4 - Gender justice?

Summary

The focus on justice is developed further in Chapter 4 through consideration of contrasting judgments in magistrates’ courts and an analysis of the form of gender complementarity to which men and women aspire in their marital relationships. Key to the analysis is the idea that complementary gender roles are not defined in advance. In other words, complementarity is not a static model but rather a working moral principle that can be applied differently in different circumstances. By providing an ethnographic illustration of contrary approaches to gender justice, this chapter underlines the degree to which gender norms, custom, rights, and justice are contested in contemporary Malawi.