CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS
4.5. Girls negotiating their sexual selves in relation to Core Mathematics and
4.5.1. Romeo and Juliet
Juliet is a proverbial ‘plain Jane’ she does not worry about keeping up with fashion and make-up. Her femininity is based on playing down her sexuality. For her there are far more important things than shopping and gossiping and these are reading and educating herself.
Juliet: I have no aspirations to go home and put make-up on and straighten my hair.
No (in an exaggerated exhale of breath and in a whisper) thank you. At this moment it is a waste of my time.
Juliet is the only one of the three Core Mathematics girls who has a very congenial relationship with the Core Mathematics teacher, Mr Berkowhizz. From the observations in the Core Mathematics class, it becomes clear that Juliet is very comfortable in the class and very vocal. She banters often with the teacher and she is the only one in the class that he has an affectionate nickname for. He calls the other girls in the class by their first names and the boys he address by their surnames. During our interview, Juliet often referred to Mr Berkowhizz as a big teddy bear and that she thought he was a fantastic teacher. In contrast to this, Rehana and Nadiya were very quiet in class, only entering into the conversation when it was mathematically related. Both Nadiya and Rehana commented that Mr Berkowhizz had a very comfortable relationship with Juliet but not really with them, but they were not overly concerned about this.
Juliet does not bother about what other learners think or say about her and she often states that people irritate her and she cannot tolerate their incompetence and lack of brains.
Juliet does not suffer fools lightly. It is important to give an account of the above details as it is important to see that Juliet’s answers emanate from the type of girl she is. Juliet would
probably be labelled as a typically studious nerdy girl and she would not bat an eyelid at this label, in fact she would be proud of this label.
CV: Do you think that it is more acceptable for boys who do Core Mathematics to date girls who do Mathematical Literacy than for girls who do Core Mathematics to date boys who do Mathematical Literacy?
Juliet: No I tell you uhm dating is not my area of expertise so I think it is quite silly to follow social trends and so on and the stigmas of I must go out with somebody who is above or below me whatever, so I wouldn’t know about that.
Juliet tries very hard to deny her sexuality, and repeatedly made reference to the fact that she was not ‘into dating’ or that it ‘wasn’t really her thing’. For Juliet, having a
boyfriend or presenting a beautiful, well manicured, well groomed self does not top her list of priorities. Juliet is by no means an unkempt girl; she is neat and tidy and that is sufficient for her.
Although Juliet tries very hard to deny her sexuality, she presented a very different image as she and I walked back to the school car park after our ‘official’ interview. We were having a discussion about marrying someone who is the complete opposite of oneself.
Juliet than began to tell me about a boy that she thought was ‘fantastic’ and that she had been in love with since Grade 4. Romeo is a very intelligent boy, lazy according to her, who does debating, public speaking but also plays sport. According to Juliet he is the bench mark for her and she compares every other boy to him. She repeatedly told me that she has very high standards, but Romeo certainly met those standards and he was the only one she had met that did. Although she is in love with him, she has never actually told him so. The two of them are friends, and she told me that she was now tired of waiting and was going to approach Romeo and declare her undying love for him. The way she intended to approach him and tell him reminded me of exactly the same way Juliet would approach solving a Mathematical problem. It was very factual, straight-forward and almost clinical, nothing flowery and romantic as I would have expected from a 16 year old girl.
Throughout her account of her emotionally tormenting (Juliet’s own words) lack of a relationship with Romeo, she could not stand still and she displayed some ‘girly’
emotions for the first time. She was excitable, couldn’t stand still, giggled frequently and blushed often as she told me that her attraction to Romeo ebbed and flowed, but it was particularly unbearable at the present moment. Her body language betrayed the words that she attempted to make as rational as possible. The conversation ended with her telling me that she was going to confront Romeo the next day and let him know. Although this data was unofficially collected, I did ask Juliet to read my notes on this conversation to ensure that they were accurate and then I asked for her consent to use this data. She gave me permission to use the data collected from our conversation.
This above incident is in stark contrast to Juliet attempting to deny her sexuality and claiming that ‘dating was not really her thing’. Recounting the above incident is important as approximately two weeks later Juliet came to see me and tell me that she had just
received her June Mathematics examination back and that she had achieved 98%. What was particularly interesting was that while Juliet was telling me about her excellent result, she displayed the exact excitability, inability to stand still, giggling and blushing that she did when she was telling me about her attraction to Romeo. Two completely different events, one romantic emotional and typically feminine and the other Mathematical, rational and masculine were able to elicit the identical response from Juliet. For her, her sexuality and Mathematics are inextricably interwoven.
Drawing from Renold (2006; Renold & Allan, 2006) Juliet not only constructed her femininity against ‘girly femininities’, Juliet did not present herself as a ‘tomboy’ either as she wasn’t interested in sports, socializing with boys at break times or engaging in other traditionally ‘masculine’ activities. Juliet’s ambivalent femininity as strong-minded, independent, anti-girly, anti-boy, clever, and liking her own space pushed the normative boundaries of ‘doing girl’ – and doing heterosexual white South African girl.