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Community health workers (CHWs) are central to the global health response to crises like the AIDS epidemic. Yet community health work remains undervalued and undercompensated worldwide owing in large part to the gendered and racialized contexts of care work. This paper investigates the possibility of occupational security for CHWs by comparing two cases from South Africa's response to AIDS. The first draws on ethnographic research (2007–2009) in rural KwaZulu‐Natal province and documents the fraught formation of a union representing CHWs. The second examines legal action in the Free State province for a group of CHWs known as the Bophelo House 94, who were arrested and criminally charged in June 2014 after protesting their sudden dismissal by the government. This case comparison finds that collective action has thus far had limited effects on CHWs' position as a nascent occupation. The South African Ministry of Health has obstructed CHW professionalization, and non‐state actors' involvement has been a mixture of benefit and impediment: some social justice agencies have facilitated CHW advocacy, while many AIDS service organizations have cooperated with the state and exacerbated the precarity of CHWs' working conditions. However, the consolidation of CHW work roles—owing to advances in AIDS prevention and treatment—holds promise for future CHW collective organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using Stuart Hall's concept of articulation and the concrete with Bridget O'Laughlin's reminder of a focus on the struggles of living labour, this paper theorizes racial capitalism in South Africa from the concrete relations of retail labour in Johannesburg. The paper examines ways in which white working class women constituted retailing, struggling for their own claims in relation to gendered family and workplace orders, which in turn conditioned how black women organized when they entered front-line service jobs in the late 1960s, which then disrupted this order to explain a very different class politics and to constitute anew these meaningful spaces. These processes happened through multiple mediations. Retail capital not only contributed to economic expansion; labour relations in shops constituted specific affective spaces as meaningful terrains of collective belonging, projecting ideologies and explaining differentiated "subjects in struggle". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper engages issues of complicated femininity and the representation of such in South African telenovela Gomora. Set in South African township Alexandra, Gomora tells the story of contemporary life in post-apartheid South Africa, where people are forced to engage issues of poverty, inequality, racism, and more. In particular, the paper engages one of the main characters in the program, Nomasonto Mildred Molefe. Mam' Sonto is the matriarch of her family who is also the head of an established hijacking syndicate. Throughout the first season of this show, audiences are able to engage with a complicated woman who is good and bad, kind and cruel. Moving away from a moral reading of the character, this paper unpacks how the character comes to be and how she asserts her own power and agency in engaging a deeply racist and sexist society in order to survive and provide for her family. Engaging works of Pumla Gqola, Sisonke Msimang, Roxanne Gay, and more, the paper presents a reading of this character that enables a clear argument for the need for such depictions of complicated womanhood as part of pushing the reified boundaries of patriarchy that women are forced to exist within. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine ways in which a group of teenage fathers in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, talk about their involvement in becoming a teenage father. We draw from a qualitative research project based on five focus groups and 20 individual interviews with teenage fathers aged between 17 and 19 years of age. We argue that when teenage fathers talk about their experiences, they locate caring and traditional versions of masculinity in understanding their roles. These versions of masculinity are socially and culturally located which both expand and constrict teenage fatherhood and caring masculinities. We conclude with some implications for addressing teenage men in the construction of masculinities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The centring of Muslim women in Islam resides in an intertwining historico-politico -theological narrative of gender reform, first promulgated in a seventh century revelation of the Qur'an. Significantly, the gains derived by the women of Islam's first community, have become lost in the dominance of contemporary androcentric-patriarchal interpretations. The argument advanced by this paper is that Muslim educational institutions have a responsibility in (re)-scripting gender justice as an imperative of the scripture; and in establishing resonance between identities of faith and citizenship. I commence by looking at the disjuncture between what Islam says about gender equality, and how it unfolds under the predominant auspices of a patriarchal gaze. As an example of this disconnection, I focus on the trajectory of the 'women in mosques' campaigns in South Africa, spanning from an apartheid to a democratic context – noting that despite, or perhaps, because of far-reaching political change, the resistance encountered by Muslim women has remained the same. Thereafter, I turn my attention to an intertwining consideration: the responsibility of Muslim education in (re)-scripting gender justice as an imperative of the scripture; and the obligation of Muslim education in establishing resonance between identities of faith and citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Gender equality remains an outstanding global priority, more than 25 years after the landmark Beijing Platform for Action. The disconnect between global health policy intentions and implementation is shaped by several conceptual, pragmatic and political factors, both globally and in South Africa. Actor narratives and different framings of gender and gender equality are one part of the contested nature of gender policy processes and their implementation challenges. The main aim of this paper is to foreground the range of policy actors, describe their narratives and different framings of gender, as part exploring the social construction of gender in policy processes, using the Adolescent Youth Health Policy (AYHP) as a case study. Methods: A case study design was undertaken, with conceptual underpinnings combined from gender studies, sociology and health policy analysis. Through purposive sampling, a range of actors were selected, including AYHP authors from government and academia, members of the AYHP Advisory Panel, youth representatives from the National Department of Health Adolescent and Youth Advisory Panel, as well as adolescent and youth health and gender policy actors, in government, academia and civil society. Qualitative data was collected via in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 30 policy actors between 2019 and 2021. Thematic data analysis was used, as well as triangulation across both respondents, and the document analysis of the AYHP. Results: