Women, Myths, and Misinformation: Understanding Gendered Vaccine Hesitancy in Conservative Societies

Abstract

Vaccine hesitancy is a complex social phenomenon shaped by cultural beliefs, gender roles, misinformation, and structural inequalities, all of which are particularly pronounced in conservative societies. This review focuses on how women’s vaccine perceptions and decisions are influenced by gender norms, cultural myths, and patriarchal control over health choices, with a particular emphasis on South Asia and the Muslim world. In these contexts, women’s health-seeking behaviors are closely monitored by male family members, shaping access to vaccines, particularly for women and children. Women often rely on informal sources of health information family elders, community networks, religious figures, and social media where myths and misinformation circulate freely. Cultural myths portraying vaccines as causes of infertility, violations of modesty, or containing religiously prohibited (haram) substances disproportionately affect women, who are culturally positioned as guardians of family health and morality. This paper examines how vaccine hesitancy among women is shaped by the intersection of cultural narratives, religious interpretations, and digital misinformation. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork, including interviews with rural women, lady health workers, midwives, and community elders, the paper highlights how gendered fears and cultural anxieties especially about reproductive health are mobilized to discourage vaccine uptake. For example, polio and COVID-19 vaccines were targeted by conspiracies linking them to infertility and Western population control agendas narratives that gained traction among women responsible for family planning and childbearing. The paper further explores how gendered health communication gaps, including low female literacy rates, lack of female-specific health education, and exclusion from community decision-making, exacerbate susceptibility to myths and misinformation. Cultural taboos surrounding reproductive health also deny women access to the appropriate information. To combat gendered vaccine hesitancy, the chapter advocates for culturally appropriate, gender-sensitive communication strategies such as training female health workers as trustworthy sources of information, mobilizing religious leaders to debunk myths, and advocating for women's health literacy through culturally acceptable channels such as mothers' groups, women's religious circles, and women-targeted internet campaigns. Ultimately, combating vaccine hesitancy from a gender perspective not only boosts vaccine uptake but also acts towards contributing to enhanced women's empowerment through enhanced health autonomy and decision-making capacity in conservative societies.