5.2 CHILDREN’S CONSTRUCTION OF GENDER
5.2.2 Construction of masculinities within the school context
150 socialised into these constraining patterns of gender behaviour. They also learn things from their schooling experiences which, regrettably, included performing gender violently.
Meyer (2009), writing from a feminist standpoint, shares these sentiments, maintaining that the patriarchal values embodied in the school curriculum disadvantage girls and increase the risk of being infected with HIV/ AIDS. In concurrence with this view, I assert that in South Africa boys are also disadvantaged as they are pressured by the dominant discourses of masculinities to be dominant. The ideology of gender construction seems to be embedded in the school curriculum especially through text books, the teaching strategies (pedagogy) adopted and teachers‟ attitudes and expectations of children‟s‟ gender roles. The most profound effects of gender construction are evident in the discourses and practices that girls are exposed to at school. These discourses determine girls‟ appearance and the ways they walk, talk, sit and behave. These practices also reinforce the societal expectation of who is a girl.
151 SA-SAMS programme, which was used to capture school information including the parents‟
employment status). The extract below illustrates:
Kaise: What happened to your leg?
Vusi: [rubbing his head] Last week Friday we were cleaning our classroom, Sir asked each boy to lift up a desk and put it at the back of the class since girls were ready to wash the floor. It was heavy but I did not want to embarrass myself in front of girls. We as boys have to prove that we are strong and can carry heavy things. So I also lifted, I don‟t know what happened but I heard the noise of girls laughing and shouting (walala, cheese boy) as the desk slipped and hit my toes so bad.
Kaise: I am sorry, you are injured.
Vusi: Yes, teachers are putting pressure on us to do things that we do not like, but because we are boys we have to do them, a man has to do what he has to do (smiling).
Nkanyiso: mam, this is nothing compared to what my father makes me do at home. You know I carry three cases of beer alone; he insists I carry them so that I can be a man.
That‟s what I want to be a man so I carry the cases as heavy as they are.
The data above illustrate that boys are constructed to prove the core values of masculinities that boys were physically strong and tough. Being a boy means that boys always have to endure the pressure of having to prove core values of masculinities, for example, physical perseverance and strength even in veritable circumstances where they cannot maintain this. This was exemplified when Vusi put pressure on himself in conformity to the dominant discourses of masculinity.
Such is the cost of being a boy and it is unfair. Yet it was clear from Vusi‟s reflection that it was not within his capacity to continue carry a desk as he could not handle it. Instead, he feared being
152 teased and laughed at by other children and that resulted in hurting himself badly. Laughing at boys who were not tough and strong is a means through which children police and regulate hegemonic masculinities. This shows the dynamic part that primary school children take in policing and punishing those gender performances that do not naturally imply hegemonic masculinities (Epstein and Telford, 2003).
Parents and teachers mainly uphold stereotypic characteristics of gender and thus formal schooling becomes an environment of gender inequality constructions. As a result, boys have little alternative but to conform to dominant values of masculinities during formal schooling processes. Even if gender-based violence tends to militate against girls, boys too bring about gigantic physical and emotional costs in the process. Some boys narrated stories that reflected on their embarrassment when they could not uphold the dominant values of masculinities. Being boys means that boys always have to endure the pressure of having to prove core values of masculinities, for example, physical continuance and durability even in circumstances where they truly cannot maintain this.
The data below demonstrates one occasion that was used by Sizwe to downgrade girls; further evidence of this was found in document analysis of the classroom duty roster which assigned boys only to carry desks.
153 Picture 2
Kaise: What is happening in this picture?
Sizwe: (Laughing) in this photo madam, you can see two boys are carrying a desk.
Mcedisi could not carry a desk because he is useless and soft, Andile had to help him to move the desk and even a girl beat him.
Kaise: What do you mean if you say he is useless and soft?
Sizwe: I mean he is weak and cannot do anything that boy‟s do just like girls.
154 Mcedisi (boy, 13 years old, Isibaya Primary): Not all boys are strong.
This finding shows how boys are constructed to fit into the prescribed category of masculinities as Sizwe and Mcedisi lifted up the desks as they competed with each other. It further revealed how Sipho tried to show his power through undermining girls. Thorne (1993) calls this boundary work; Sizwe validated his strong identity in opposition to girls who he views as weak. He expressed to Mcedisi the awfulness that even a girl can do it and beat you. This execution was an endeavour to re-establish Sizwe's strength over girls which was achieved to demonstrate Mcedisi's powerlessness to perform to the desire. The dread for Sizwe and Mcedisi was that if a boy could not lift up the work area he resembles a girl. Along these lines to Sizwe to be a real men implied having the capacity to lift up the work area or generally confront the danger of being poked and saw as a subordinate. This demonstrates the pressure under which boys distort their personalities. For this situation Sizwe's put-down of Mcedisi was joined by chuckling.
Giggling is utilized as a methodology that is utilised to show control chains of importance. Boys are subjected to the pressures of hegemonic examples of conforming in various ways and they battle in the constitution of their gendered personality.
Critical men‟s studies provide a critique which explains this form of gendering. These studies have criticised constructions of masculinity as a unitary gendered quality which all boys possess (Connell 1995; Kimmel 2010; Morrell 1998). The authors have brought up issues which advance the majority of masculinities, and have contended that gender power relations do not simply work amongst girls and boys but additionally amongst boys (Cameron, 2004).
155 5.3 SPACES AND PLACES OF CHILDREN’S EXPERIENCES OF GENDER
In this section I discuss the findings of this study that denote the spaces and places of gender within the school context. The study identified spaces and places that girls and boys occupied within the schools as the zones of gender construction, in other words, the places that girls and boys occupied that shaped their gender identity. The findings of this study point to three categories of these spaces and places that I name the gender neutral zone, gender zone and the gender secretive zone. Firstly, I discuss the findings in the gender neutral zone, the computer room. Secondly, I present the findings in the gender zone, the principal‟s office, assembly area, classroom, and the playground. Lastly I illustrate the findings in the secretive zone that is the toilets and the bush. The sizes of these spaces and places are linked to power, for example, occupying the bigger spaces means more power and then occupying the lesser spaces means being subordinated.