The findings reveal that textbooks reinforce patriarchal beliefs despite the enshrined right of equality in the Constitution and notions that gender roles are evolving. One distinct finding revealed gender biases in occupational roles or careers. This corresponds with prior research (Mkuchu, 2004; Lee & Collins, 2009; Mutekwe & Modiba, 2012; Chiponda & Wassermann, 2015). Women were mainly represented in positions of unpaid and unrecognised labour that
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sustains household economies, the traditional stereotypical occupational role associated with women. The activity of fetching water is a domestic chore related to women, especially in rural areas. Water is needed for household duties such as cooking, washing and cleaning, for which women are mainly responsible, and females are not rewarded financially for this. Female task such as fetching water are degraded, low-status occupations. This is a subtle way of transmitting bias by suggesting that a female’s place is not in the corporate world.
Other unpaid occupations and low-paid jobs included working for NGOs and secretarial occupations. Women were also represented in stereotypically female occupations such as nurse, teacher, crèche worker, factory worker and so on. Portrayal of women in traditional gender roles is consistent with findings by Lee and Collins (2009), who state that stereotypes tend to set up a self-fulfilling prophecy and often lead some females to behave according to expectations that disempower them and limit their ability to develop their potential to the fullest.
The representation of women in limited roles may also arise from prescribed gender roles in the writers’ culture. A culture embodies and sustains social values attached to male or female and shapes people’s expectations about what types of jobs men and women should do, and how they should behave. Yaqin (2002, p. 14) makes the point that:
books reflect the views of a given social culture with respect to gender roles and contain definite gender characteristics patterns, all of which have an important influence on children and cause them to consciously or unconsciously imitate and learn from them
Therefore, the textbooks were analysed as being reflections of socio-cultural influences, which tend to expand, reproduce and strengthen society's gender biases and perceptions, all of which can affect the way children identify with and espouse the gender role to which they belong.
This reinforces the notion that the representation of gender is not neutral – it is an act of cultural power.
The most likely reason why women are shown in limited occupations can be ascribed to prevailing gender stereotypes. Thus, negative representations are based on the untrue ideas that have persisted in culture for thousands of years. This corroborates the findings of Tietz (2007) that gender bias and stratification of gender roles in textbooks replicate the stereotypes embedded in society. These taken for granted assumptions transmit a mode of ideology that reinforces role stratification. In terms of these assumptions, women tend to be stereotyped in a
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limited series of roles: housewives, nurses, teachers, NGO workers. The writers of all four textbooks did very little to disrupt these stereotypical representations.
Of interest is whether the writers of the textbooks present females as having limited occupational roles because they may have been influenced by these stereotypes. Gender stereotypes are dangerous for learners as they are the target of these stereotypes and they can affect learners’ self-esteem, sense of identity and occupational choice. If females believe them, they can be deterred from aspiring to upper-income and high-status occupations.
In contrast, the lifestyle of men is depicted as professional with no domestic work component.
Men are represented in a wide range of highly paid, high-status occupations such as managing director, doctor and lawyer. This finding is in line with prior research (Su, 2007; Thomson &
Otsuji, 2003; Pillay, 2013). Men are also represented as dominant in the public setting. The value that comes through is that success is most likely to be achieved by strong, powerful men.
This serves to reify the powerful male figure continuously. The images in textbooks encourage boys to consider a wide range of occupational possibilities for themselves, while girls are offered a much more limited range. All of this elevates one gender over another and militates against gender equity, not just in the schooling system but also the community at large.
Given South Africa, Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Swaziland’s strong move to constitutionalise gender equality, the findings of this study reflect that the textbook industry and writers only pay lip service to this. There is no clear evidence that they have embraced this ideal at all; all four of the selected textbooks were recent editions, yet they still propagated patriarchal stereotypes. This leads one to conclude that the intention of the authors of the four textbooks is to entrench the discourse of patriarchy – as seen in the repeated representation of women in stereotypical occupations with low economic status. Tietz (2007) argues that presenting women with limited occupational opportunities reinforces and perpetuates the glass ceiling that prevents women from participating fully in the corporate world.
Writers of textbooks are required to portray a constitutionally upheld reality in their textbooks, which, in South Africa, means breaking stereotyped patterns for all groups of people. Writers have a responsibility not to perpetuate patterns of employment stereotyping as it has a negative effect on both boy and girl learners. These writers cannot consider themselves to have no responsibility in this regard. As in Davids’ 2012 study, the present study of four SADC Business Studies textbooks shows that the textbook industry still has some way to go in the
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production of learning support materials that effectively address the challenges of integration, equity and inclusion.