2.2 SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONS OF GENDER
2.2.3 Silencing of alternative gender expressions in schooling contexts
33 These factors permeate and thus ultimately affect in a negative manner the everyday classroom and playground interactions amongst and between girls and boys, and as such become a significant site for children‟s active contestation, negotiation and construction of gender. As a result, I argue that in schools there are gendered spaces and discourses that affect children‟s geographies. This study finds it important to investigate children‟s geographies (discussed in details on 2.2.4) as a way to find the meanings of gender that girls and boys attach to places and spaces within the school. Butler (1997) agrees that the most disturbing factor in this regard is how girls and boys actively follow each other to ensure that others perform within the expectations of hegemonic masculinities and femininities which do not automatically happen. In these cases, such performances of gender have genuine social and enthusiastic results which are harming for both girls and boys.
From the above discussions, it becomes clear that girls and boys do not have a platform to exercise agency to navigate their gender-based experiences but are forced to conform to the set norms of behaviour. For example, the boys who belong to hegemonic masculinities are not only excluding the non-hegemonic gender identities, but subtly subordinate all things regarded as feminine which is majority of girls.
34 feminine and boys to be masculine in order to fulfil the expectations of the society. The thinking behind this was that being a boy implies having a penis and balls; being a girl implies having a vagina, a clitoris, and a uterus. Hence, girls and boys are constrained by these gender codes and students who openly identify as gay, lesbian or transgender, or who dress and act in gender non- conforming ways, are marginalized and bullied (Bisikaa, Ntatab & Konyani, 2009, p. 289). In KwaZulu-Natal, unfortunately the critical and sensitive concerns of bullying and harassment in school have not received a significant amount of attention at school and communities. The issue of bullying has been analysed as detached demonstrations of prodding as opposed to as a type of policing and implementing the standards of our way of life. Bullying should be comprehended as far as the administration of normalizing the gender codes that the school has neatly categorised children‟s. This act of behaviour supports the dominant identities and supress the others thus perpetuate bullying that occurs in school environment that is also discriminatory in nature (Morojele, 2009).
The discourses and practice within the school contribute to the strength of masculinity and femininity boundary constructions. To add on this, at home the buying of gender orientation
"proper" toys and garments for infants and children are one way grown-ups propagate these lessons. I remember how my parents used to buy us dolls as girls and brothers would get cars for Christmas, as discussed in detail on Chapter 4. The concept of hegemony (Morrell et al., 2012), as explained and discussed in 2.2.2, affirms how groups in power can keep up structures that advantage them through picking up the assent of subordinate groups. It is not done through clear or commanding means, but instead through inconspicuous, yet effective, messages that over and again penetrate day by day life. Butler (1990) provides a framework of post-structural
35 understanding as to how gender categories work. The concept of gender performativity is of importance in order to understand how sexism works in schools. She explains how gender has been explained in our daily lives through our behaviours the colour of clothes we wear, the hairstyle we do and body language. These are outer elements that the general public chooses with to pick whether an individual falls into the classification of masculinities and femininities. At the point when these desires coordinate the customary society desires of a male who accomplices with a female, they are never questioned. However, if two men are seen intimacy like walking together holding hands, the other members of the society become inquisitiveness also, are frequently subject to other undesirable consideration.
The existence of lesbians and gays is often a silence the topic of thus the taken for granted nature of heterosexuality is enforced unconsciously. The heterosexual messages are send through the charts that are displayed on classroom walls, and infused on teachers‟ examples as they teach, and all the other relevant stakeholders at school give this message power and neglect to challenge homophobic remarks, subsequently supporting the conduct. Generally, society has developed homosexuality as an ailment, an abnormality, and a wrongdoing. The prevailing stance in Christianity stigmatizes gay and lesbian people as sinners. This is associated with practising sexual relations outside marriage as a result; lesbian and gay relationships are unacceptable. It might be contended that inexorably the media has more impact in shaping accounts and talks on sexuality than the congregation. The AIDS epidemic of the mid 1980s was around then reported as a 'gay torment' and confirmation of God's fierceness against homosexuality. Throughout the literature and my personal experiences within the school I found that the words gay, lesbian and transgender are used in negative forms. The way such words are
36 used colloquially in schools as insults gives a sliver of insight into the heteronormativity framework in which we operate.