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This invasion of their bodies caused the girls much embarrassment. Even though they
expressed anger towards the boys, their feelings of powerlessness were tangible. Lettie’s and Thiele’s description of the manner in which the boys surprised them by approaching and grabbing them from behind also suggests that they were being stalked in school. These stealth tactics suggest, too, that the boys were quick to act when opportunities to harass the girls presented themselves, for example, the lack of teacher’s presence either within the classroom or on the grounds. The threat of love bites also shows how boys derive power by attempting to mark the girls. Such marking on the girls, however, would put them at risk of being sexual labelled, as peers and teachers would associate the love bites with boyfriends. It would also put them at risk of violence if their boyfriends thought that they were double dating. Their abhorrence of the boys’ attempts to establish bodily contact reinforces the tension between boys’ and girls’ sexuality; virility versus passivity. However, their resistance is situated in their sexual agency, which debunks the myth of young girls as asexual beings and sexually unknowing. The girls contest prevailing norms by rejecting the boys’ gestures, and in doing so, they begin to rework gender power asymmetries.
In the following section I discuss how boys also generate gender power inequalities by defying and transgressing the gendered boundaries of toilet spaces and violating girls’
privacy and dignity.
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were able to raise the matter of their vulnerability in the school toilets and the invasion of their privacy. Because they knew I valued what the girls themselves raised as important, they were able to describe to me the problematic performance of heterosexual masculinity and their reduced agency.
The girls recounted incidents inside the toilets where they often fell prey to forms of sexual victimisation perpetrated by boys who either acted alone or in groups. Paleesa and Loanda described how sometimes boys climbed onto the walls or up pipes and peeped in through the toilet windows and sometimes saw them and other girls in their most vulnerable and private moments. It did not end there, however. Further embarrassment and shame followed them when they returned to the classroom, as the offending boys would announce to the other
learners their success in seeing these girls relieve themselves in the toilet. Loanda and Paleesa were overwhelmed by feelings of anger and shame as they spoke:
Paleesa: Sometimes they follow you to the toilet.
Loanda: Yes they follow.
Several voices: Some get in.
Loanda: Some get in, they take bets. They get in and look at it [girls’ private parts] and some run off and say to their friends ‘yeah! I got in. I got in the girls’
toilet!’
P.J.: What do they want in the toilet?
Loanda: They want to see what we are doing in the toilet.
Paleesa: When we come out we see them screaming “Yeah! We got in! We got in! We got in!” And sometimes they will lie and say they saw you doing something in the toilet.
P.J.: That so rude. Have you spoken/complained to the teacher?
Several voices: Yes.
Loanda: Sometimes we do not say to the teacher because we are scared of the boys because after school they will hit you.
This violation of the girls’ privacy shows how the boys conspire to oppress the girls even further. “We got in! We got in!” is a proclamation of a boastful, heterosexual bravado. It also demonstrates how boys need constantly to jockey for power and prove themselves within peer groups (Keddie (2003) also noted this). It shows how the boys’ excitement at being able
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to transgress gendered spaces positioned them as risk takers. While not all boys went into the girls’ toilets, those that did shared their success when they returned to class with the other boys who also benefitted from the misogyny and degradation of the girls. The toilet space thus became a gendered space where the girls were subordinated and made to feel inferior.
Field notes: Date: 30 July 2012 Time: 1h30 Place: Grade seven classroom I could hear the Principal’s angry voice coming closer and the words ‘Don’t tell me lies. You went there to smoke!’ She knocked at the door and walked into the classroom, with the two trailing behind her. Some learners started to giggle but soon quieted when the Principal demanded to know what the problem was. She proceeded to reprimand the teacher for sending two boys out of the classroom at once, insisting that the boys were ‘ducking’ lessons and were up to ‘no good’
because she had found them behind the toilets. She assumed that they had gone there to smoke cigarettes. Both boys however, clarified that they were searching for their money that they had lost during the break. The teacher apologized and then clarified that the boys had not returned to class after the break [the buzzer sounds at 11h15 to signal the end of the break]. The boys received more scolding from both the teacher and the Principal. I listened as the teacher complained that the two boys were very troublesome in the class as well. More scolding from the Principal! I sat there quietly, feeling very embarrassed that the teacher had been shouted at in my presence. I watched the boys as they returned to their places. I saw one of the boys giving the boy behind him a ‘thumbs up’ sign which was followed with loud laughter from some boys. The teacher stopped the lesson and enquired what the problem was. The boys replied ‘Nothing’. I noted some girls [and boys] were writing whilst a few [girls] were just looking at the other girls.
Loanda and Paleesa who were in this class, also looked at me. I knew that they were redirecting me to the discussion where they disclosed that boys peeked at them when they were in the toilets.
The girls’ disclosures made evident their embarrassment and despair at being peeked at when they visited the toilets. Once again they voice their fear of the potential risks that can arise from their complaints to their teachers. Thus at times they silenced their shame and fear.
Paradoxically, however, as I described in Chapter 5 (p.112), the toilet wall was also a place
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that held the girls’ secrets: it was a place where they declared their attraction and love for boys, their jealousy and hatred of rivals and where they declared their boyfriends off-limits to other girls. The toilets were thus also a dynamic space for the contestation of heterosexuality.
This may also have been a reason for some girls' reluctance to divulge to their teachers the harassment they endured–despite the great humiliation they suffered when the boys transgressed these gendered spaces.
The girls’ vulnerability and the emotional intensity they displayed recounting their experiences underscores how extremely damaging in nature these violations were. It
illustrates how incredibly complex it is for the girls to navigate and negotiate their sexuality in the political sphere of patriarchy, where hegemonic traits such as daring, risk taking and misogyny, are all upheld as legitimate markers of hegemonic masculinity. It shows the robustness and resilience of patriarchy; girls may be agents, but their agency is “lite”, as Bhana (2017) put it: thinned out, limited and without weight. Bhana argues that lite agency points to girls’ restrictions, their inability to comprehensively act, choose and contest within a broader environment. It does not infer an absence of power or ability to act, merely a
reduction of action (Bhana, 2017). Bhana’s thoughts on agency resonate with my own work. I found that the girls’ voices were stymied by their fear of further humiliation and violence.
In the next sections of this chapter, I turn the discussion to focus on menstrual narratives, and the confusion, distress and shame girls feel as they recount experiences in which the
repudiation of the feminine was key to male functioning and power within a problematic heterosexual masculinity.