Gender Power Differences Between Parents and High-Risk Sexual Behavior by Their Children: AIDS/STD Risk Factors Extend to a Prior Generation

Objectives: To assess intergenerational linkages between gender power differences, family violence, sexuality, and high-risk sexual behavior. Design: A national survey of Barbados, West Indies, carried out in 1990, coupled with data collected by participant-observation during 28 months of field research. Participants: Numerical analyses based on data from 407 heterosexual men and women aged 20–45 selected randomly from all socioeconomic strata of the national population of Barbados. Main Outcome Measures: Sexual precociousness measured as the number of years of sexual activity prior to age 20, sexual mobility prior to age 20 and during three succeeding 5-year age periods (20–24, 25–29, and 30–34), and a history of sexually transmitted disease (STD). Results: Historical constraints on job opportunities established gender power differentials that subjected Barbadian women and their children to high levels of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. Children who grew up in these exploitative environments started sexual activity early and, in adolescence, established a pattern of high sexual mobility which continued through their early 30s. Their activities created a self-perception of “promiscuity,” a view of sexuality that declares some positions and activities as respectable and some not, men who demand specialized sexual services and women who choose to meet this demand, and men who don't use condoms and spread STDs. Conclusions: Gender power differentials may create a distinctive syndrome of social and health pathologies encompassing physical, emotional, and sexual abuse of women and children and, in the next generation, high-risk sexual behavior.