Despite gender power relations and more gender-transformative approaches being discussed during the policy making process, these were not reflected in the final policy. Interviews revealed an interrelated constellation of diverse and juxtaposed actor gender narratives, ranging from framing gender as equating girls and women, gender as inclusion, gender as instrumental, gender as women's rights and empowerment and gender as power relations. Some of these narrative framings were dominant in the policy making process and were consequently included in the final policy document, unlike other narratives. The way gender is framed in policy processes is shaped by actor narratives, and these diverse and contested discursive constructions were shaped by the dynamic interactions with the South Africa context, and processes of the Adolescent Youth Health Policy. These varied actor narratives were further contextualised in terms of reflections of what is needed going forward to advance gender equality in adolescent and youth health policy and programming. This includes prioritising gender and intersectionality on the national agenda, implementing more gender-transformative programmes, as well as having the commitments and capabilities to take the work forward. Conclusions: The constellation of actors' gender narratives reveals overlapping and contested framings of gender and what is required to advance gender equality. Understanding actor narratives in policy processes contributes to bridging the disconnect between policy commitments and reality in advancing the gender equality agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we show how male peer talk about menstruating women may be used to discursively bolster hegemonic masculinities and denigrate women. Focus group discussions among 37 young isiXhosa-speaking men from two South African schools were facilitated by two young men; statements garnered from a sexuality education class about menstruation conducted in the same schools were used as cues. Data were analyzed using discourse analysis. The interactive talk constructed a bifurcation: "disgusting" menstruating women versus "reasonable" non-menstruating women who abide by idealized feminine behavior and are available sexually. We argue that as the non-menstruating woman cyclically become the other (menstruating woman) in women of particular ages, the trace of disgust inhabits the signifier "woman" for these men. Menstruation also disrupted a core identity strategy of local hegemonic masculinities: virile (hetero)sexuality. Given this, discursive distancing of the self from the very topic of menstruation is necessary. Small moments of resistance to these constructions were quickly closed down, and caring masculinity emerged only in the context of negotiating sex during menstruation. Involving men in menstrual hygiene management programs may provide spaces for resistance to denigrating discourses about menstruation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is substantial evidence in the global literature that women have been disproportionately affected by the Covid-19 crisis and associated lockdowns. In this paper, we use five waves of the National Income Dynamics Study - Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (NIDS-CRAM) to track the gendered effects of the pandemic in South Africa during the first year of the crisis. We focus here on the impact in the labour market and on unpaid care work in the home. We find that, relative to men, women were more severely affected in both spheres, yet they benefited less from the government income support provided to unemployed and furloughed workers. The evidence from the NIDS-CRAM survey from the first year of the pandemic therefore suggests that gender inequality in South Africa has risen, undoing some of the gains of the last two decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twenty-five years into South Africa's constitutional democracy provides an opportunity to take stock of the social and structural determinants of adolescent health. Those born in democratic South Africa, commonly known as the 'Born Frees', are perceived to be able to realise equal rights and opportunities, yet many factors constrain their lives. In bringing together approaches to understanding context in health policy and systems research and the social determinants of health, the paper develops a conceptual framework to guide the narrative review examining the key contextual social and structural determinants of adolescent health in South Africa. Illustrative examples drawing from 65 papers from public health and the social sciences describe and link these determinants across micro, meso and macro levels of society, their global determinants, and their intersections with compounding axes of power and inequality.At a micro level individual adolescent sexual and gender identities are expressed through multiple and evolving forms, while they experience growing autonomy and agency, they do so within a broader context characterised by regressive social norms, gender inequality and other intersecting power relationships. At the meso level, organisational and sectoral determinants shape adolescents health and rights, both in being supportive, but they also replicate the biases and inequalities that characterise South African society. In addition, the macro level national and global determinants, such as the structural colonial and apartheid legacies, shape adolescents' health. Despite constitutional and other legislative rights, these determinants and compound economic, geographic, gender and other intersecting inequalities.A key finding is that current experiences and health of adolescents is shaped by past social and structural determinants and power relations, with apartheid inequalities still echoing in the lives of the adolescents, 25 years into democracy. More research and work is needed to provide insights into determinants of adolescent health beyond just the micro level, but also at the interrelated and dynamic meso and macro levels, nested in global determinants. The findings raise critical considerations and implications for understanding the social and structural determinants in the South African context and what this means for adolescent health in the SDG era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Symbolic violence is (re)produced within families at the nexus of blame and shame. This paper presents an understanding of symbolic violence that extends beyond processes of internalisation, in which shame is directed against the self, to questions of processes of reproduction within families, in which shame is externalised through blame. Drawing on mother-tongue life-history interviews with mothers and grandmothers in rural KwaZulu-Natal, the paper explores how this nexus of blame and shame is situated at the intersect of race and gender. It is bound by intergenerational poverty and educational exclusion that span the apartheid and post-apartheid eras in South Africa. Our understandings of gendered poverty thus need to attend to these intergenerational processes of shaming, in which pervasive neoliberal discourses around individual effort and success mask structural constraints, potentially damaging relationships within families and across social networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The