Research Articles (Women & Gender Studies)

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Men and children: Changing constructions of fatherhood in Drum magazine, 1951-1965
(HSRC Press, 2006) Clowes, Lindsay
This chapter explores changing representations of fatherhood and masculinity in Drum magazine over the course of the 1950s. In the early 1950s men were portrayed in close proximity to their children and adult masculinities were tied to being a father. Over the course of the 1950s this changed such that by the 1960s adult masculinities were portrayed outside the home and disconnected and distinct from their offspring.
Accidental feminists? Recent histories of South African women
(History Department, University of the Western Cape, 2007) van der Spuy, Patricia; Clowes, Lindsay
This article reviews Helen Scanlon's book, "Representation and reality", and Nombonisa Gasa's "Women in South African history", and locates each against the historiography of South African women's history
Pregnant girls and young parents in South African schools
(UNISA Press, 2008) Bhana, Deevia; Clowes, Lindsay; Morrell, Robert; Shefer, Tamara
Since the promulgation of the South African Schools Act in 1 996, it has become illegal to exclude pregnant girls from school. Influenced by feminist research, policy has sought to assist pregnant girls and young parents to continue and complete their schooling on the understanding that having children often terminates school-going, limiting future employment and work opportunities. This focus seeks to examine how the new policy has been understood and implemented. The authors focus on the views and experiences of principals and teachers, as they are the authorities at school with the responsibility for ensuring that the policy is implemented. The paper draws on qualitative data collected by a larger study on being and becoming a parent at a diverse group of schools in KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape Province. The authors investigate the extent to which schools' responses to pregnancy and parenting reflect and/or reproduce normative gender roles and practices with respect to schooling and parenting in contemporary South Africa. The paper also shows that despite familiar stereotypes about young parents and pregnancy both teachers and principals take their educational responsibilities seriously. They do care and do try to help. But many teachers are judgmental and moralistic, particularly in response to young girls.
Masculinity, matrimony and generation: Reconfiguring patriarchy in Drum 1951-1983
(Routledge, 2008) Clowes, Lindsay
In this article I discuss some of the ways in which Drum tended to ascribe �modernity� to particular practices and processes in opposition to other practices and processes portrayed as �traditional�. In mid-twentieth-century South Africa, dominant discourses tended to signal (white) male adulthood through independent decision making alongside financial autonomy. In contrast African discourses tended to signal male adulthood through proximity to family members, through respect for age and seniority and through deference to the praxis of �tradition�. In the representations of black men in its pages, Drum magazine negotiated a somewhat disorderly path through these competing racialised discourses. I suggest that Drum�s claim that black males were indeed men was made through highlighting and condoning practices that demonstrated similarities and continuities between subordinate black and dominant white versions of manhood. In challenging the racial discourse the magazine paradoxically found itself simultaneously reinforcing western rather than African versions of manhood.
Editorial: reflections on men, masculinities and meaning in South Africa
(Psychology in Society, 2008) Shefer, Tamara; Bowman, Brett; Duncan, Norman
This special issue embodies a contribution to what we consider to be a critical academic and political debate on the contours and expressions of masculinities in South Africa and how these intersect with the lived realities of South Africans.
South African schools' responses to pregnant girls and young parents: a study of some Durban and Cape Town secondary schools
(Unisa Press and Taylor & Francis, 2008) Bhana, Deevia; Clowes, Lindsay; Morrell, Robert; Shefer, Tamara
Since the promulgation of the South African Schools Act in 1996 it has become illegal to exclude pregnant girls from school. Influenced by feminist research, policy has sought to assist pregnant girls and young parents to continue and complete their schooling on the understanding that having children often terminates school-going limiting future employment and work opportunities. This paper seeks to examine how the new policy has been understood and implemented. We focus on the views and experiences of principals and teachers as they are the authorities at school with the responsibility for ensuring that the policy is implemented. The paper draws on qualitative data collected by a larger study on being and becoming a parent at diverse group of schools in Kwazulu-Natal and the Western Cape. In the paper we investigate the extent to which schools� responses to pregnancy and parenting reflect and/or reproduce normative gender roles and practices with respect to schooling and parenting in contemporary South Africa. We show also that despite familiar stereotypes about young parents and pregnancy, both teachers and principals take their pastoral responsibilities seriously. They do care and do try to help. But many teachers were judgemental and moralistic particularly in response to young girls.
