Abstract
Nigeria and Norway are different in cultural ideologies, gender egalitarianism, human development, justice administration, but the similarities in high prevalence of intimate partner sexual violence (IPSV) in both countries appear puzzling. Thus, the broader aims of this research are to contribute to cross-cultural knowledge regarding the “Nordic paradox”, a term describing the contradictory existence of high levels of gender equality and intimate partner violence against women in Scandinavian countries like Norway, and to provide the first empirical evidence on Nigeria’s #ArewaMetoo movement which only emerged in 2019. The main questions asked are: How do known or suspected predictors of IPSV differ between Norway and Nigeria and between men and women? How do attitudes towards the Metoo movement differ between the two countries and genders? How do reporting attitudes of IPSV cases differ between countries and gender?. An exploratory sequential mixed-methods design was employed to investigate this. In Study 1, a total of 9 Nigerian and Norwegian experts were interviewed and findings indicated that regardless of country level differences, beliefs about IPSV, rape myths, hostile sexism, relational models and socio-economic factors intersect to produce similar negative outcomes for IPSV victims in both countries. In Study 2, a two-way ANOVA was used to compare attitudes, beliefs, and ideologies relevant for IPSV through a convenience sample of Norwegian and Nigerian men and women (N=545). Unexpectedly, the results indicated there was interaction effects for all measures, showing that Nigerian and Norwegian women were more similar to each other than Nigerian and Norwegian men were. The findings, implications and limitations are discussed. Author: Joyce Anthonia Ojokojo, Primary Supervisor: Beate Seibt, Secondary: Anca Minescu