THEORETICAL AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK:FEMINIST THEORIES
4.2. DISCUSSION OF RELEVANT CONCEPTS
Sex is broadly defined as a biological construct which refers to differences in bodies;
that is, biological and physiological differences between male and female. Such differences include hormones, genitalia, facial hair and breasts, to mention a few.However,sex also refers to sexual activity, lust, intercourse and arousal as in “to
95 have sex” (Ratele, 2011; De la Rey, 1992). Most societies use the concept of sex that refers to biological and physiological differences between male and female to categorise infants as male (boy) or female (girl), and except a few individuals (for example, hermaphrodites), most people are born as either male or female according to this categorisation. In other words, the two categories are socially constructed based on the biological and physiological nature of a person. Once categorised, from infant stage people are then socialised to think, act and behave in ways that meet their particular given sex category. The secondary construct that becomes imposed over the ‘primary’
natural distinction is gender. Based on this secondary construct of gender, the two male / female genders would receive differential treatment from society. For example, sexism refers to the cultural, institutional and individual set of beliefs and practices that privilege men, subordinate women, and denigrate values and practices associated with women (Msibi, 2012).
Gender refers to socially and culturally constructed (Butler, 1999, p.11) attributes and opportunities that are associated with being female and male, and the relationships between men and women (or boys and girls), as well as the relationships between women and those between men. Such attributes, opportunities and relationships are time- and context-specific, and are not innate as people learn these through socialisation processes. In other words, people are not innately gendered, and Simone de Beauvoir (cited in Butler, 1999, p.12) reiterates that one is not born a woman, but rather becomes one.This makes the gender of a person changeable and not fixed.
While gender is associated with being male and female, it means far more than just differences between male and female, because gender relations include both difference and dichotomy, as well as many other patterns (Connell, 2002, p.9).
Connell (2002, p.10) defines gender as “the structure of social relations that centres on the reproductive arena,and the set of practices (governed by this structure) that bring reproductive distinctions between bodies into social processes”. Connell (2002, p.10) argues that his definition of gender originates fromthe objections tothe most common
96 usage of the term gender as meaning the cultural difference between women and men, that is based on the biological differences of male and female. Arguments against the view that gender means cultural differences of women from men are based on the observation that human life and human character are both complex and do notsimply divide into two realms, or two types. I also concur with Connell’s argument that our images of gender might often be dichotomous, but the reality is not (Connell, 2002).
Connel (2002, p.8) also asserts that a definition in terms of differences means that where we cannot see differences, we cannot see gender. A definition based on dichotomy also excludes the patterns of difference and hierarchies of power, among women, and among men (from the concept of gender) that cannot be reduced to male/female differences. In other words, with such a definition we could not “recognise the gendered character of lesbian or homosexual desire (based on gender similarity), nor the powerful gender dynamic of an all-male army” or all-male prison or all-female prison (Connell, 2002, p.8). Other examples by Connell (2002, p.8) are the difference between violent and non-violent masculinities as well as between femininities which are oriented towards heterosexual relations and those which are not. Furthermore, a definition based on personal characteristics does not consider processes that are beyond the individual person (Connell, 2002, p.9).
In any given context, gender determines what the society expects, values and approves of a man or woman. Usually differences and inequalities exist between men and women regarding their roles and responsibilities, and their access to opportunities, including opportunities for decision-making powers. However, gender intersects with and does not stand apart from other concepts such as class, ethnicity, poverty levels, race, age, and so on, that are also used in analysing a broader socio-cultural context.
This discussion highlights the complexity of the concept ‘gender’ that I use later in this thesis in my analysis of ukuthwala. However, the concept of sexuality that I discuss in the following paragraphs encompasses both gender and sex, together with a number of other concepts.
97 Sexuality is the most important part of the life of human beings and biological, psychological, moral, religious, political, cultural, social, ethical and economic factors influence one’s sexuality. As it encompasses such a number of factors, it has been difficult to come up with one definition of sexuality. Phillips (2011, p.285) has the following view of sexuality:
Sexuality can be defined by referring to a wide range of anatomical acts and physical behaviour involving one, two or more people. We can relate it to emotional expressions of love, intimacy and desire that can take an infinite variety of forms. Or it can be implicated in the reproduction of social structures and markers through rules and regulations that permit or prohibit specific relations and / or acts. In the end, it emerges that these definitions are far from exhaustive. None of them are adequate on their own but that when considered all together they reflect the multiple ways that sexuality is manifest and impacts on our lives, and that above all; these definitions all consistently involve relations of power.
Tamale (2011, pp.11-12) explains sexuality as follows:
The various dimensions of sexuality include sexual knowledge, beliefs, values, attitudes and behaviours, as well as procreation, sexual orientation, and personal and interpersonal sexual relations. Sexuality touches a wide range of other issues including pleasure, the human body, dress, self – esteem, gender and identity, power and violence. It is an all-encompassing phenomenon that involves the human psyche, emotions, physical sensations, communication, creativity and ethics.