Coercive sexual practices and gender-based violence on a university campus
(Taylor & Francis, co-published with Unisa Press, 2009) Clowes, Lindsay; Shefer, Tamara; Fouten, Elron; Vergnani, Tania; Jacobs, Joachim
When a 22-year-old University of the Western Cape (UWC) female student was stabbed to death by her boyfriend (another student) in her room in the university residence on 25 August 2008, the entire campus was left reeling. Bringing the stark reality of gender-based violence (GBV) so close to home, the tragedy was a powerful reminder of the limits of more than a decade of legislative change, concerted activism, education, consciousness-raising and knowledge production aimed at challenging gender-based power inequalities. This article reflects on the relationships between violence, coercion and heterosexuality on a specific campus by drawing on data generated by a qualitative study at UWC that explored student constructions of heterosexual relationships in the light of national imperatives around HIV/AIDS and GBV. Involving 20 focus groups with male and female students over the course of 2008 and 2009, the study revealed that unequal and coercive practices are common in heterosexual relationships on this campus. The study underlined the necessity of understanding these relationships as produced through power inequalities inherent in normative gender roles, and also drew attention to ways in which gender power inequalities intersect in complex and sometimes contradictory ways with other forms of inequality on campus � in particular, class, age and geographical origin. While both men and women students appeared to experience pressure (linked to peer acceptance and material gain) to engage in (hetero)sexual relationships, it seems that first-year female students from poor, rural backgrounds are particularly vulnerable to the transactional and unequal relationships associated with coercive and sometimes even violent sexual practices. Alcohol and substance abuse also appear to be linked to unsafe and abusive sexual practices, and again it is young female students new to campus life who are most vulnerable. This article draws on the data from this larger study to explore experiences and understandings of the most vulnerable � young female students � in unpacking connections between (hetero)sexuality and violent and coercive sex in an educational institution.
Men in Africa: masculinities, materiality and meaning
(Elliot & Fitzpatrick Inc., 2010) Shefer, Tamara; Stevens, Garth; Clowes, Lindsay
At a public lecture in Cape Town earlier this year, Professor Sandra Harding, an internationally renowned feminist author, spoke to the question �Can men be subjects of feminist thought?� (1 March 2010, District Six Museum, Cape Town). In her talk, Harding called on men to elaborate critically on their subjective experiences and practices of being boys and men � from childhood to adulthood, and through fatherhood to old age. She argued that while androcentric thinking has dominated knowledge production globally, men�s self-reflexive voices on their own experiences of being boys and men have been relatively silent, particularly through a profeminist and critical gender lens. Harding thus drew attention to an important challenge confronting contemporary psychology, a challenge that underpins the rationale for this Special Edition of the Journal of Psychology in Africa. However, much of our knowledge within the discipline of psychology has been and remains uncritically based on boys� and men�s experiences and perspectives. More specifically, as Boonzaier and Shefer (2007) argue, most psychological knowledge is not only predominantly based on research with men, but also in most cases, middle-class, white, American men. Studies that problematise and foreground masculinity itself, that challenge masculinity as normative, and that apply a critical, gendered lens, are still relatively marginal in the social sciences and particularly in psychology. This is however beginning to change.
Perceptions of staffriding in Post-Apartheid South Africa: the lethal thrill of speed or the masculine performance of a painful past?
(Elliot & Fitzpatrick Inc., 2010) Sedite, Dimakatso; Bowman, Brett; Clowes, Lindsay
Staffriding, or train surfing, involves taking life threatening physical risks by moving around the outside of moving trains. In aiming to better understand this risky practice, this small scale qualitative study used three semi-structured interviews and three focus discussions to understand perceptions of train surfing in South Africa�s Gauteng province. Semi-structured interviews comprised general station staff (n=2), and a station manager (n=1). The first two focus group discussions held were with ticket marshals (n= 6 per group, with a total of 12), and the last focus group discussion was with commuters (n=4), security personnel (n=6), and a station manager (n=1). Findings revealed that the majority of staffriders were perceived to be young, urban, black boys/men attending suburban schools. Tracing these identity co-ordinates against possible configurations of masculinity, we argue that train surfing represents a particular performance of risky, heteronormative masculinity forged within and against the historical, political and economic legacies that contoured apartheid versions of �black� manhood.