South African National Housing Program has sought to address housing insecurity by subsidising millions of low-cost housing units. The policy uses a gender-sensitive approach, by mandating joint titling and prioritising women-headed households as subsidy recipients. This paper examines the extent to which the policy has succeeded at empowering women through housing ownership. The paper finds limited evidence on the policy's impact as a mechanism for women's empowerment. No significant change is detected in women's labour supply or well-being. Women who are co-owners appear to participate less in primary decision-making, but more so in joint decision-making. For women who are sole-owners however, the subsidy seems to increase primary decision-making and decrease joint decision-making. Moreover, the subsidy appears to decrease consensus within in the household about the identity of the decision-makers. Despite ambiguous results, the distribution of housing to women should not be abandoned and remains a pressing policy objective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is known about the general equilibrium impact COVID-19 induces on different gender groups. This paper addresses the problem of relatively few general equilibrium studies focusing on gender impacts of COVID-19. The analysis uses a gendered Computable General Equilibrium model linked to a microsimulation model that analyses a mild and severe scenario of the pandemic on economic and distributional outcomes for females. Irrespective of scenario, findings show that because women employment tend to have unskilled labour which is more concentrated in sectors that are hurt the most by COVID-19 response measures, they suffer disproportionately more from higher unemployment than their male counterparts. The poverty outcomes show worsened vulnerability for female-headed households given that, even prior to the pandemic, poverty was already higher amongst women. These simulated results are consistent with recently observed impacts and address research gaps important for well-designed public policies to reverse these trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: This paper reports HIV prevalence, incidence, progress towards the UNAIDS (90-90-90) targets, and HIV drug resistance among adolescents living with HIV in South Africa. We conducted secondary analyses using data extracted from the South African national HIV prevalence surveys (2005–2017). Analyses were stratified by sex and age (10–14 and 15–19-years), presenting weighted descriptive statistics, and realised totals. Results: HIV prevalence increased from 3.0% in 2012 to 3.7% in 2017, translating to 360 582 (95% CI 302 021-419 144) HIV positive adolescents in 2017. Female adolescents bear a disproportionate HIV burden of 5.6% prevalence versus 0.7% for males. HIV incidence remained relatively stable. For the UNAIDS 90-90-90 targets, approximately 62.3% of adolescents knew their HIV status, 65.4% of whom were on antiretroviral therapy, and of these 78.1% on antiretroviral therapy had attained viral load suppression. There are knowledge gaps pertaining to the magnitude of perinatal infections and postnatal infections, and socio-behavioural risk factors for HIV transmission among adolescents in South Africa. There is still a need for focussed interventions targeting adolescent (1) gender disparities in HIV risk (2) screening for HIV, (3) sustained access and adherence to antiretroviral therapy and (3) retention in care to maintain viral load suppression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study shows that occupations in South Africa are segregated and stratified by gender. While some women (mostly Black and "Coloured") overwhelmingly fill low-paying jobs, others (mostly White and Indian/Asian, but also Coloured) tend to fill higher-paying professional positions. This paper finds evidence of a long-term reduction in gender segregation and stratification, with women and men entering occupations previously dominated by the other gender, although this trend is sensitive to several data considerations. Most recent evidence, however, points to stagnation in this process. Distinct worker characteristics by gender – including education, location, or age – cannot explain the existing segregation or women's overrepresentation in low-paying jobs, compared with men's representation. They do partially explain the overrepresentation of women in some higher-paying positions and the declining stratification of the labor market by gender. Education is the primary driver for upward mobility for women and gender equality in the South African labor market. Note: This study follows the current South African government's usage of the racial category "Coloured," with the caveat that the term is not in acceptable use outside South Africa. HIGHLIGHTS Gendered occupations and pay gaps in South Africa have not been adequately studied. Black women suffer double labor segregation in South Africa, by gender and by race. Post-apartheid progress in reducing labor segregation has been faster by gender than by race. Improved education offers women a route to better-paid professional occupations Although women now access better jobs, managerial positions remain disproportionately male. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Reflecting global norms, South Africa is associated with high levels of cross-border and internal population mobility, yet migration-aware health system responses are lacking. Existing literature highlights three methodological challenges limiting the development of evidence-informed responses to migration and health: (1) lack of engagement with the process of migration; (2) exclusion of internal migrants; and (3) lack of methodologies that are able to capture 'real-time' data about health needs and healthcare seeking experiences over both time and place. In this paper, we reflect on a four-month pilot project which explored the use of WhatsApp Messenger - a popular mobile phone application used widely in sub-Saharan Africa - and assessed its feasibility as a research tool with migrant and mobile populations in order to inform a larger study that would address these challenges.Method: A four-month pilot was undertaken with eleven participants between October 2019 and January 2020. Using Survey Node, an online platform that allows for the automatic administration of surveys through WhatsApp, monthly surveys were administered. The GPS coordinates of participants were also obtained. Recruited through civil society partners in Gauteng, participants were over the age of 18, comfortable engaging in English, and owned WhatsApp compatible cell phones. Enrolment involved an administered survey and training participants in the study protocol. Participants received reimbursement for their travel costs and monthly cell phone data.Results: Out of a possible eighty eight survey and location responses, sixty one were received. In general, participants responded consistently to the monthly surveys and shared their location when prompted. Survey Node proved an efficient and effective way to administer surveys through WhatsApp. Location sharing via WhatsApp proved cumbersome and led to the development of a secure platform through which participants could share their location. Ethical concerns about data sharing over WhatsApp were