Department of Women & Gender Studies

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https://hdl.handle.net/10566/7

Women’s and Gender Studies (WGS) is an interdisciplinary programme which aims to promote scholarship on gender issues in South Africa, and to contribute to the challenge of gender transformation in the university and in society at large.

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"Access to tertiary education": Exploring the experiences of women with physical disabilities in Kamwala, Zambia
(University of the Western Cape, 2017) Matambo, Luyeye Hope; Ngabaza, Sisa
Women with disabilities are marginalised in many aspects of societal participation. The majority of women with disabilities in Zambia do not have access to education and this has placed them amongst the poorest of people in the country. The study focuses on the experiences of women with physical disabilities and investigates the challenges they encounter in accessing education at tertiary level. The study comes at a time when the fight for gender equality has gained momentum and aims at promoting economic participation for all members of society without discrimination on the basis of sex or disability. The study engaged ten participants from a tertiary institution in Kamwala, Lusaka. I conducted a feminist qualitative research, which focused on the experiences of 19-30 year old female students with physical disabilities. I used semi-structured interviews in order to collect the data and drew on a qualitative thematic analysis to analyse the data. All standard ethical procedures were adhered to, including anonymity and confidentiality with respect to participants. The results of the study revealed that women with disabilities were often 'othered' due to myths and misconceptions that surrounded disability especially in the African- traditional context. The study also revealed that families played a very important role in ensuring that women and young girls with disabilities had a strong self-image, strong self-esteem and a strong sense of self and ensuring that they felt included within the homes and especially when accessing education. The study further revealed that where family support was lacking, participants faced challenges in accessing education compared to participants who received such support. More so, that educational opportunities in Zambia are generally gendered with more males than females in the education system, across the multiple levels. Access to the tertiary level for this group of women is compromised because challenges in accessing education start at the lower levels and have spill over effects in to the higher levels of education. Financial challenges experienced by women with disabilities and their families also led to fewer women with disabilities being able to participate in schooling. This is because where there were limited resources within the family, women, and girls with disabilities getting an education was not an option.
"Access to tertiary education": Exploring the experiences of women with physical disabilities in Kamwala, Zambia
(University of the Western Cape, 2017) Matambo, Luyeye Hope; Ngabaza, Sisa
Women with disabilities are marginalised in many aspects of societal participation. The majority of women with disabilities in Zambia do not have access to education and this has placed them amongst the poorest of people in the country. The study focuses on the experiences of women with physical disabilities and investigates the challenges they encounter in accessing education at tertiary level. The study comes at a time when the fight for gender equality has gained momentum and aims at promoting economic participation for all members of society without discrimination on the basis of sex or disability. The study engaged ten participants from a tertiary institution in Kamwala, Lusaka. I conducted a feminist qualitative research, which focused on the experiences of 19-30 year old female students with physical disabilities. I used semi-structured interviews in order to collect the data and drew on a qualitative thematic analysis to analyse the data. All standard ethical procedures were adhered to, including anonymity and confidentiality with respect to participants. The results of the study revealed that women with disabilities were often �othered� due to myths and misconceptions that surrounded disability especially in the African- traditional context. The study also revealed that families played a very important role in ensuring that women and young girls with disabilities had a strong self-image, strong self-esteem and a strong sense of self and ensuring that they felt included within the homes and especially when accessing education. The study further revealed that where family support was lacking, participants faced challenges in accessing education compared to participants who received such support. More so, that educational opportunities in Zambia are generally gendered with more males than females in the education system, across the multiple levels. Access to the tertiary level for this group of women is compromised because challenges in accessing education start at the lower levels and have spill over effects in to the higher levels of education. Financial challenges experienced by women with disabilities and their families also led to fewer women with disabilities being able to participate in schooling. This is because where there were limited resources within the family, women, and girls with disabilities getting an education was not an option.