98 With its all-encompassing nature, no clear boundaries exist for the phenomenon of sexuality. Apparently we can never come up with a single coherent definition of sexuality. According to Msibi (2012) sexuality refers to three intertwining strands: firstly, the sexual desire or attraction strand, which means to whom or what someone is attracted to physically or emotionally; secondly, sexual activity or behaviour, which means what a person likes to do sexually, for example, intercourse, masturbation, and oral sexual activity; lastly, thesexual identity strand, which means how someone describes their sense of being sexual, that includes being gay, straight, bisexual, queer, and asexual (Msibi, 2012). Reddy (2004) contends that the constructed correspondence between sexuality and the personal, political, social, class, gender, and power concepts cannot be overstated. Reddy further claims that Butler (1999) hasclearly articulated that
“sexual identities are cultural fictions, performative effects of reiterative acts” (Reddy, 2004, p.4).
Tamale (2011) asserts that we speak of sexualities in the plural, in recognition of the complex structures within which sexuality is constructed and in recognition of its pluralist articulations. Tamale (2011, p.2) further states that:
Sexualities are often thought of as closely related to one of the most critical of biological processes, namely reproduction. But contemporary scholarship understands sexualities as socially constructed, in profound and troubling engagement with the biological, and therefore, as heavily influenced by, and implicated within, social, cultural, political and economic forces. The study of sexuality therefore offers unending lessons about pleasure, creativity, subversion, violence, oppression and living. Attempts to define the term sexuality often end in frustration and become in themselves exercises about writer’s own orientations, prioritisations and passions.
Table 1 indicates what entails sex, gender, and sexuality.
99 Table 1: Sex, gender and sexuality
Sex Gender Sexuality
Male Female Intersex
Woman Men
Transgender
Lesbian Gay Straight Bisexual Queer Asexual
Sexuality is dynamic. What our great grandparents thought regarding their sexualities may not necessarily be what we think today. Individual sexuality also changes over time and over lifespan, and sexual desire may change with age or with experience.
Expressions of sexuality may be positive (when they involve choice, consent and pleasure) or negative (when they involve coercion, exploitation, abuse, or violence).
Sexualities are quite diverse, for example, some people may be celibate or desire the same or other gender, prefer multiple or single sexual partners, have sex outside or within marriage, and so on. However, social norms define what is considered good or bad when it relates to sexual expression or behaviour. Although diverse sexualitiesexist, most societies have preference for particular sexualities, for example, sexual norms across many societies/cultures are heteronormative.
Heteronormativity in societies means that people suppress or dismiss sexual desire for same gender people and reject these feelings in others. It alsorefers tothe institutions, structures of understanding and practical orientations that make heterosexuality seem to be coherent(that is, organised as a sexuality) and privileged (Berlant & Warner, 2000, p.312). Heteronormativity is perpetuated and maintained through social institutions such as culture, schools, healthcare, religion, law and family.
It also underpins homophobia.
100 Homophobia refers to the fear, hatred, or intolerance of same-sex-desiring individuals or any behaviour that is outside the boundaries of traditional gender roles.
Homophobia can be manifested as fear of association with gay and lesbian individuals or of being perceived as gay or lesbian. Homophobic behaviour can range from telling jokes about lesbian and gay people to physical violence against people thought to be lesbian or gay and to curative rape. Homophobia is rife in KZN (Msibi, 2012).
Derogatory names are used against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people such as stabane, ngqingili, and faggot (Msibi, 2012). Gay men are beaten and undermined and religion and culture are used as the main drivers of these violations.
Msibi additionally notes that LGBT people experience violence and are being forced to conform to cultural gender roles (Msibi, 2012). In this study homophobia emerged as one of the reasons for the abuse of ukuthwalacultural practice in selected rural areas of KZN (see Chapter 6, the case of Bazamile). Lesbian women are abused in the name ofukuthwala and are being raped to ‘correct’ or ‘cure’ them (see Chapters 6 and 7).
This is not ukuthwala but is ubugebengu (criminality). The discrimination that gay individuals receive from heterosexual males also shows that different forms of masculinities exist.
Masculinity defines certain traits as typically maleand as suchmasculine in nature.
Connell (1995) asserts that we speak of masculinities in the plural in recognition of the complex structures within which masculinity is constructed and in recognition of its pluralist articulations. A starting-point of much of his work in his second book titled Maculinities is rejection of the idea that all men are the same. Consequently this has rendered the shift from the concept of masculinity to that of masculinities. According to Ouzgane and Morrell (2005, p.4) “the concept of mascuninities provides a way to understand the evident fact that not all men have the same amount or type of power, the same opportunities, and consequently, the same life trajectories”.Furthermore, Connell (1995, pp.67-68) states that ‘masculinity’ does not exist except in contrast with
‘femininity’.Within patriarchy, masculinity is a privileged category over femininity. Connell (1995, p.67) argues as follows:
101 In its modern usage the term masculinity assumes that one’s behavior results from the type of person one is. This means an unmasculine person would behave differently; being peaceable, rather than violent, conciliatory rather than dominating, hardly able to kick a football, uninterested in sexual conquest, and so forth.