addressed.Conclusions: The success of the pilot indicates that WhatsApp can be used as a tool for data collection with migrant and mobile populations, and has informed the finalisation of the main study. Key lessons learnt included the importance of research design and processes for participant enrolment, and ensuring that the ethical concerns associated with WhatsApp are addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industrialization and urbanization processes have challenged deeply held traditional gender norms and facilitated the emergence of modern ideologies in South Africa. This paper seeks to explore the gendered roles of family members on maternal and child nutrition and investigate indications of perceived change in related practices. A qualitative secondary analysis was conducted of data from nine focus group discussions (FGDs) held with men (n = 3) and women (n = 6) aged ≥18. Data from the FGD were coded and thematic analysis conducted. We found that elderly women seem to have a central advisory role with respect to maternal and child nutrition and that men and elderly women upheld patriarchal gender divisions of labour, which entrust mothers with the primarily responsibility for young children's nutrition. Young mothers relied on elderly women for provision of childcare and nutritious foods for children; however, they demonstrated some resistance to traditionally feminized forms of food preparation. We found that men's involvement in children's nutrition was limited, though they expressed a preference to be more involved in maternal and child nutrition and care practices. A gender transformative approach to policy development, which includes elderly women and men, has the potential to promote more gender‐equitable nutrition practices, increase young women's self‐efficacy and support them to overcome barriers that could be limiting their decision making power in achieving optimal nutrition for themselves and their children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Increasing feminization of medical professions is well-acknowledged. However, this does not always equate to equitable representation of women within medicine, regarding their socio-demographic indicators, regions, sectors and fields of practice. Thus, this paper quantifies the gap in supply of female medical doctors in relation to demand, towards reaching different gender equity scenarios.Methods: A retrospective review of the Health Professions Council of South Africa's (HPCSA) database on registered medical doctors (medical practitioners and medical specialists) from 2002 until 2019 was utilized as an indicator of supply. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize data, and inferential statistics (considering a significance level of 0.05) were utilized to determine the association between the number of male and female doctors, disaggregated by demographic variables. We forecasted future gaps of South African male and female doctors up to 2030, based on maintaining the current male-to-female ratio and attaining an equitable ratio of 1:1.Results: While the ratio of female doctors per 10 000 population has increased between 2000 and 2019, from 1.2 to 3.2, it remains substantially lower than the comparative rate for male doctors per 10 000 population which increased from 3.5 in 2000 to 4.7 in 2019. Men continue to dominate the medical profession in 2019, representing 59.4% (27,579) of medical doctors registered with the HPCSA with females representing 40.6% (18,841), resulting in a male-to-female ratio of 1:0.7. Female doctors from the Black population group have constantly grown in the medical workforce from 4.4% (2000), to 12.5% (2019). There would be a deficit of 2242 female doctors by 2030 to achieve a 1:1 ratio between male and female medical doctors. An independent-samples t-test revealed that there was a significant difference in the number of male and female doctors. The Kruskal-Wallis test indicated that there was a sustained significant difference in terms of the number of male and female doctors by population groups and geographical distribution.Conclusions: Based on the investigation, we propose that HRH planning incorporate forecasting methodologies towards reaching gender equity targets to inform planning for production of healthcare workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The HIV epidemic is strongly gendered. Women and girls are more likely to contract HIV for biological and social reasons in Sub-Saharan Africa and men living with HIV are more likely to be lost to follow-up and die on antiretroviral therapy (ART) than women. Care work is also gendered, with women shouldering the burden of HIV care-related work. This paper considers the potential of male delivered community health work to improve men's HIV-related health outcomes and shift gendered norms related to care work. It describes the experiences and perspectives of eight HIV community health workers and their clients from the Cape Town area, and reviews current evidence on male-focused HIV and sexual and reproductive health services, gender transformation and men and care. Findings suggest that meaningfully involving more men in HIV care work may be a way to shift damaging hegemonic masculine norms related to care and health, and that South Africa's roll-out of National Health Insurance could be an opportunity to do so. Barriers to engaging men in this feminised profession are also explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During a xenophobia and social cohesion research project conducted by the Safety and Violence Initiative (SaVI) of the University of Cape Town (UCT) and Freedom House USA, researchers found an overwhelming perception that foreign nationals were taking things that belong to South Africans. This perception was most prevalent in the male population, and antiforeigner resentment was mainly aimed toward male foreign nationals. This paper uses ethnographic research in the form of qualitative interviews from Motherwell and Makhanda in the Eastern Cape province to find out how constructions of hegemonic masculinities at the local level contribute to antiforeigner resentment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Intervention with Microfinance for AIDS and Gender Equity (IMAGE) programme has been scaled up to three provinces in South Africa. This paper explores associations between women's engagement in the intervention, intimate partner violence (IPV) and factors associated with IPV and partner abuse. We enrolled women receiving group-based microfinance loans plus gender training into the scaled-up IMAGE cohort study (n = 860). We present cross-sectional analysis on participants' characteristics and intervention engagement and use multivariate logistic regression to explore associations. 17% of women reported lifetime (95% CI 15 to 20%) and 7% past year (95% CI 5 to 9%) IPV, 9% past-year economic (95% CI 7 to 11%) and 11% past-year emotional (95% CI 9 to 14%) abuse. Women under 35 years had higher levels of IPV and emotional abuse. 