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
Affective oceanic seaswimming and encounters for care-full environmental communication
(Routledge, 2024) Shefer, Tamara; Bozalek, Vivienne; Romano, Nike
Our oceanic swimming practice began as part of the project of doing scholarship differently in contemporary South African post-apartheid contexts. Swimming-writing-reading not only enables different ways of doing inquiry but also prompts new ways of communicating environmental injustices as we face them in/with/through the ocean. We argue the value of this practice, and the writings we generate and share, for a rethinking and reframing of environmental communication through practices of care. “Slow swimming” in the ocean brings one into intimate, affecting encounters with the ocean and its multiplicities. Porous to fluid temporalities, oceanic swimming-writing-reading becomes a hauntological place-space-time-mattering practice of swimming as we become aware of sedimented crimes of slavery and colonization, and confront the ghosts of apartheid and colonial violence. As we meet disasters of present and future, polluted and violated seas, our affective relational watery encounters with more-than-human species sharpen our response-ability to and responsibility for anthropocentric damages to the ocean and planet. We suggest such practices of affective wit(h)nessing, relationality, and care as a productive resource for communicating current environmental challenges that are consequences of certain human hands, as well as our mutual entanglements and response-abilities on planet Earth.
An exploratory study of experiences of parenting among a group of school-going adolescent mothers in a South African township
(University of the Western Cape, 2010) Ngabaza, Sisa; Shefer, Tamara; Women and Gender Studies; Faculty of Arts
This study explored adolescent girls' subjective experiences of being young mothers in school, focusing on their personal and interpersonal relationships within their social contexts. Participants included 15 young black mothers aged between 16 and 19 years from three high schools in Khayelitsha, Cape Town. Conducted within a feminist social constructionist framework, the study adopted an exploratory qualitative structure. Data were collected through life histories that were analysed within a thematic narrative framework. The narratives revealed that the young mothers found motherhood challenging and overly disruptive of school. Although contexts of childcare emerged as pivotal in how young mothers balanced motherhood and schoolwork, these were also presented as characterised by notions of power and control. Because of the gendered nature of care work, the women who supported the young mothers with childcare dominated the mothering spheres. The schools were also experienced as controlled and regulated by authorities in ways that constrained the young mothers balancing of school and parenting. Equally constraining to a number of adolescent mothers were structural challenges, for example, parenting in spaces that lacked resources. These challenges were compounded by the immense stigma attached to adolescent motherhood. The study recommended that the Department of Education work closely with all the parties concerned in ensuring that pregnant learners benefit from the policy. It is necessary that educators are encouraged to shift attitudes so that communication with adolescent mothers is improved.
'And I have been told that there is nothing fun about having sex while you are still in high school': Dominant discourses on women's sexual practices and desires in Life Orientation programmes at school
(University of the Free State, 2015) Shefer, Tamara; Ngabaza, Sisa
Young women's sexuality is a contested terrain in multiple ways in contemporary South Africa. A growing body of work in the context of HIV and gender-based violence illustrates how young women find it challenging to negotiate safe and equitable sexual relationships with men, and are often the victims of coercive sex, unwanted early pregnancies and HIV. On the other hand, young women's sexuality is also stigmatised and responded to in punitive terms in school or community contexts, as is evident in research on teenage pregnancy and parenting in schools. Within both these bodies of work, women's own narratives are missing, as well as their agency and a positive discourse on female sexuality. Female desires are absent in heteronormative practices and ideologies, as pointed out by feminist researchers internationally. A body of work on young women who parent at school has shown that a key component of the moralistic response to women's sexuality hinges on the way in which childhood, adolescence and adulthood are popularly understood, together with dominant notions of masculinity and femininity within heteronormative and middle-class notions of family. Such discourses are also salient in the responses and understandings of sexuality education in Life Orientation, particularly the way in which young women are represented. This paper draws from qualitative research conducted with teachers, school authorities and young people on sexuality education in the Life Orientation programme at schools in the Western and Eastern Cape. Key findings reiterate disciplinary responses to young women's sexuality, often framed within 'danger' and 'damage' discourses that foreground the denial of young women's sexual desire and practices within a framework of protection, regulation and discipline in order to avoid promised punishments of being sexually active.