Risk and protective factors to male interpersonal violence: Views of some male university students
(Medical Research Council, Tygerberg, 2010) Clowes, Lindsay; Lazarus, Sandy; Ratele, Kopano
This article reports on a study that sought to elicit the views of male university students on risk and protective factors to male interpersonal violence. The participants were 116 third-year students who participated in a final year research project in the Women�s and Gender Studies (WGS) Programme at the University of Western Cape (UWC). Each of the students conducted six semistructured face to face interviews with male students. Following initial analyses of the interviews, a video-recorded class discussion was held to discuss the research findings. The data from the class discussion was captured under the four levels of individual, relationship, community and society, utilised by the World Health organization (WHO) in its World Health Report on Violence and Health. The analysis of the class discussion and the students� own research reports revealed that at the individual level, risk and protective factors primarily revolve around the challenges of constructing a viable masculinity in specific social and economic contexts; at the relationship level, the key factors appear to be the experiences and expectations around gender roles and family dynamics; at the community level, it seems that weak or non-existent community networks and activities feed into increasing the risk of male community members becoming involved in violence. Each of these three levels needs to be understood against the historically specific backdrop of the societal ecological level: the gendered cultural values expressed in and reflectedby the wider social, economic and political contexts.
Risk and protective factors to male interpersonal violence: views of some male university students
(Medical Research Council, 2010) Clowes, Lindsay; Lazarus, Sandy; Ratele, Kopano
This article reports on a study that sought to elicit the views of male university students on risk and protective factors to male interpersonal violence. The participants were 116 third-year students who participated in a final year research project in the Women�s and Gender Studies (WGS) Programme at the University of Western Cape (UWC). Each of the students conducted six semistructured face to face interviews with male students. Following initial analyses of the interviews, a video-recorded class discussion was held to discuss the research findings. The data from the class discussion was captured under the four levels of individual, relationship, community and society, utilised by the World Health Organization (WHO) in its World Health Report on Violence and Health. The analysis of the class discussion and the students� own research reports revealed that at the individual level, risk and protective factors primarily revolve around the challenges of constructing a viable masculinity in specific social and economic contexts; at the relationship level, the key factors appear to be the experiences and expectations around gender roles and family dynamics; at the community level, it seems that weak or non-existent community networks and activities feed into increasing the risk of male community members becoming involved in violence. Each of these three levels needs to be understood against the historically specific backdrop of the societal ecological level: the gendered cultural values expressed in and reflected
Taxi �sugar daddies� and taxi queens: male taxi driver attitudes regarding transactional relationships in the Western Cape, South Africa
(Taylor & Francis Open, 2012) Potgieter, Cheryl; Strebel, Anna; Shefer, Tamara; Wagner, Claire
Media reports are emerging on the phenomenon of young girls who travel with older mini-bus taxi drivers, and who are thought to have sex with the drivers in exchange for gifts and money. The extent to which such relationships might facilitate unsafe sexual practices and increased risks for both the men and the young women, often referred to as taxi queens, remains an important question in the light of the current challenges of HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. However, very little research has been undertaken on this issue, especially regarding the perceptions and experiences of taxi drivers. Thus this paper aims to provide some preliminary findings on taxi drivers� attitudes and beliefs about taxi queens and their relationships with taxi drivers. A 22-item questionnaire was administered to 223 male taxi drivers in two regions in the Western Cape Province, South Africa. Taxi drivers in this study largely saw the relationship between taxi drivers and the young girls who ride with them as providing status for both the girls and drivers, and there seemed to be recognition of the transactional nature of the relationship between taxi drivers and taxi queens. The stigmatisation of young girls who ride with taxi drivers was evident. Drivers had knowledge and awareness of the risks of unsafe sex and supported condom use, although there appeared to be some uncertainty and confusion about the likelihood of HIV infection between drivers and girls. While taxi drivers recognised the role of alcohol in relationships with young girls, they seemed to deny that the abuse of drugs was common. The study highlights a number of key areas that need to be explored with men in the taxi industry, in order to address risk behaviours for both taxi drivers and the girls who ride with them.