The above definitions make us realise that masculinities are fluid and should not be considered as belonging in a fixed way to any one group of men, nor can masculinity be viewed as absent from women. However, masculinity is also a term that refers to a specific gender identity, belonging to a specific male person (Ouzgane & Morrell, 2005).
Connell (1995, p.68) describes masculinities as follows:
Masculinities mean the various forms of masculine identity in which many dynamics of violence take shape. …A strategy for peace may need to include a strategy of change in masculinities, contesting the hegemony of masculinities which emphasise violence, confrontation and domination, replacing them with patterns of masculinity more open to negotiation, cooperation and equality.
In this definition Connell (1995) associates masculinity with power that men display through violence, confrontation and domination. Mills (2001) shares the same view that associates masculinity with violence. Based on a study of the relationship between violence and masculinity within schools, Mills (2001) argues that substantial evidence exists that boys are the main perpetrators of violence in schools. According to Mills, forms of violence that boys perpetrate in schools range from extreme acts of violence (for example, school shootings in the United States of America (USA)), to common forms of violence such as schoolyard bullying (Mills, 2001). Mills (2001) further argues that the
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‘masculinisation’ of violence leads to boys often perpetrating violence to demonstrate their perception of what counts as a valued form of masculinity. Such boys victimise girls to demonstrate their superiority over targeted girls. In addition, they victimise other boys to
‘punish’ them for their non-conformity to dominant images of masculinity (Mills, 2001).
Connell (1987) demonstrates how gender is a concept of power by showing men’s benefits arising from the overall subordination of women (Connell, 1995, p.79). However, Connell argues that being a man conferred power, but not all men equally shared this power; and not all were individually exploitative (Connell, 1987, p.79). In developing this argument Connell (1995) states that a hegemonic masculinity exists (one that dominates other masculinities and which succeeds in creating prescriptions of masculinity, which are binding, or at least partially so), and which created cultural images of what it meant to be a
‘real man’. Three non-hegemonic categories of masculinity also exist, namely:
subordinate, complicit and marginalised. Generallythese were masculinities developed outside the corridors of power (Connell, 1995).
However, Morrell argues that the understanding of masculinity is subjective,thus depending on the person. He argues that all minorities – defined in terms of race, class, ethnicity or sexual orientation – characteristically understand what being a man means differently from members of the ruling class or elite and from each other too (Morrell, 2001, p.7). Morrell (2001) and Ouzgane and Morrell (2005) argue for a dynamic masculinity, suggesting that it is evidence that men differ and do not all have the same masculinity.
Anderson (2009) echoes these views,basing her argument on the study that identified different forms of masculinities found in Wentworth community. Specifically, regarding South Africa, Morrell (2001) argues that there is no one typical South African man. He states that there are many different masculinities, some of which support violent and
103 exploitative gender relations, others which accept such gender relations, and still others which oppose them (Morrell, 2001). A country such as South Africa, which is undergoing radical change, forces gender responses, argues Morrell (2001). Some of these are exceedingly violent, and may be seen as part of a wider social attempt by men to deal with feelings of emasculation or the actual loss of status and power (Morrell, 2001, p.33).
Although there is some evidence of changing masculinities in post-apartheid South Africa (Morrell, 2001, 2005) change has been uneven and the continuing economic disparities may both hinder change and exacerbate violence (Bhana, 2002; Morrell, 2007).
However, Anderson (2009) and Bhana (2009) challenge the portrayal of girls as just victims. Anderson (2009, p.64) argues that violent hegemonic masculinities among some of the boys are often upheld by those girls who encourage violent masculinities (Anderson, 2009, p.64). Similarly, Bhana (2009, p.97) challenges the discourse that positions girls as innocent and non-violent, contending that:
The view of girls as victims merely “fragments our knowledge about their schooling experiences and creates an unhelpful dichotomy, which reduces girls to homogeneous stereotypes and ignores the possibility of multiple forms of femininities, just as there are multiple forms of masculinities”.
Anderson (2009) identifies the changing forms of hegemonic masculinities found in Wentworth community, namely the ‘Condyes’ (a word derived from ‘bus conductors’) (Anderson, 2009, p.64), and argues that all the women want them, and this also applies to the gangsters, the soccer players and the naughty boys. She states that the females are implicated in determining the ‘in’ masculinity, which compels the boys in the community to negotiate these multiple and fluid identities, and argues that females are central and powerful in regulating and prescribing the hegemonic masculine positions the Wentworth boys take up (Anderson, 2009).
104 In his book titled Gender and Power, Connell (1987, p.79) demonstrates how gender is a concept of power, by showing men’s benefits arising from the overall subordination of women. Connell argues that being a man conferred some power.However, Connell arguesthat not all men share this powerequally, and not all were individually exploitative (Connell, 1987, p.79). Connell (1987, p.107) gives examples of transactions involving gendered power:
Mr Barrett the Victorian patriarch forbids his daughter to marry; parliament makes homosexual intercourse a crime; a bank manager refuses a loan to an unmarried woman; a group of youth rape a girl of their acquaintance.
However, he notes that actions like those listed are not intelligible without the socialstructure (Connell, 1987). In certain societies gendered power also manifests itself through male dominance in society – that is patriarchy.I discuss this concept later in this chapter.