Mapping the study: Some guiding Principles
4.3 Theoretical framework
4.3.3 Feminist theories
4.3.3.1 Post-structural feminist theory
The feminist post-structural theory has been used as the analytical framework for this study. The central tenet of post-structural feminism is the belief in the social construction of people‟s realities. A post-structural feminist analysis exposes women‟s daily oppression in societies and the daily interactions that perpetuate such oppression (Lather,
1991). Post-structural feminism argues that humans actively participate in creating their realities rather than passively becoming victims of social reproduction. I therefore considered the women teachers as agents having the power to make choices in different situations.
The post-structural feminist theory observes that experiences are situated. Thus it is important to acknowledge that individual experiences occur within a society where language, social structures and power relate to produce contrasting ways of allocating meaning (Jackson, 2001). In other words, as individuals interact with different discursive fields, certain values become deeply held such that the meanings that people make out of life become constant fields of conflict. Thus through interactions with each other and their environments, human beings become bound by norms and ways of doing that exist within a particular context. This is in line with Dewey‟s principle of interaction which posits that present experiences occur through interaction with one‟s environment.
In agreement, Guerrero (1999) argues that the politicised nature of interpretations and meaning making is a product of power because the discourses and interpretations that are powerful gain their status from societal interactions. These arguments helped me understand how the women teachers made meaning of their woman self and teacher self in relation to their teaching. Self in this study is understood through the social constructivist conception of self as a continual process of self-construction through and by the influences of social life (Brown, 2004) and the dialogic view of self as “always engaged in relationships with others and the social context” (Mkhize, 2004, pp. 5- 18).
The women teachers revealed the socially constructed versions of Basotho womanhood and teacher-hood. Through their activities and discussions as women teachers they have constructed the meaning of their positioning and made sense of their experiences as women teachers in a rural society. This theory was also helpful in providing an understanding of the construction, positioning and regulation of childhood and female sexuality through social institutions such as schools, families and the church.
However, the post-structural feminist perspective posits that people are neither passive recipients of socialisation nor are they biologically fixed or psychologically determined.
People actively construct the world and shape their lives and those of others (Bhana, 2002). Hence, human experiences derive from power relations that are socially mobilised. Applied to this study, these notions highlight the fact that society constructs certain ways of being for women and the women teachers are expected to fit into the mould. Those in power such as husbands, chiefs, principals, and policy-makers socially construct the discursive and hence material spaces within which the women teachers live and experience their world.
While this section deals with feminist post-structural thinking as an analytical tool for this study, it is important for me to also discuss post-structural thinking and how its tenets play out in this study. Post-structural thinking looks at discourse in terms of how it functions, where it is found and how it gets produced and regulated (Weedon, 1997).
Foucault (1980) has argued that the subject is not a fixed entity, but that people are positioned and position themselves in discourse. Additionally, Burman (1994) states that discourse is a socially constructed framework defining the limits of what can be said and done. Thus, once a discourse becomes “normalised” it becomes a rule and hence limits what can be said and done. This enables certain groups of people to wield power in ways that will disadvantage other groups. Best and Kellner (1991, p. 26) argue that this is because discourses are “viewpoints and positions from which people speak and the power relations that these allow and presuppose.” Thus discourse is embedded with power because of its ability to construct people in particular ways, or dictate certain ways of being normal (Davies, 1993).
What is deemed right and normal is socially construed and produced in discourse. For example, sexual entitlement is rarely aligned with women because dominant discourses attach power to female sexual innocence and restraint, while for men power is attached to male sexual prowess (Jewkes et al., 2006; Kimmel, 2004). However, the constructions of female sexual restraint and male sexual prowess may not align comfortably with the lived sexual experiences of women or men. This is because identities are actively constructed
and reconstructed, produced and reproduced, maintained and resisted through interaction with the social environment; and hence are not produced in rigid linear ways.
Thus, while we may be positioned as powerless in one situation, we can also be positioned or position ourselves as powerful in other instances. This shows that power does not deny human agency, but allows different levels of possibility for the expression of agency. Foucault (1978) argues that power cannot be “acquired, seized or shared, something that one holds on to or allows to slip away; power is exercised from innumerable points...” (p. 94). Different discourses position individuals as powerful or powerless. It is through discourse that individuals can be subjected to power or for them to exercise power over others. Foucault (1978, p. 129) also compares power to a game.
He argues that there is no evil in exercising power over others “in a sort of strategic game, where things can be reversed...” Thus, just as in a game of chess, while one player could seem to be having the upper hand, this state could easily be reversed. This implies that none of the players has the power to keep or hold on to.
The women teachers in this study position themselves and are positioned through discourses that place them as subjects of power or active agents with power. Within the context of the rural school setting, the teacher self is constructed as powerful, while the woman self is constructed as powerless. Women teachers in rural schools are therefore always circulating between the threads of the power net while negotiating, producing and reproducing their different identities. Foucault (1978) argues that power relationships are reversible, unstable and mobile and they can be modified. Thus power is not owned or possessed but is exercised in ways that produce and reproduce inequalities.
Bhana (2002, p. 13) argues that there is no essential male or female. She posits that people are positioned as male or female by dominant discourses of gender which also provide the gender scripts to be performed by men and women. The possibility of different modes of subjectivity and creation of alternative discourse therefore exists. In support of this argument, Steinberg, Epstein, and Johnson (1997) observe that subjectivity comprises the ways in which we attribute meaning to our world, ourselves
and others. They state that the discursive networks which organise and systematise social and cultural practice shape and regulate subjectivity.
However, we are always faced with contradictory discourses in making choices about the meanings we give to our lives and other people‟s lives. Thus Steinberg et al., (1997) posit that:
In gender relations it is not only the relations of power between men and women that are the problem; it is the way in which masculinities and femininities are constructed as separated categories that describe and circumscribe individual persons (p. 12).
Based on the idea that every relation is fluid, one can argue that the problematic constructions of masculinity and femininity can be troubled. The fluidity of power and gender relations is evidence to the fact that the borders between femininity and masculinity are permeable and fragile, allowing for slip ups and the performance of alternative scripts. Applied to this study on women teachers‟ experiences of teaching sexuality education, these ideas help in highlighting that while the women teachers within this study are subjected to particular constructions of femininity there are possibilities for shattering the fragile border between femininity and masculinity. Hence there are possibilities for active resistance and performance of alternative scripts.
This framework was important for my study because it created spaces for challenging and unmasking issues that are taken for granted (Caputo, 1997; Derrida, 1976) through interrogating the socially and culturally constructed realities of women teachers‟ lives. As Atkinson (2003, p. 37) puts it, “The effect of a deconstructive approach is to question the assumed educational, theoretical or moral superiority of particular worldviews or dominant paradigms in educational research and practice.” Thus, deconstruction helped me to challenge the sexuality education curriculum theory and practice so as to illuminate that a curriculum is not neutral but political, ideological, socially constructed and negotiated (Garfinkel, 2003; Gergen, 2003). It also helped in challenging the taken for granted social constructions of proper Basotho womanhood and teacher-hood.