53% of women attended all the trainings, 83% continuously borrowed and 98% agreed the training had a major impact on their life. Attendance was associated with improved partner relationships (χ2p < 0.001), but not lower IPV risk. Odds of past-year IPV decreased the more types of support (e.g. advice) women received from group members (aOR 0.27, p < 0.001 among those reporting all support versus none or some). A similar pattern was seen for economic, but not emotional, abuse. The scaled-up IMAGE intervention is widely acceptable and may support improvements in partner relationships, but younger women need to be targeted. Group support appears to be a potentially important component of the intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper demonstrates that internal migration may be contributing to rising non-communicable disease risk in low- and middle-income countries in gendered and geographically differentiated ways. With 2018 baseline data from the Migrant Health Follow-Up Study, we investigate the relationship between internal migration and elevated blood pressure (BP) among 2163 rural-origin men and women in South Africa, testing for sex differences. To examine the influence of place, we test whether the migration-BP relationship differs by migrants' destination locations, controlling for household composition, social support, prior migration, and housing quality. We find that migration is associated with elevated BP only among women, and that this association is greatest for migrants living in Tembisa township. Our research underscores that gender and migration are important social determinants of noncommunicable disease risk in low-resource, rapidly-urbanizing settings. • Gender plays an important role in structuring the NCD burden in LMICs. • Migration is associated with elevated blood pressure among women. • Elevations in blood pressure vary by migrants' urban destination locations. • Household headship mediates but does not eliminate the health penalty among women. • Migrant women's health may be especially sensitive to social and contextual factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Violence and crime in countries such as South Africa are shaped by deep socio-economic inequalities; however, the spatial designs of urban areas and housing also play a role, but often in differing ways. There is little qualitatively derived research published on the design realities of poor informal housing where the hyper-permeability of housing structures directly shapes residents' experiences of crime, often in gendered ways. This paper speaks to the wider literature on Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) and applauds its recognition of the role of wider social factors in shaping crime and prevention, arguing that socio-political factors are critical too in the South African case. However, this paper calls for a fuller analysis of the particular material and design realities of informal housing, realities that are ever-present across the global South, which in practice can undermine efforts towards target hardening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the context of sexuality education as an HIV prevention strategy, much attention has been given to what content should be taught and the effectiveness of that content in achieving desired goals. While some research has problematised how curricular content is understood or taken-up, what remains largely unquestioned is a pedagogical imaginary of knowledge as a fixed and stable object that can be transmitted from teacher to learner. This paper builds on feminist readings of pedagogy, and in particular the work of Elizabeth Ellsworth, to interrogate what might happen within sexuality education by thinking about knowledge as continually being made. Drawing on data from a year-long ethnographic research study conducted with loveLife, a national HIV prevention programme for young people in South Africa, the paper problematises the perceived boundaries of what is taught and explicitly engages the pedagogical approach as a constitutive part of what can/should/must be known as well as what kind of relation is offered to that knowledge. The question then is how sexuality education might be re-articulated to engage with ongoing and power-laden struggles within configurations of knowledge, and how a pedagogical approach might open those configurations to ways of knowing, and being known, that are more just for more people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes how the social relations of class, race, and gender present in the social formation of South Africa resulted in the constitution of a pigmentocratic system of social welfare. The study is qualitative and it's based on the theory of the consubstantiality of class, race, and gender social relations produced by South African critical sociology. For the survey of corpora, literature review and analysis of official documents were carried out. Documents from the last years of the colonial period up to the year 1996 were analyzed. The study identified that the segregation relations generated a comprehensive system of social welfare oriented towards the social empowerment and social protection of white families. Meanwhile, Blacks, Coloureds, and Asians have become increasingly deprived of rights. Even with the end of apartheid, the South African welfare system continues (re)producing pigmentocracy. It stems from the neoliberal conditions that led the transition to democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Any analysis of South African gendered performances, identities and inequalities confront past and present experiences of and struggles with race, colonialism, post-colonial development and sexuality. These tensions shape gendered geographical work, highlighting the importance of histories of race, class, and sexuality, as well as the ways in which gender itself can be approached as an analytical category and epistemic framing in South Africa. In this paper we focus on two avenues that have engaged scholars since the end of apartheid, namely: gender and development; and gender and geographies of sexualities. The former articulates the particular ways that the historical spatially exclusionary trajectory of the country has impacted especially on women and their ability to engage with state and national building projects post-apartheid. The latter explores how South African geographies (despite the country's progressive post-apartheid constitution with regard to LGBT rights) continue to reflect and (at times) enable spatial segregation and inequalities related to gender. A key strength of research in South African gender scholarship is that it complicates and challenges how we might approach gender and gender-based inequalities, and the diverse ways in which gender categories and framings can be imagined, deployed and troubled in post-colonial states and cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South African schools are tasked with providing sexuality education through the Life Orientation curriculum as a means of challenging continued high rates of HIV, unwanted pregnancy and gender-based violence. While in theory schools are well positioned to provide appropriate knowledge for reproductive health and navigating sexual challenges within a gender justice framework, research on sexuality education in South African schools indicates that this is not the reality in practice. This paper draws on a growing body of qualitative studies, with both educators and learners in South African schools, to understand the issues undermining the goal of a critical and social justice pedagogy of