Art as accessible knowledge for challenging intersectional gender binarisms
(University of the Western Cape, 2022) Msebenzi, Thandiwe T.; Shefer, Tamara
Arts-based research struggles to find validation within the norms of rigid Eurocentric and androcentric academic norms. The Rhodes Must Fall movement, that started at the University of Cape Town in 2015, and the creative demonstrations/interventions that have occurred since then, as a tool for mass mobilisation and knowledge dissemination, were crucial in illustrating that art is an accessible form of pedagogy and scholarship in engaging with social issues. In this study, I centre creative practice to lead the research on an enquiry into alternative forms of gender, what I term �soft masculinities� and �tough femininities,� through memories of my experience, community and family, which I capture as nuanced expressions through photography. For the study, I use the visual body of artwork I created to formulate my research question.
An assessment of the perceptions of parental practices which place children at-risk for abuse and neglect
(University of the Western Cape, 2012) Cottee, Gail Janine; Roman, Nicolette
The aim of the study was to assess the perceptions of parental practices, which could place children at risk for abuse and neglect. This study used the quantitative method with a cross-sectional comparative design to examine and compare parental practices of parents, whose children were victims of abuse or neglect across gender, marital status and socio economic status. A sample of 163 participants (87 mothers and 76 fathers), who were either single or married and their socio economic status varied from the lower to the higher income group participated in the study. The participants completed the questionnaire, which was based on the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI) and the data was analyzed by means of the Statistical Package in the Science (SPSS version 20). The results suggest that there are no significant differences between parents based on socio-economic status and marital status. However, there were significant differences between mothers? and fathers? care and overprotection. Furthermore, mothers were identified as being affectionless controlling in their parenting practices (low care and high overprotection) and fathers as affectionately constraining in their parenting practices (high care and high protection). Recommendations are provided for this study
Be a little careful: Women, violence, and performance in India
(Cambridge University Press, 2019) Arora, Swati
In this article Swati Arora analyzes a contemporary Indian feminist performance, Thoda Dhyaan Se (A Little Carefully, 2013), by framing it in the spatial ecosystem of the city of Delhi and exploring its engagement with feminist discourse and the national imaginary of India. It highlights the workings of the cultural economy of the city, which is defined by its spatial contours as well as the privileges of caste, class, sexuality, and ethnicity, and at the same time explores the heterogeneous nature of the country's feminist movement through an intersectional perspective. Swati Arora argues that the concerns raised by Thoda Dhyaan Se are limited to urban, middle-class, and upper-caste women and overlook the oppressive realities of women from non-urban, lower-class, and lower-caste backgrounds. With conversations around gender focused through campaigns like #MeToo and #TImesUp, it is important to contextualize the voices that are articulated and those that are excluded. Swati Arora is an Andrew W. Mellon postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape.
�Because they are me�: Dress and the making of gender
(Taylor & Francis, 2018) Shefer, Tamara; Ratele, Kopano; Clowes, Lindsay
Young people in contemporary South Africa inhabit a multiplicity of diverse, often contradictory, economic and socio-cultural contexts. These contexts offer a range of possibilities and opportunities for the affirmation of certain identities and positionalities alongside the disavowal of others. Dress � clothes, accessories and body styling � is one of the key components through which, within specific social conditions, people perform these identities. In making statements about themselves in terms of these multiple and intersecting group (or social) historical identities, the meanings soaked into people�s dress simultaneously speak to the present and their aspirations for the future. This article reports on a study that explored how a group of third year students at a South African university use dress to negotiate the multiple and intersecting identities available to them in a context characterised by neoliberal democracy and market ideologies that continue to be mediated by the racialised legacies of apartheid. The study employed a qualitative feminist discourse analysis to consider 53 semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted by third year students with other students on campus as part of an ongoing project exploring gender productions and performance. The discussion focuses on student understandings of ways in which contemporary clothes and dress signal gender. The research suggests that while there are moments in which clothes are acknowledged as expressions that can reinforce or challenge inequalities structured around gender, participants are also strongly invested in neoliberal consumerist understandings of clothes as accessories to an individualised self in ways that reinforce neoliberal market ideologies and reinstate hegemonic performances of gender.