Matters of age: An introduction to ageing, intergenerationality and gender in Africa
(Taylor & Francis and UNISA, 2012) Reddy, Vasu; Sanger, Nadia
This introductory essay to this special issue of Agenda draws together a wide-ranging, cross-disciplinary literature on ageing, intergenerationality and gender, and locates the significance of writing from Africa within this context. The first half of the essay provides a critical and comprehensive review of available literature in the field, highlighting the significance of research and writing on the ways in which gender mediates ageing and intergenerationality as both process and emotional space. The latter half of the essay engages the significance of the depth of contributions in this issue as critical in the conversation around ageing, gender, and intergenerationality in the context of Africa and the South, and the need for perspectives from multiple disciplines to continue engaging the field through both scholarship and advocacy.
Narratives of transactional sex on a university campus
(Taylor & Francis, 2012) Shefer, Tamara; Clowes, Lindsay; Vergnani, Tania
Given the imperatives of HIV and gender equality, South African researchers have foregrounded transactional sex as a common practice that contributes to unsafe and inequitable sexual practices. This paper presents findings from a qualitative study with a group of students at a South African university, drawing on narratives that speak to the dynamics of reportedly widespread transactional sex on campus. Since many of these relationships are inscribed within unequal power dynamics across the urban-rural and local-�foreigner� divides, and across differences of wealth, age and status that intersect with gender in multiple, complex ways, it is argued that these may be exacerbating unsafe and coercive sexual practices among this group of young people. The paper further argues for a critical, reflexive position on transactional sex, pointing to the way in which participants articulate a binaristic response to transactional relationships that simultaneously serves to reproduce a silencing of a discourse on female sexual desires, alongside a simplistic and deterministic picture of masculinity underpinned by the male sexual drive discourse.
Talking South African fathers: a critical examination of men�s constructions and experiences of fatherhood and fatherlessness
(Sage Publications, 2012) Ratele, Kopano; Shefer, Tamara; Clowes, Lindsay
The absence of biological fathers in South Africa has been constructed as a problem for children of both sexes but more so for boy-children. Arguably the dominant discourse in this respect has demonized non-nuclear, female-headed households. Fathers are constructed as either absent or �bad�. Thus it has become important to explore more closely how male care-givers have been experienced by groups of men in South Africa. This article examines discourses of fatherhood and fatherlessness by drawing on qualitative interviews with a group of 29 men who speak about their reported experiences and understandings of being fathered or growing up without biological fathers. Two major and intertwined subjugated discourses about adult men�s experiences of being fathered that counter- balance the prevailing discourses about meaning of fatherhood and fatherlessness became evident, namely, �being always there� and �talking fatherhood�. The importance of the experience of fatherhood as �being there�, which relates to a quality of time and relationship between child and father rather than physical time together, is illustrated. It is not only biological fathers who can �be there� for their sons but also social fathers, other significant male role models and father figures who step in at different times in participants� lives when biological fathers are unavailable for whatever reason. Second, many positive experiences of fathers or father figures that resist a traditional role of authority and control and subscribe to more nurturant and non-violent forms of care, represented as �talking� fathers, are underlined. If we are to better understand the impact of colonial and apartheid history and its legacy on family life in contemporary society, there is a need for more historically and contextually informed studies on the meaning of fatherhood and fatherlessness.
'A living testimony of the heights to which a woman can rise�: Sarojini Naidu, Cissie Gool and the Politics of Women�s Leadership in South Africa in the 1920s
(Taylor & Francis, 2012) van der Spuy, Patricia; Clowes, Lindsay
A leading force in the Indian National Congress, Sarojini Naidu arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa, at the end of February 1924 after receiving an invitation to support South African Indian political organisations in their struggle against the Class Areas Bill. Intending to leave South Africa after two weeks, Naidu remained for several months. In this paper we explore Naidu�s relationship with �the Joan of Arc of District Six�, Cissie Gool. We suggest that Naidu�s visit was significant for South African women�s political histories in general and Gool�s in particular. Insisting that women be respected as political activists, Naidu�s visit redefined the place of women, not only as participants in politics, but also as leaders. She provided a role model for women, such as Gool, who might otherwise not have imagined it possible to exercise power and authority within South Africa�s profoundly patriarchal political mainstream. Against the broader context of South African women�s activism Sarojini Naidu�s South African visit expands our vision to encompass the doubly marginal: women acting at the margins of women�s political history and at the margins of patriarchal politics - and further marginalised within the historiographies of each.
