people to see how historical conditions affect women’s freedoms today. Some of her key findings:
- Among 205,000 people, respondents with greater pastoral ancestry exhibited stronger anti-abortion attitudes.
- A larger sample of almost 700,000 women showed that women from historically pastoral ethnic groups faced more mobility restrictions.
- Among almost 100,000 women in Africa, those who descend from more pastoral societies are more likely to have undergone infibulation, a particularly invasive form of female genital cutting.
How restrictions on women are playing out
Becker believes that her research has implications for women participating in the workforce. While some of those views may seem outdated, social pressure to keep women faithful still has lingering effects—with legal repercussions, such as the recent fall of Roe, and economic consequences. These views could shape beliefs about what women are permitted to achieve, holding them back in the workforce, Becker says. She currently investigates whether patterns in the workforce can be better understood in the light of her findings on restricting women’s promiscuity.
Becker’s research shows that countries that historically relied more on pastoralism than agriculture have wider gender gaps in the workforce. For example, such countries have a smaller share of businesses owned by women.
“Restricting women’s access to this important health care seems to be a means, at least partly, to disincentivize them from being promiscuous.”
“The gender gaps in labor market participation, micro-entrepreneurship, or business ownership more generally seem to also partly reflect this social norm against women, a social norm that deems it inappropriate for women to interact with men outside of the family,” she says. Such norms, her research suggests, have very deep roots.
Her research has poignancy also in light of the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the Roe v. Wade ruling, which prevented abortion bans. It suggests that anti-abortion attitudes share the same functional origin with the custom of restricting women in their freedom of mobility and with particularly invasive forms of female genital cutting. Limits on women’s access to abortion—forcing them to continue an unwanted pregnancy—make extramarital sex riskier, she notes.
“Restricting women’s access to this important health care seems to be a means, at least partly, to disincentivize them from being promiscuous, to make promiscuity riskier and more costly for women,” she says. “It seems to be about more than just a moral question of when life begins.”
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Feedback or ideas to share? Email the Working Knowledge team at hbswk@hbs.edu.
Image: Unsplash/Les Anderson