Black South African women and physical fitness. A case study of six women at a physical fitness centre
(Univeristy of the Western Cape, 2024) Manyaka, Ethel Lefentse
This study explores the motivations and experiences of six Black South African women, aged 39 to 55, who work out at a fitness center. By employing a qualitative feminist approach and conducting an in-depth semi-structured interviews, the study examined how these women perceive physical activity (PA) in relation to their social and cultural backgrounds. Findings indicate that chronic health problems influence participants’ willingness to engage in PA. Many of them expressed that PA is beneficial for managing stress and enhancing mental well-being. Weight loss and maintaining a healthy weight emerged as key reasons for their commitment to staying active. The women also highlighted the necessity for diverse workout options, and the importance of adhering to a consistent routine. Cultural factors and support from friends and family were identified as vital components of their fitness journeys. However, financial constraints often posed challenges in accessing gym memberships or personal training services. Furthermore, traditional gender roles and societal expectations restricted their opportunities to participate in PA. Overall, this research illustrates that anxiety and social influences play crucial roles in motivating women to exercise, while also demonstrating that fitness centers can serve as accessible and inclusive environments for Black women to engage in public discussions. This study contributes to the broader conversation surrounding women's physical activity, gender roles, and stereotypes within the framework of African feminist theory in South Africa.
Body positive �healthy� women: Representations of health and femininities in women�s health magazine South Africa, 2013-2018
(University of the Western Cape, 2022) Samaai, Shirmeez; Clowes, Lindsay
This research explores how representations of healthy femininities are constructed through narratives of Body Positivity in the South African version of Women�s Health magazine from 2013 to 2018. In my thesis, I examine how the magazine romanticises certain bodies and subtly pathologises others. By conducting a thematic analysis, I focus on the magazine�s presentation of women�s bodies and how these representations are linked to femininities, health, and sexuality. From a Body Positive lens, I argue that the magazine represents certain bodies as normative and �healthy� and other bodies as unhealthy and undesirable.
Book symposium: men, masculinities and southern urbanism
(Routledge, 2025) Hearn, Jeff; Chowdhury, Romit; Matlon, Jordanna
This book symposium is a multilogue on four books Migrants and Masculinity in High-Rise Nairobi: The Pressure of Being a Man in an African City, by Mario Schmidt; City of Men: Masculinities and Everyday Morality on Public Transport, by Romit Chowdhury; Becoming Young Men in a New India: Masculinities, Gender Relations and Violence in the Postcolony, by Shannon Philip; and A Man among Other Men: The Crisis of Black Masculinity in Racial Capitalism, by Jordanna C. Matlon. The discussion, held between the four authors, along with Jeff Hearn and Kopano Ratele, addresses: the background to the books based in Kenya, India and Côte d’Ivoire respectively; main contributions around men, masculinities and urbanism; ethnography and other methodologies; relations to Critical Studies on Men and Masculinities, Feminist and Human Geography, and kindred disciplines, and ways forward.
Call centres: Anonymous �safe spaces� for women�s experiences of abortion stigma
(University of Western Cape, 2021) Xaba, Nonkosi; Ngabaza, Sisa
In South Africa, abortion became a right in 1996 in terms of the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act, 92 of 1996 (CTOP). However, despite this legal dispensation, debates between pro-life (those against abortion) and pro-choice (those supportive of the law) have continued unabated in liberal South Africa. These debates have resulted in severe stigma for women who choose to terminate their pregnancies. The discourse is shaped by an array of personal, religious, cultural and other social beliefs that differ from community to community. Research shows that access to free post-abortion services is further complicated for women, especially young women, by privacy concerns, the negative attitudes of institutional service providers, and stigma.
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.
