2.2 SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONS OF GENDER
2.2.1 Dominant discourses of femininities in schooling contexts
In these subsections I do not explore the extensive literature that has flourished in the field of masculinities and schooling. Rather in this section I decided to only explain the following key concepts which helped me to build this thesis, these are, the dominant discourses of femininities and masculinities within schooling contexts. In this study femininities refer to behaviours and roles generally associated with girls and women (Crawford, 2006). Personally, I view femininity as being constructed and influenced through social life and made up of features that relate to biologically associated issues, since there are behavioural features which are associated with femininities like delicacy, compassion, affectability, and so on. Martin and Muthukrishna (2011, p. 10) indicate that society constructs women as inherently passive and suppresses their active personalities and gender roles. The genders of women and men have their origin in the process of
25 conditioning from a very early age where girls and boys are encouraged to conform to specific gender identities. This is how women are judged in terms of the societal ideology of domesticity;
their gender stereotyping stipulates the normal attributes of being a woman. The way girls dress is seen as the display of behaviour that reflects her ability to raise children well; this is the dominant discourse of femininity. In other words, if the girl decides to wear miniskirts and hot pants, she is regarded as not good enough to be a responsible mother. On the other hand, girls and women are indoctrinated to accept themselves as weak and therefore dependent on boys and men. Morojele (2009) states that a girl is conditioned to believe that women are inferior to men, that her place is at home and that she is therefore there to be seen and not to be heard. It is the aim of this study to evaluate the gender discourses and practices that affect children‟s geographies. Therefore, if girls are made to believe that they are inferior it means boys are automatically constructed as dominant. I view being a girl as a question of becoming. Just like boys, girls are active participants in the continual negotiation and production of their gender identities. Hence this study uses the new sociology of childhood to advocate that children are dynamic social specialists who shape the structures and process around them.
Parents and teachers at school have clearly characterized rules for raising girls and these are frequently altogether different from those for boys. Girls are regarded as easy to care for and they provide help at home, for example in later years taking care of parents in old age (Brown &
Chevannes, 1995). My childhood experiences consistently reflect this philosophy; as girls we used to do family and childcare errands inside the house while my siblings were appointed substantial work outside. Even today, this philosophy still exists and is followed rigidly as it was in my childhood years. The task of washing dishes and cooking, were and still are considered as
26 girls and women work, while dealing with the outside, like washing the family vehicle and tending creatures are saved for boys and men. As women we were prepared from a young age to become housewives and to nurture while boys were and still are raised to become providers.
Such suppositions are gotten from social generalizations held in Kwazulu-Natal, the setting of this study, where the husband is seen as the provider and the person who figures out where the family ought to be positioned.
It is therefore interesting to find out how girls and boys exercise agency to navigate gender experiences if they are deprived of their identity and made to act like someone else. Women and girls face tremendous social pressure to maintain an image of innocence and purity. This poses challenges to them, for instance, in taking precautions against sexually transmitted diseases and in safe sex negotiations (Reddy & Dunne, 2007) this is a result of the expectations placed on young girls by society. Female sexuality is characterized to a great extent inside a talk of quiet wherein girls are compelled to deny their sexuality and sexual action and to maintain positive connections with their mothers. The amaZulu will famously say “ukhamba lufuze imbiza”
(meaning mother like daughter) therefore girls are obliged to be always near their mothers so as to learn how her mother does things. This perpetuates and ensures that the cycle of socialisation does not break. It is a fact that the dominant discourse of femininity stands in direct contradiction to women and girls‟ sexual safety, thus women and girls who unquestioningly conform to traditional femininities are implicated in their own disempowerment and in risking their sexual safety (Reddy & Dunne, 2007). Morojele (2009) alludes to prevailing types of femininities and masculinities as being hegemonic which imply conceded to social qualities. Consequently, cultural and societal expectation place women and girls in vulnerable positions in relation to
27 sexual abuse, violence and HIV/AIDS infection as they are required to be submissive to their male counterparts, as they are the protectors.
In my 21 years‟ experience as a teacher, I have observed that the official culture of school professes to be gender impartial, yet is in reality delineated by the ubiquity of gender. This places girls in another opposing position whereby they are required to show an attractive hetero womanliness. As Aapola, Gonick and Harris (2005, p.250) state, “young women must submit to the male gaze and yet exhibit responsibility in avoiding unwanted male attention.” Thus, it means school culture reproduces the good girl and bad girl distinction, causing a lot of trouble and discomfort between different groups of girls. Schools, in my view, ought to be institutions that advance social connections sufficiently helpful for girls and boys to explore their spaces overtly without limits. Schools are organizations where girls and boys invest the greater part of their energy and along these lines ought to be free of any bias. I want to emphasise that the purpose of this study was not to compare girls and boys but to recommend that schools should be gender equitable environments. In the following section I discuss how gender constructions and expectations in South African schools keep on giving power to hegemonic masculinities over femininities.