sexuality in Life Orientation classrooms. We argue that sexuality education has been deployed to regulate and discipline young sexualities, reinforce and perpetuate gender binarisms and heteronormativity, re-establish global northern family values of the nuclear family within a pro-family discourse, and represent continued assumptions of adult authority in a civilising mission over young people. We suggest that the failure to make critical use of Life Orientation is linked to the dominance of 'expert'-based didactic pedagogy, and argue the possibilities of sexuality education as a productive space for young people's active participation and agency in making meaning of gender and sexualities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: School dropouts are at heightened risk of tobacco use compared to in-school learners. School dropouts are described as those not currently enrolled in school for the academic year, have not completed their schooling, and are between 13 and 20 years old. This paper examines the relationship between reasons for leaving school and past month cigarette smoking, taking into account gender differences.Methods: Multiple logistic regression was used to analyse survey data (n = 4185). Geographical location was also incorporated into the analysis as effect moderators.Results: Although no significant main effects between reasons for leaving school and tobacco use were found, results showed that those who leave school early smoke more. When examining interaction effects with gender, leaving school due to 'not being able to pay for school fees' was significantly associated with smoking, but only among girls residing in urban areas (OR = 0.327, p = .023).Conclusions: More research is needed to understand why learners leave school and their subsequent tobacco use. This knowledge will help researchers identify and target those students that are at risk for dropping out of school and using tobacco. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • The Constitution in South Africa ensures poverty is a central concern in public policy. • In a contested policy environment, cash transfers are likely to thrive. • Gender is a good lens to establish whether social and economic policy are integrated and coherent. • Social compacts between the state, labour and capital are struggling, and new models are emerging. • The role of the South African mining sector in social development is changing, but still disputed. Abstract This paper reflects on the trajectory of social policy in South Africa (1994–2017) and on which policy levers present opportunities for cross-country policy transfer, in order to address current social development challenges. The current direction of social policy is described as the result of a compromise between two distinct alternative paradigms whereby the statist transformative and market-oriented residual paradigms are held in tension. On the one hand, a transformative policy perspective draws on human rights and views redistribution as a necessary premise for and means of economic growth. On the other hand in the residual framework, redistribution is envisaged as a secondary function that is dependent on economic growth. Several instances are outlined in which this tension is evident, together with the implications for social policy across the policy cycle: in legislation; in social compact formation; in the selection of social programmes and in their implementation; in gender-mainstreaming and in the engagement of the private sector in social policy. Overall we highlight areas of hybrid policy overlap between these bifurcated ideological, political and institutional frameworks, for example around social transfers and corporate social investment. We also describe instances of conflicting and at times unexpected outcomes, such as the National Health Insurance. Several factors are concluded to be of relevance to the Global South more generally: the importance of constitutionally-legislated rights as a basis for advancing socio-economic claims; the emergence of new social compacts in contexts where there are significant levels of informal employment and unemployment and lastly, the influence of fiscal and institutional capability factors in shaping the direction of social policy and its implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Released in 2013, Nakhane Touré’s debut album,Brave Confusion, is innovative in grappling with questions of race, sexuality and religion. Enveloped in a beguiling honesty and replete with layers of complexity, this album captures the arduous journey towards the acceptation of a gay identity. Drawing on the theoretical work proposed by Judith Butler in her essay, “Critically queer”, this paper argues that music offers a space that allows Touré to negotiate his gay identity. Centring on the concepts of identity construction, race and spirituality, this paper explores how through broaching gay sexuality in his music, Touré shows that gender and sexual identity are neither fixed nor predetermined phenomena. Actively performing his own sexual and gender identity allows him to construct his being particularly within a sociocultural space that appears intolerant of the sexual orientation and gender identity of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Violence, and particularly gender-based violence (GBV), has become an increasingly serious problem in the democratic era in South Africa. While numerous suggestions have been offered for why this is the case, a growing body of literature links the perpetration of violence and GBV to the expectations of men's prescribed gender roles, or their masculinities. In response to this, some organisations have begun working specifically with men as a violence prevention mechanism, through the use of masculinitiesfocused interventions. This paper uses a South African example as a case study, looking primarily at how men who participate in the intervention understand masculinities and violence, and the impact that the intervention has on this understanding. Results suggest that violence has become largely normalised in the country, but that the intervention can play a role in beginning to problematise that normalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Candice Breitz's recorded performances and negotiations of the representation of women and gender dynamics in her video art, looking in particular at her work Extra (2011). Showing that Breitz has addressed the representation of women throughout her oeuvre, this article argues that the works Factum and Extra mark a turning point in Breitz's practice due to their collaborative nature. In Extra, Breitz intervenes in scenes of Generations, the most-watched soap opera in South Africa at the time. Using her body as a tool of metalepsis, Breitz disrupts the seamless fictional narratives, questioning gender-related power structures and modes of identity representation displayed in the show. Findings from studies about gender-stereotyping in Generations raise further concerns about the responsibility of the mass media and artists in relation to representation. This article concludes that Breitz succeeds in making her spectators critically examine their own viewing habits by combining performance and video art as two relatively new and highly politically charged artistic media, especially in the