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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
'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.
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.
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.
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.
Teenage pregnancy and parenting at school in contemporary South African contexts: deconstructing school narratives and understanding policy implementation
(University of the Free State, 2013) Shefer, Tamara; Bhana, Deevia; Morrell, Robert
South African national education policy is committed to promoting gender equality at school and to facilitating the successful completion of all young people�s schooling, including those who may become pregnant and parent while at school. However, the experience of being pregnant and parenting while being a learner is shaped by broader social and school-based responses to teenage pregnancy, parenting and female sexuality in general. Drawing on qualitative research with a group of teachers and principals at 11 schools (over 80 interviewees) and 26 learners who are parents at school, in Cape Town and Durban, the article argues that dominant moralistic discourses on adolescence, normative gender roles and female sexuality, perpetuating the representation of teenage pregnancy as social decay and degeneration, underpin negative responses to learners. In addition, the school is constructed as a space where pregnancy and parenting are unintelligible. These discourses are shown to be experienced as exclusionary practices by some learners. The article foregrounds the imperative of addressing the larger ideological terrain that impacts on the successful implementation of the policy, recommending support for teachers in the challenges of providing meaningful guidance, constructive support and appropriate interventions in the nurturance of pregnant and parenting learners.
'She's a slut ... And it's wrong': Youth constructions of taxi queens in the Western Cape
(SAGE Publications, 2013) Strebel, Anna; Shefer, Tamara; Potgieter, Cheryl; Wagner, Claire; Shabalala, Nokuthula
Recent research on young women�s sexuality highlights the transactional nature of relationships among young people, as well as the increase in intergenerational sexual relationships. These unequal and often coercive sexual practices may increase young women�s vulnerability to unsafe sexual practices. Within this context, while there have been some media reports on the relationship between girls and taxi drivers, there has been little documented research on the phenomenon of �taxi queens�. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the understandings and constructions of taxi queens among local youth. A qualitative study involving 13 focus groups were held with youth in the Cape Town Metropole and the southern Cape region and analysed thematically. In general, there was widespread recognition among participants of transactional relationships between young women and usually older drivers. Taxi queens were strongly stigmatised, but their behaviour was also constructed as normative, especially in poor communities, and reflecting contradictory notions of vulnerability and power. However, taxi drivers were less stigmatised. Such constructions allow for the �othering� of these young women, which may undermine their ability to seek help in negotiating safer sexual relationships. At the same time, their concerns need to be understood within the larger context of challenges facing youth, especially in poor South African communities.
Policy commitments vs. lived realities of young pregnant women and mothers in school, Western Cape, South Africa
(Elsevier, 2013) Ngabaza, Sisa; Shefer, Tamara
Reproductive rights in South Africa continue to be undermined for young women who fall pregnant and become mothers while still at school. Before 1994, exclusionary practices were common and the majority of those who fell pregnant failed to resume their education. With the adoption of new policies in 2007, young pregnant women and mothers are supposed to be supported to complete school successfully. Notwithstanding these new policies, there are incongruities between policy implementation and young women's lived experience in school. This paper explores the experiences of pregnancy and parenting among a group of 15 young women who fell pregnant and became mothers while attending three high schools in Khayelitsha township, a working-class community in the Western Cape of South Africa. Qualitative, in-depth interviews, conducted between 2007 and 2008, highlighted two key areas of concern: continuing exclusionary practices on the part of schools, based on conservative interpretations of policy, and negative and moralistic responses from teachers and peers. Such practices resulted in secrecy and shame about being pregnant, affecting the young women's emotional and physical well-being and their decisions whether to remain in school during pregnancy and return after having the baby. Further attention is required to ensure appropriate implementation of policies aimed at supporting pregnant and parenting young women to complete their education successfully.

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