4.2 Violence: gender power relations
4.2.1 Girls’ account of boys’ violence
Interviewer: Do you like boys?
Karen: Ayyyyyy Miss. They are ugly. They don’t know how to treat women.
Interviewer: What do you mean?
55 Karen: They like hitting us, shouting at us. They are very abusive.
Akhona: The comments too that some guys are making Miss. You’re going and they’ll be like (whistling) just to make you feel uncomfortable. They say you’re ugly… and stuff like that. That too is harassment and harassment is violence.
Various studies have confirmed the prevalence of gender violence in schools with girls being the most common victims of various forms of violence perpetrated by boys (Bhana, 2012;
Parkes & Heslop, 2011; Pinheiro, 2006). These scholars submit that such violent acts are entrenched in unequal gender relations. Karen and Akhona’s responses above illustrate that girls are victims of various forms of violence perpetrated by boys in schools. This is fuelled by dominant ideologies of inequality which promote male domination of females and greatly influence interactions amongst learners. Karen constructs boys as ‘ugly’ due to their hostility to girls in school. However, she doesn’t advocate equality, but expects women to be treated in a special way. Therefore she is equally complicit in maintaining the unequal gender power relations that are at the heart of gender violence in schools.
Jane: They [boys] play rough with us [girls] but to say they’re gonna get angry and hit us, no they don’t do that.
Interviewer: What do you mean when you say they play rough?
Jane: They punch you, throw you, you know us, we think we’re strong too so we wanna take them on and say I can also do this and do that but we’re weak, we’ll try and do what they’re doing but they are hurting us but we’re not hurting them because they’re stronger than us but it’s just playing, nothing serious.
Jane concedes that boys play rough, but at the same time, she notes that school girls are active participants in sustaining unpleasant and violent behaviours towards them, as she considers such behaviours as, ‘just playing and nothing serious.’ The thin line between acts of violence and play as constructed by learners is problematic as boys take this as an opportunity to perpetrate violence against girls.
Most of the vast body of literature on violence has portrayed men and boys as the main perpetrators of violence against women and girls (Bhana, 2012a; L. M. Brown et al., 2007;
Parkes & Heslop, 2011; Pinheiro, 2006). However, this does not mean that women and girls are pathetic victims of boys’ aggression. This study found evidence of isolated cases of violence perpetrated by girls against boys. According to Bhana (2008), the presentation of
56 school girls as victims of violence and boys as perpetrators reveals insufficient knowledge of their experiences in school, including the survival skills girls develop in order to traverse violent school spaces. As the data suggest, not all the girls in this study conformed to everyday perceptions of femininities that portray women and girls as victims of violent acts perpetrated by boys.
Sandile: …and Miss in this school, you’ve got some amazing girls. Girls that hit boys.
They whipped him, they really do. There is this girl that hit boys, she is in grade 12, she is fat… she is strong. She fights to protect the interest of girls.
Due to the culture of silence, vulnerability and passivity that have been normalised in schools to represent feminine features, girls who broke the trend of passivity were identified by the boys as ‘amazing girls’. According to the male participants, amazing girls were girls who tend to deviate from normal patterns of passivity to initiate as well as retaliate when boys are aggressive. These girls do not only resist boys’ violence towards them, but they are also very concerned about their female peers who are victims of boys’ aggression.
While one might be tempted to think that boys are the enemy due to their aggressive behaviours towards girls, it is evident from this study that friendships are still created. During my observation during breaks and in classrooms, I noticed that most friendship groups were separated along gender lines. However, when I quizzed some of the girls about who they prefer to hang out with, they had this to say:
Talia: We mostly chill with boys. Boys are more fun. Girls like trouble. When girls are together, there’s conflict, there’s a lot of scandal.
Sandra: I like hanging out with the boys. I leave my friends to go hang out with boys.
They are so cool to hang out with. I can tell my male friends about anything. My boyfriend is like my brother. I tell him everything. But girls gossip a lot and when you tell them something, the next day it is everywhere and that’s how a fight starts. Boys are cool. Girls are jealous of one another. They carry one another’s story… I just like to hang out with boys.
Bhana, Nzimakwe, and Nzimakwe (2011) submit that sexuality is an overriding force in the creation of friendships. In order to prevent the embarrassment of being regarded as boyfriends and girlfriends, girls choose to stay together in school even though they prefer the company of boys.
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