Gender Power Dynamics and Sexual Coercion Among Female African American Adolescents

Purpose. Sexual discourse often validates the unequal distribution of sexual power between men and women, as well as the subordination of women’s needs. Sexual coercion refers to the act of making another person engage in sexual activity despite his or her unwillingness to do so. For female adolescents, the pressure to engage in sex can be seen as a reflection of gender power imbalances. The purpose of this project was to analyze the transcripts of narratives from South Side Stories, a collection of digital stories from African American youth, ages 13-24 living on the South Side of Chicago on themes related to gender power dynamics and sexual coercion.

Methods. South Side Stories includes a total of 46 narratives: 25 digital stories and an additional 21 scripts without digital stories. Of these narratives, 28 were written by African American adolescent females, and five of these covered topics related to gender and sexuality. The author engaged in participatory research by collaborating in the coding process with a young woman, who had participated in South Side Stories. Using grounded theory, researchers engaged in open coding to generate a codebook with the following themes: acceptance, broken expectations, conceptions about relationships, first love, peer pressure, plans for the future, and sexual coercion. Subsequently, narratives were axially coded using NVivo 10. Through discussion, consensus was reached between the two coders on the final selective codes for the narratives.

Results. Regarding the theme of relationships, female participants wrote about tolerating a male partner’s infidelity, being with a male who was excessively jealous, and being involved with someone who exerted emotional control over them. Regarding the theme of sexual coercion, female adolescents discussed being pressured to engage in sex for the first time, and the ongoing pressure to continue to have sex regularly. One story specifically recounts the experience of rape. Young women also voiced the fear of losing their partners if they refused to engage in sexual contact. In such pressured contexts, women may view sex as a bargaining tool to satiate a partner, whose affections they fear they may lose.

Implications for practice. Given that sexual coercion has such a critical influence on later sexual behavior, addressing these issues with adolescents is of critical importance. By better understanding the social context of relationships for female African American adolescents, we will be able to better design sexual and reproductive health interventions for young women on the South Side of Chicago. In order for African American adolescents to be engaged in gender equitable relationships, both masculine and feminine expectations of sexuality need to be more closely investigated. In heterosexual relationships, adolescent females should be able to be assertive and autonomous in their sexual experiences and adolescent males should not be primed to believe that access to sex is their right. Adolescents should be supported to believe that the decision to engage in sexual activity should not be influenced by coercive statements or actions, nor by pressure to fulfill gendered expectations of sexual roles.