“Girls need to behave like girls you know”: the complexities of applying a gender justice goal within sexuality education in South African schools

Abstract

Sexuality education, as a component within the Life Orientation (LO) programme in South African schools, is intended to provide young people with knowledge and skills to make informed choices about their sexuality, their own health and that of others. Key to the programme are outcomes relating to power, power relations and gender. In this paper, we apply a critical gender lens to explore the ways in which the teaching of sexuality education engages with larger goals of gender justice. The paper draws from a number of ethnographic studies conducted at 12 South African schools. We focus here on the data collected from focus group discussions with learners, and semi-structured interviews with individual learners, principals and Life Orientation (LO) teachers. The paper highlights the complexities of having gender justice as a central goal of LO sexuality education. Teaching sexuality education is reported to contradict dominant community values and norms. Although some principals and school authorities support gender equity and problematize hegemonic masculinities, learners experience sexuality education as upholding normative gender roles and male power, rather than challenging it. Teachers rely heavily on cautionary messages that put more responsibility for reproductive health on female learners, and use didactic, authoritative pedagogical techniques, which do not acknowledge young people's experience nor facilitate their sexual agency. These complexities need to be foregrounded and worked with systematically if the goal of gender justice within LO is to be realised.

“Girls Have More Challenges; They Need to Be Locked Up”: A Qualitative Study of Gender Norms and the Sexuality of Young Adolescents in Uganda

“…On the other hand, boys typically perform duties largely outside the home and are not very restricted in their movements. This finding is similar to that of Ngabaza [ 40 ] who found that boys and girls are socialised to perform different roles, have different expectations from parents, aunties and the wider communities. The differences exhibited in their aspirations like the values girls attach to motherhood, marriage, care giving and admiration for formal-sector jobs like nursing and teaching are a significant part of long-term gender ideals [ 14 ].…”

“…Various aunties play a complementary role by ensuring that girls become well-versed in the socially “appropriate” feminine behaviours and roles. These include the “proper” ways of how a good girl should sit, prepare food, conduct herself, respect elders and so on [ 40 ]. On the other hand, boys typically perform duties largely outside the home and are not very restricted in their movements.…”

“…However, explicitly during adolescence, the world expands for boys by allowing them to enjoy privileges reserved for men; while girls endure new restrictions earmarked for women [ 6 ]. The norms that dictate girls to behave like girls [ 8 ], and conceptions of female sexuality as passive, devoid of desire, and subordinate to male needs or desires [ 9 ] make it difficult for women to negotiate safe sex [ 10 ].…”

‘Troubling’ Politics of Research on Young Sexual Practices in South African Contexts

“…Similarly, a growing body of research on sexuality education in South African schools, has increasingly illuminated the way in which HIV and GBV have been deployed towards governmentality over young people with respect gender, sexuality and dominant moralities (arguably shaped by northern, western, middle class framings) (for examples, Bhana, Crewe and Aggleton, 2019; Shefer, Macleod and Baxen, 2015). The reproduction and rationalisation of gender binarisms are shown to be reinforced through the dominant narrative of danger, disease and damage, in which young women in particular are set up as solely responsible for their own and their male partners' well-being (Macleod, Moodley and Saville-Young, 2015;Ngabaza, Shefer and Macleod, 2016), and for ensuring the performance of 'respectable femininity' (Van Wyk, 2015). Notwithstanding the critique of the stereotypic picture of women as victims, the opposite research inclination is equally a problem.…”

Activist performance and performative activism towards intersectional gender and sexual justice in contemporary South Africa

“…Similarly, research on sexuality education at school foregrounds the complex conditions that undermine an LGBTIQ+ affirmative context in schools, and sexuality education is shown to be a site of heteronormative regulation and discipline rather than a space for facilitating freedom and diversity (e.g. Francis, 2017; Macleod, 2009; Ngabaza et al, 2016). Studies in schools provide qualitative evidence of the silencing and marginalization of learners with non-conforming desires and practices (Bhana, 2014a, 2014b; Francis, 2012; Msibi, 2012; Mthatyana and Vincent, 2015; Ngabaza et al, 2016).…”