Search

High rates of gender violence in South Africa, including those in higher education institutions, have prompted considerable research into understanding its causes. Studies focusing on gender and sexual risk at universities have found alcohol to be a significant contributor to gender violence. In this study, I analyse alcohol-related gender violence against female drinkers from the perspectives of male students. In-depth individual interviews were conducted with ten undergraduate male students at a university residence. Findings reveal that alcohol is seen as a masculine privilege. Male students explain that men use alcohol to give them the courage to enact hegemonic heterosexual masculinities. While they see alcohol as a tool to enhance men's capacity to control women, they simultaneously attribute blame to alcohol for men's loss of control over their behaviour. Alcohol is also exploited as currency to coerce women into submission to sexual favours. When male students blame alcohol for any deviant behaviour, men's culpability in the violation of female students remains hidden. Violence prevention efforts in educational contexts must address the ways in which alcohol shapes students' experience of gender, sexuality and violence.

This article focuses on the ways in which teenage mothers develop strategies of resilience within the context of poverty in a rural setting in South Africa. It draws on conceptualizations t...

The chapter examines sexual harassment from the perspectives and experiences of a group of 15 male and female preservice teachers at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The main methods of data generation were focus-group discussions, individual semi-structured interviews, and participant observation. The findings show that traditional gender norms, underpinned by heteronormativity, served to normalise violence and legitimise male power and female subordination at the university. The pressure for men to distance from homosexuality, and any association with the feminine, produces an environment where men, too, are sexually objectified, but this objectification is dismissed and concealed within heteronormative performances. While some respondents expressed an awareness of how power and domination lead to the sexual harassment of female students and certain male students, they seldom challenged it. We conclude that teacher education has a crucial role to play in facilitating deeper understandings and critical reflection amongst students about the social processes that constitute sexual harassment. Preservice teachers are in a unique position to rework these into their own daily lives and thought processes and actively facilitate similar reflections and processes with their future learners.

This chapter examines how alcohol, fear, and female dress are constructed as risk factors in female university students’ accounts of violence on campus. A racially diverse group of 10 female students who resided at the on-campus residence at the University of KwaZulu-Natal participated in the qualitative study on which this chapter draws. The aim of the chapter is to investigate female students’ vulnerability to gender violence and how this is interlinked with substance use, fear and the discursive production of female dress. Participants argued that female students’ “deviation” from traditional gendered scripts increased their vulnerability. They saw women’s acquiescence within hetero-patriarchal settings not as an indication that their femininity was passively constructed, but that it was a protective strategy enabling them to mediate and reduce the risk of violence. Our participants also demonstrated agency through actively proposing ways of raising consciousness about gender violence in the student body, and suggesting roles that men could play in the prevention of violence. The chapter concludes with recommendations for working with female students’ agentic capacities to challenge violence.

Social networking sites (SNSs) provide opportunities for teenage girls to explore sexuality. This exploration can be exciting and invoke pleasure but it can also be damaging as the online encounters can produce unequal gender relations. This chapter examines teenage girls’ experiences of slut-shaming on Facebook. It draws on findings from a qualitative study with 30 teenage girls. Data was generated using a blended approach, which comprised a mix of face-to-face interviews and a virtual group discussion on a closed Facebook group. The findings show that girls’ sexualized engagement with Facebook challenges normative expectations of femininity. In exploring sexuality online girls seek popularity, status and privilege as a validation of heterosexual femininity. However, gendered oppression is manifest when they are criticised and shamed for their sexy portrayals resulting in online gendered attacks. Such inequalities show continuities between online and offline spaces. We argue that girls’ experiences of slut-shaming, is produced by the gender dynamics of the peer group and aggravated by broader gendered norms which position girls’ online sexualized activities as open to shaming. Schools have a key role to play in addressing girls’ subordination in online activities.

In this introduction we set the scene for the chapters that follow and draw attention to the need for addressing the field of sexuality and gender violence-based studies in educational settings by focusing on young person-centred studies within local settings in South Africa. Our starting point is that questions about violence in education are inextricably bound to gender and sexuality, and no engagement with violence can exclude it. The chapter provides a strong basis for understanding the key themes in the book, articulated through a “three-ply yarn approach.” This approach rejects pathologising the violent behaviour of individuals and instead draws attention to gender, sexuality, and the cultural dimensions of violence as it is experienced in educational spaces in South Africa. Through the triple-ply approach the chapter provides a context for understanding masculinities, heterosexuality, gender, race, culture, poverty, class, and structural inequalities. It introduces the key themes in the chapters that comprise the book and argues that changes to dominant ideologies around gender and sexuality are required, as is the need to focus on poverty, culture, race, and class inequalities in order to address gender violence in educational spaces in the country.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a serious global issue that mainly affects women. Power and control are among the driving forces behind IPV, and are endorsed within conservative gender regimes t...

