2.3 SCHOOLS AS PLACES FOR THE MAINTANANCE OF INEQUITABLE GENDER RELATIONS RELATIONS
2.3.4 How girls perform gender in conformity with the dominant discourse
48 the classrooms as an important feature of the school‟s deliberate effort to transform conventional attitudes about gender (Bajaj, 2009). From Bajaj (2009) I have learnt that the differentiation of tasks and responsibilities is often based on other social positions such as class in addition to gender.
The traditional gender distribution of personnel at the school, with women holding less prestigious positions compared to men (e.g., female teachers and male principal, or female teachers at the primary level and male teachers at the secondary level), reinforces patriarchal patterns of power and authority. For instance, the schools where I conducted have research principals are males, therefore to girls and boys in the primary school it may look as if only males are suitable for high profiled positions. Hence, in my case as a women principal I will find children referring to me as “uthisha omkhulu oyintombazane” (“a principal who is a girl”) because throughout their lives they are only exposed to males occupying the positions of power.
Furthermore, the routine behaviour of adults in school, including labelling groups (e.g., a teacher starting the day by saying “good morning boys and girls”) or segregating them (e.g., students grouped by sex in the assembly), emphasizes the difference between girls and boys. The findings of this study concur with those of Thorne (1993) as I observed in the two schools that I visited during assembly or when the announcement is made through the public announce (PA) system.
The teacher will start by saying “attention boys and girls”. To some children it might sound as if those who were called first are accorded more powers.
49 In this section I argue that there are ready-made actions and behaviours that girls are expected to play, otherwise they will suffer the emotional consequences of not belonging to feminine society.
They are brought up to act as someone else and these actions are policed to make sure that no one deviates from them. Drawing from my childhood, I remember how from birth my mother would make sure that I wear a specific colour of clothes and it was usually pink. For me it was worse because I looked like my father, hence I was named Ntombikayise meaning a father‟s girl.
I had no hair - I was bald and my mother would make sure she covered my head with bright coloured headbands and ribbons. I had to bear the pain of ear piercing when I was 3 months old;
she did her best to make me fit into the society image of a girl otherwise I was regarded as looking like a man. Then my mother made sure that I fitted into the society image of a girl. As I grew up, my two sisters and I had to make sure that my three brothers were not hungry and the house was spotless clean, as this was our responsibility.
When I started school, perhaps I thought life will be different as I was in a new environment, but I was wrong. My teachers like my parents, expected girls to clean classrooms while boys did outdoor duties. Teachers divided chores according to gender for example as girls we were sweeping while boys did gardening, during the sports period boys played soccer and girls played netball that automatically created a division between us and constructed to the categories of femininities and masculinities. I witnessed further dynamics that subordinated alternative forms
of femininities in these schools‟ practices, whereby girls had means perform other forms of femininity got into trouble (for instance, girls who show interests in traditional boys‟ sports) to the detriment of the individuals who did not. The differential power status concurred to these
50 exercises, combined with girls and boys assorted capacities in performing them, was regularly a wellspring of subordination and scorn for those seen as not fitting in with centre estimations of gender orientation. For example, at school girls occupy smaller places even when they share a desk with the boys they struggle for freedom to sit and write. Boys do not get reprimanded for taking more space in the desk as teachers regard the wide opening of legs by boys as culturally acceptable. Girls are deprived to strict control of their behaviour while boys enjoy their freedom for example in the large football playgrounds and bigger space in the desk allocated to boys consequently extendsthe regional limits of young men's flexibility. The above discussion made me conclude that in schools all activities, space, talk, equipment become infused with gendered meaning and the dominant discourses and practices normalize notions of gender identity.
I thus take a stand that there is an urgent need to evaluate these dominant discourses and practices so as to ensure that schooling is towards gender equitable experiences which is the main focus of this study. Girls and boys adapt their behaviours and attitudes in order to fit into the acceptable understanding of behaviours and thus construct their identity; hence I say children perform gender. Schools in particular are criticized as perpetuating the insidious cycle of domestic violence. Gallas (1998, p. 115) refers to this as “codified reality”. Leach (2003) conducted studies in three Southern African countries and suggests that schools are spaces that allow gendered practices that damage the future of the child since this damage remain with children into adult life. Girls are constructed to accept what is in front of them, while boys, have the freedom to continue with the violent behaviour because their violence behaviour is not condemned even when reported. This means that at school there are already set norms and rules
51 that are set to make a girl. There is a strict policing of these norms and rules; the situation compels girls into conforming to the pattern and there is no alternative route.
My schooling experience is a testimony to the ready-made rules. When I was in the primary school, my teacher said toward the start of term that she would give the class a test, and whoever got the most elevated stamp would be the class prefect. In the event that you were a class prefect, you got the opportunity to record the names of noise makers, which was sufficiently energizing and had control all alone. My teacher would likewise give you a stick to grasp while you strolled around and watched the class for noise markers. I needed power and concentrated hard and fortunately I got the most noteworthy score on the test. At that point shockingly my teacher said that the class prefect must be a boy. She had neglected to make that unmistakable prior in light of the fact that she accepted it was self-evident. A boy had the second most astounding marks on the test and he took a place of being a class prefect. Unfortunately, I was a girl and he was a boy, thus he turned into the class prefect. Up to today I've always remembered that episode, it made me would rather not be a girl. By righteousness of being a boy it implies you have the legacy of power, while girls are made to be subordinates will's identity secured by men who are made to have control.
There are essential inquiries that are brought about the manner in which violence happens in school and about the social and economic factors in South Africa which allow such gender violence (Morrell, 1998, 2001). While concentrating on the courses in which patriarchal structures drawback African women and girls, so far there has been not really any endeavour to examine the routes in which girls and boys explore the setting of schools; subsequently in this
52 study I aimed to find out how children navigate their daily experiences at school. I argue that presenting schoolgirls basically as victims of violence makes unhelpful circumstance which decreases girls to homogeneous generalizations and disregards the likelihood of various types of femininities, similarly as there are different types of masculinities (see Morojele, 2009). These framings are important however in this study I argue that there is a need for more. I say this because they do not offer clarification of the routes in which primary school girls effectively take an interest in school culture of violence whilst also victims of it see (Bhana, 2005a). In this study I contend that a more profound perspective of primary school girls and boys, will advise the group of their capacities as dynamic individuals, and this can give a viewpoint on the investigation of schooling and gender violence in South Africa, not just as casualties of viciousness. This approach views girls and boys not just as quieted casualties of Africa's vanguard, but rather likewise as dynamic members in ordinary school life inside bigger settings of constant violence and tireless gender imbalances. The following section discusses how boys are made to perform gender within the schooling contexts.