School principals and their responses to the rights and needs of pregnant and parenting learners
(HSRC Press, 2012) Clowes, Lindsay; D�Amant, Toni; Nkani, Vuyo
Intimate partner violence during pregnancy in Zimbabwe: across-sectional study of prevalence, predictors and associations with HIV
(Public Library of Science, 2013) Shamu, Simukai; Abrahams, Naeemah; Zarowsky, Christina; Shefer, Tamara; Temmerman, Marleen
objective To describe the occurrence, dynamics and predictors of intimate partner violence (IPV) during pregnancy, including links with HIV, in urban Zimbabwe. methods A cross-sectional survey of 2042 post-natal women aged 15�49 years was conducted in six public primary healthcare clinics in low-income urban Zimbabwe. An adapted WHO questionnaire was used to measure IPV. Multivariate logistic regression was used to assess factors associated with IPV and severe (six or more episodes) IPV during pregnancy. results 63.1% of respondents reported physical, emotional and/or sexual IPV during pregnancy: 46.2% reported physical and/or sexual violence, 38.9% sexual violence, 15.9% physical violence and 10% reported severe violence during pregnancy. Physical violence was less common during pregnancy than during the last 12 months before pregnancy (15.9% [95% CI 14.3�17.5] vs. 21.3% [95% confidence interval 19.5�23.1]). Reported rates of emotional (40.3% [95% CI 38.1�42.3] vs. 44.0% [95% CI 41.8�46.1]) and sexual violence (35.6% [95% CI 33.5�37.7] vs. 38.9% [95% CI 36.8� 41.0]) were high during and before pregnancy. Associated factors were having a younger male partner, gender inequities, past abuse, problem drinking, partner control of woman�s reproductive health and risky sexual practices. HIV status was not associated with either IPV or severe IPV, but reporting a partner with a known HIV status was associated with a lower likelihood of severe abuse. conclusion The rates of IPV during pregnancy in Zimbabwe are among the highest ever reported globally. Primary prevention of violence during childhood through adolescence is urgently needed. Antenatal care may provide an opportunity for secondary prevention but this requires further work. The relationship between IPV and HIV is complex in contexts where both are endemic.
Deconstructing the 'sugar daddy': A critical review of the constructions of men in intergenerational sexual relationships in South Africa
(Routledge, 2013) Shefer, Tamara; Strebel, Anna
Since a recent Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) prevalence study highlighted the relationship between intergenerational sex and risk of HIV infection, a range of studies in Southern Africa have documented the commonality of sexual relations between older men and young women. For the most part, these studies have focused on the material and status benefits for the young women, and on their vulnerability to HIV, violence and unwanted pregnancies, within the context of gender power inequalities to negotiate safe and equitable sex. In this Focus we review this literature and argue that there is a relative absence of focus on attempting to understand the older men's positions. We suggest the need for research that offers a more nuanced account of the complexities of men's performances of sexuality, which will move beyond depicting older men as inevitable perpetrators of unequal sexual relationships with younger women. In order to better understand and address the complexities of intergenerational sexual relationships, men's constructions of their sexuality and their gains and investments in such relationships require more critical analysis.
Politics, freedoms and spirituality in Alaa Al Aswany's Yacouian Building
(University of Cape Town, 2013) Lewis, Desiree
Although set in the 1990s and published in 2002, Alaa Al Aswany�s novel The Yacoubian Building conveys the corruption and brutality that led to explosive revolutions in Egypt from 2011. Moreover, his depiction of Cairo-dwellers with diverse class, cultural and gendered experiences functions as a microcosm of the dense forms and histories of contemporary Egyptian socio-political processes. This article argues that the novel�s power derives not only from its prophetic insight into Egyptian neo-colonial politics, but also from its expansive exploration of personal and collective freedoms. Connecting ideas about freedom to his scrutiny of how Islamic discourses have been represented and appropriated, Al Aswany shows that aspects of Islam have played a vital part in liberating personal and political struggles. The article therefore demonstrates that Al Aswany challenges Western-centric, orientalist and narrowly rights-based conceptions of social justice by exploring the interconnectedness of sexual, spiritual and political freedoms.

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