Marriage continues to be a fundamental institution through which sexual and social relations are forged. However, little is known of the ways in which young men think about negotiating their personal and relational identities within the formalised institution of marriage. This article focuses on African male university students. Theories of ‘power’ and ‘performativity’ are used to understand their projections of masculinity within (future) marriage. The young men’s gender role expectations, and the ways in which they plan to conform to and/or attempt to disrupt traditional patriarchal messages in their marriage goals, are explored. Gender power inequities in a patriarchal South Africa in which politically and culturally perpetuated social inequality are embedded, have been implicated in the high degree of interpersonal violence. From the projected roles as husbands and fathers that these men hold, many reject violence as a show of power. This is a positive indication of men questioning and reworki...

Sexual assault is a serious and urgent concern at university campuses. The fear of sexual assault is widespread and expressed almost exclusively by women. This briefing explores female students’ fears about sexual violence and the spaces within which they feel vulnerable while at university, with a view to planning effective interventions to address their fears. This was done by working with them towards understanding the nature and extent of sexual violence, how to deal with it when it occurs and, most importantly, how to prevent it. The analysis draws on the responses of 133 female students at a university in KwaZulu-Natal, who participated in an online survey titled ‘Safer learning environments’, which comprised of closed- and open-ended questions. The findings reveal that the fear of sexual assault is widespread, especially amongst women living in university residences. The people most feared are outsiders and male students. Given the powerful ways in which female students’ activities on campu...

Objectives: In the context of women’s vulnerability to sexual violence, HIV infection and unintended pregnancy in South Africa, this paper explores the ways in which teenage mothers who are in school reflect on their experiences of pregnancy and motherhood. We attempt to understand how teenage mothers reflect on their experiences within the cultural and institutionalised discourses in which they are embedded, and how their reflections lead to critical assessment and questioning of the dominant discourses of femininity that compromise women’s sexual health. Methods: This paper draws on findings from a study with a selected group of teenage mothers in a Durban school. Main data collection strategies comprised individual and group interviews. Participants’ reflections on their experiences of teenage motherhood are discussed in relation to three themes: ‘regret and pride’, ‘contesting female victimhood’ and ‘lessons learned’. Results: Many teenage mothers indicate that being pregnant and having a child while still at school provides an impetus to take control of their lives. The data suggest that study participants use their reflections to construct a version of femininity that enables them to express themselves in ways that demonstrate greater agency. Conclusion: The greater agency expressed by teenage mothers has implications for their future sexual health and prevention of subsequent unintended pregnancies. In particular, it opens up possibilities for engaging them as peers in health education focusing on prevention of unintended pregnancy, by drawing on useful insights from lessons learned.

Marriage remains an important future goal for most young adults and continues to be a significant personal, social, cultural and economic way in which they accord value to their lives. Given the dominant culture of heterosexuality within which marriage is located, this Article seeks to understand the meanings that young men and women attach to love and marriage, and how these meanings interface with dominant patriarchal ideals. The data interrogated in this Article draws on a larger study that aimed to explore young adults' understandings of and preparedness for marriage, carried out with a diverse group comprising 208 fourth year students (127 females and 81 males) at a South African university. The findings indicate that the majority of the young men and women see marriage as an important future goal and that love continues to emerge as a gendered discourse, with young women mainly presenting idealised notions of love and romance and young men mainly presenting emotionally detached (practical) ...

An interdisciplinary team of researchers sought ways of encouraging discussion, reflexivity and generative thinking around HIV & AIDS integration in higher education curricula. We facilitated conversations in three higher education research settings through the medium of a digital animation based on a storyboard prepared in response to experiences of university educators who integrate HIV & AIDS-related issues in their teaching. We screened the digital animation and encouraged responses from the three audiences, then used these responses together with our own deliberations to explore the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of making public our work. Using digital animation for generative action, we found that the four conceptual and methodological features of generative processes (playfulness, passion, perspicacity and participation) that we identified through previous research may be extended to a fifth – that of publicising research, or ‘going public’, which played an important role in our innovative and responsive use of digital animation.