Role of Religiosity in Gender Role Beliefs of Keralite Youngsters

Abstract

With the 21st century, society is changing significantly from the age-old stereotypical beliefs and practices. Traditional gender role beliefs have always dominated the Indian culture which provided strength to the patriarchal ideals of the country. With the rise of feminism and equality movements, there has been an outburst of discourses on sexuality, sexual orientation, gender, and gender roles. Socialization and social interactionism played the major supportive roles in carrying forward the stereotypical gender role beliefs across generations. The religiosity of people is also expected to play a major role in this and thereby the present study tried to analyse the relationship between religiosity and gender role beliefs of male and female youngsters of Kerala. The quantitative study was conducted on 140 youngsters which included a total of 69 females and 71 males. The study used Religious and Spirituality Scale for Youth questionnaire and Gender Role Belief Scale questionnaire in order to measure the variables of the study. The collected data was coded and scored before analysing them statistically using SPSS version 25. From the results of the study it was concluded that higher the religiosity of the individual, higher the possibility that they abide traditional gender role beliefs irrespective of gender differences. The limitations and future recommendations of the study have also been discussed in the article.