Negotiating gender norms in the context of equal access to education in north-western Tigray,Ethiopia

Girls in Tigray region in North Ethiopia have over the past decade started to outnumber boys up through primary and secondary education in terms of enrolment rates. But underage marriage still hampers rural girls’ pursuit of education. Left unchallenged by governmental efforts to address marriage of underage girls is the female virginity ideal and the burden of sexual morality which girls continue to shoulder, and that sustains the practice. It is also a fact that despite positive enrolment rates, girls score on average lower than boys on the national exams. This article explores whether the modesty that girls are socialised into through the virginity ideal in order to acquire respect in the community impinges on the assertive drive and energy necessary for educational success. This ethnographic study, which focused on gendered processes of social reproduction and change by utilising education as the site for investigation, is based on long-term involvement in the administrative district Asgede Tsimbla Wereda in north-western Tigray from 1993 to the present. What will be addressed here are gender norms that continue to be reproduced in spite of the significant changes in Ethiopia’s laws and policies to amend former gender injustice, and which have brought unprecedented numbers of Ethiopian girls into school.