context of South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In South African cities, millions of men and women living informally are being rehoused through the state-directed provision of formal houses to poor beneficiaries. This intervention is reshaping their lives, and innovatively targets beneficiaries with dependents, where over half are women. Aiming to redress the historical context of gendered inequality in housing ownership and house the very poor, these policy and implementation changes necessarily impact on men in terms of their power, resources and employment but in complex ways including positive and negative. The home remains significant for many men’s desires for authority and identity. Using the lens of masculinity, this paper considers the ways in which men are experiencing this housing intervention, revealing a complex mix of outcomes in terms of their sense of identity, their relationships and their financial pressures and income generation. It draws on empirical work in South Africa to illuminate the importance of focusing on men in relation to housing and offers key questions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Combination HIV prevention is being widely promoted by funders. This strategy aims to offer HIV prevention choices that can be selected and combined to decrease HIV risk in ways that fit with each individual’s situation. Treatment as prevention and pre-exposure prophylaxis are two new evidence-based strategies to decrease HIV incidence, both of which require high HIV testing rates to be effective, and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) has set a goal of 90% of HIV-positive individuals knowing their status by 2030. However, HIV testing rates in many countries remain suboptimal. Just as no single HIV prevention method is ideal for all people in all situations, no single HIV testing modality is likely to be acceptable to everyone. By offering HIV testing choices, we may be able to increase testing rates. However, many low-resourced countries have been slow to take up new HIV testing options such as the self-administered at-home oral HIV test that is currently available in the United States. In this paper, we present findings from 20 in-depth interviews, conducted in 2010, documenting opinions about self-administered at-home oral HIV testing, a testing modality still largely unavailable in Africa. Participants were clients of three primary healthcare clinics in South Africa. Self-testing was seen as enabling confidentiality/privacy, saving time, and facilitating testing together with partners. However, concerns were raised about psychological distress when testing at home without a counsellor. Some suggested this concern could be minimised by having experienced clinic-based HIV testing and counselling before getting self-testing kits for home use. Thus, self-administered HIV testing could be an option added to the current testing modalities to address some important barriers to testing. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Introduction Power imbalances within sexual relationships have significant implications for HIV prevention in sub-Saharan Africa. Little is known about how power influences the quality of a relationship, which could be an important pathway leading to healthy behavior around HIV/AIDS. Methods This paper uses data from 448 heterosexual couples (896 individuals) in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa who completed baseline surveys from 2012 to 2014 as part of a couples-based HIV intervention trial. Using an actor-partner interdependence perspective, we assessed: (1) how both partners' perceptions of power influences their own (i.e., actor effect) and their partner's reports of relationship quality (i.e., partner effect); and (2) whether these associations differed by gender. We examined three constructs related to power (female power, male equitable gender norms, and shared power) and four domains of relationship quality (intimacy, trust, mutually constructive communication, and conflict). Results For actor effects, shared power was strongly and consistently associated with higher relationship quality across all four domains. The effect of shared power on trust, mutually constructive communication, and conflict were stronger for men than women. The findings for female power and male equitable gender norms were more mixed. Female power was positively associated with women's reports of trust and mutually constructive communication, but negatively associated with intimacy. Male equitable gender norms were positively associated with men's reports of mutually constructive communication. For partner effects, male equitable gender norms were positively associated with women's reports of intimacy and negatively associated with women's reports of conflict. Conclusions Research and health interventions aiming to improving HIV-related behaviors should consider sources of shared power within couples and potential leverage points for empowerment at the couple level. Efforts solely focused on empowering women should also take the dyadic environment and men's perspectives into account to ensure positive relationship outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the obligation to appoint women as judges originates from the constitutional injunction to consider 'the need for the judiciary to reflect broadly the racial and gender composition of South Africa,' gender transformation has lagged behind racial transformation of the bench. During the past four years, however, the lack of women appointees has become a more contested issue. This paper investigates the relationship between gender transformation and racial transformation of the judiciary in public debates around the judiciary. Despite the universally voiced concern about the lack of women judges, the most frequent and acrimonious public disputes continue to centre upon racial issues. The imperative to appoint women judges is often articulated as an alternative to appointing black judges, although the statistics show that the greatest need is for the appointment of black African women. Debates on gender transformation of the bench also remain premised on a formal notion of equality that focuses on numbers of women judges rather than on appointing male or female judges who are committed to challenging gender oppression. This means that the entrenched professional cultures, norms and structures that benefit men are left unchallenged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most widely read South African tabloid, theDaily Sun, covered the “Soweto gang rape” in 2012. These acts were recorded by the perpetrators on mobile phones and “went viral” as the media continuously noted. We draw on the concept of provider love that informs relations of intimacy in certain South African spaces, central to which is its materiality and the assumption that a “real” man is able to command material resources, a prerequisite for having both a girlfriend and sex. For working class and township youth these possibilities are constrained and their sense of being left behind is lived in gendered ways with violent masculinities becoming a marker of tough sexual masculinity. Informed by Foucauldian understandings of discourse, the paper undertakes a close reading of this coverage, including the reporting, editorials, and letters. If those arrested for rape are constituted as monstrous, the analysis indicates how the responses are similarly vengeful. These responses deny the forms of masculinity produced within these marginalised spaces and foreclose on other possibilities for understanding these violent acts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While much research has documented unsatisfactory sexual and reproductive health (SRH) awareness among young people in South Africa, understanding of gender differences in access to and evaluation of SRH information is limited. This paper concerned itself with men and women's informal sources and content of SRH, and gendered divergences around accessibility, evaluation, and impact of such information. Fifty sexual history narrative interviews and twenty-five narrative interviews with women were conducted with participants purposively sampled from a range of ages, cultural and racial backgrounds, and in urban and rural sites across five provinces in South Africa. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. While young women were more likely to learn about SRH information from family members, they also reported greater regulation concerning their sexuality. This could enhance stigma surrounding women's sexuality and hinder open communication. Men predominantly learned about sex through pornography and peers, which was reported to encourage sexual prowess to the neglect of practising safer sex. Lack of adequate SRH instruction for young people as revealed through the narratives had significant and often negative implications for men and women's early safer sex behaviours. In response to these insights, recommendations are offered to strengthen informal sources of SRH awareness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 confers equality on all South African citizens regardless of race and gender. It has been reported that, under apartheid, gender inequality was a way of life and even social liberation movements observed it. Education is not exempt from gender inequality; the Department of Education in 2003 produced the Gender Equality In Education policy. The then Minister of Education committed to the policy and adopted the mainstreaming of gender and the training of education administrators in the implementation of gender equity programmes. Despite these efforts, male dominance continues in areas such as educational leadership. This paper employs a case study approach to investigate the role of institutional culture in undermining the constitutional aim of attaining gender equality. Using feminist critical policy analysis theory to study the mentoring and management style employed in a South African rural high school, the article concludes that despite the policy imperatives, the conservative and patriarchal tendencies within educational leadership undermine the attainment of gender equality. To attain success, implementation of gender policies needs to be strictly monitored. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper offers theoretical and substantive contributions to migration-health scholarship by employing rich panel data with biomarkers to estimate the effect of migration and urban living on non-communicable disease risk in South Africa. Internal migration and urbanization continue to be pervasive demographic and socio-economic phenomena that structure daily life in low– and middle– income countries (LMICs). Yet, how these processes affect illness and disease in low-resource settings is still not well understood. Five waves (2008–2017) of South Africa's National Income Dynamics Study data and fixed-effects modeling are used to estimate the relationship between urban residence, migration, and health. Results indicate that the migration-health relationship differs by gender: urban living for men is associated with lower blood pressure. While urban residence appears to convey a health advantage when men reside in urban compared with rural places, there is no evidence of an urban health advantage among women. Migration does, however, negatively affect women's health through higher blood pressure (BP). These findings highlight the need for further interrogation of the ways in which processes and health consequences of migration and urban living are structured by gender in LMICs. Given the importance of urbanization and the prevalence of migration in LMICs, the gendered determinants of blood pressure may be key to understanding rising hypertension incidence in contexts like South Africa. • Urban residence and migration are distinct even if related phenomena. • Migration has gendered implications for non-communicable disease risk. • Urban residence is associated with lower blood pressure for migrant men. • Geographic mobility is associated with higher blood pressure for women. • Various spatial patterns of migration might have differential health consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Inequalities in mental health are a notable and well documented policy concern in many countries, including South Africa. Individuals' perception of their position in the social hierarchy is strongly and negatively related to their mental health, whilst the global burden of poor mental health is greater amongst women. This paper offers a first glimpse of the factors that shape gender-based health inequalities across subjective social status. Methods: This study employs the cross-sectional 2014 South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS). The prevalence of depressive symptoms is measured with the aid of the CES-D 8-item scale, with analyses disaggregated by gender. Concentration indices (CI) are used to measure inequalities in depressive symptoms related to subjective social status. The study applies the Wagstaff decomposition to determine the factors that contribute to these gender-based inequalities. Results: More than 26% of the study sample had depressive symptoms (95% CI 24.92–28.07). The prevalence of depressive symptoms is significantly more pronounced in females (28.46% versus 24.38%; p = 0.011). The concentration index for depressive symptoms is − 0.276 (95% CI -0.341 – − 0.211), showing large inequalities across subjective social status. The observed SSS-related inequality in depressive symptoms however is higher for males (CI = -0.304) when compared to females (CI = -0.240) (p = 0.056). The most important contributor to SSS-related inequalities in depressive symptoms, at 61%, is subjective social status itself (contributing 82% in females versus 44% in males). Other variables that make large contributions to the inequalities in depressive symptoms at 11% each are race (contributing 2% in females versus 25% in males) and childhood conflict (contributing 17% in females versus 4% in males). Conclusion: Policy makers should target a reduction in the positive contribution of SSS to depression via the implementation of programmes that improve social welfare. Given the much greater contribution to inequalities among females, these policies should target women. Policies that protect children and especially the girl child from conflict can also be useful in reducing inequalities in depression related to subjective social status during adulthood. Overall, there is need for a multi-sectoral approach to address these inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]