Complicating �tradition� and �modernity�: Young South African Women?s Perceptions of Lobola
(University of the Western Cape, 2021) Nduna, Nyaradzo; Lewis, Desiree
An indigenous cultural practice among the many ethnic groups of South Africa, lobola has changed immensely, especially in highly urbanised towns. It has also been the subject of several interpretations in academia, the media, and popular opinion. These have included ethnographic scholarship that focuses on its cultural significance and its centrality to reciprocal relationships between groups. Other academic and activist views criticize how lobola, as a form of bride wealth, instrumentalises women in patriarchal society. In addition, other interpretive strand acknowledges lobola's patriarchal impacts while also recognizing the agencies and choices of women who embrace it. The work demonstrates that women are neither consistent agents nor constant victims of lobola, but that they experience it in different ways. As a result, the study explores how young women�s situated knowledge helps us understand lobola�s complex and ambiguous meanings that might assist in comprehending the current connotations of lobola, which are presently complicated and confusing. The current study is concerned with mapping out and analysing the complexities of standpoint knowledge-making that is typically side-lined in the numerous scholarly and activist studies of lobola by selecting a diverse range of young women respondents as well as commentators in the public sphere.
The construction of masculinity and risk-taking behaviour among adolescent boys in seven schools in the Western Cape
(University of the Western Cape, 2006) Jeftha, Alethea; Shefer, Tamara; Women and Gender Studies; Faculty of Arts
The term, risk-taking, has often been used to describe some of the behaviours and their associated negative outcomes occurring during adloscence. Statistics have shown that South Africa has one of the highest rates of HIV/AIDS infection in the world, with most infections occurring during adolescence. The central aim in this study was to explore the relationship between current constructions of masculinity and risk-taking behaviours among a group of young South African men. It was an exploratory study, focused on exploring how young men construct their masculinities, and how this intersects with or impacts on adolescent male risk-taking behaviours. A key conclusion drawn at the end of this project was that some traditional notions of manhood still held sway, and these tied in strongly with how these participants constructed their masculinity.
Constructions of identity among young students living with visual or physical disabilities at a university in Cape Town
(University of the Western Cape, 2018) Steyn, Inga Dale; Ngabaza, Sisa
Not all disabilities are the same and the way that society may respond to people with disabilities depends on their �disability� and how their body deviates from the appearance norms of society. People with disabilities constitute a significant portion of the South African population. A body of research and physical evidence shows that people with disabilities may face certain obstacles or limitations in fulfilling a normal life. Obstacles include perceptions of disabilities, negative stigma and attitudes, barriers to an environment which is accessible for people with disabilities, and constructions of ableism. In a way, these obstacles influence the way people with disabilities construct their identity. Beyond this, the voices of people with disabilities are not always heard and their personal experiences are not always given political recognition. This research aimed to explore how a group of students living with a physical or visual disability constructed their identities in their environment or society. A feminist qualitative method was conducted. The study focused on the experiences and perceptions of nineteen to twenty-seven year old female and male students with disabilities. Out of the six participants, two were coloured, three were black and one participant is classified as coloured, but identifies as biracial. A semi-structured interview was used for data collection and a Qualitative Thematic Analysis was used to analyse the data. Social constructionism and intersectionality were useful theoretical approaches adopted in exploring the lived experiences of students with disabilities. The results of this study revealed that students with disabilities find living with a disability as not being a barrier to living a fulfilling life. Students with disabilities construct their identities in a way that frees them from ideologies which shape the experience of disability in a negative way. However, the study revealed that negative barriers to identity construction still exist. These barriers come in the form of negative perceptions and stigma of disability, ableism and the medical model. The study further revealed that when the lived experiences of students with disabilities are understood through the lens of gender, race and class, these social divisions overlap and are cumulative on the effects of student�s experiences. The one major barrier in identity construction that the study revealed is the negative social perceptions of disability. The way in which students feel that they belong in their society is representative of how they respond to negative social constructions of disability.
Constructions of identity among young students living with visual or physical disabilities at a university in Cape Town
(University of the Western Cape, 2019) Steyn, Inga Dale; Ngabaza, Sisa
Not all disabilities are the same and the way that society may respond to people with disabilities depends on their �disability� and how their body deviates from the appearance norms of society. People with disabilities constitute a significant portion of the South African population. A body of research and physical evidence shows that people with disabilities may face certain obstacles or limitations in fulfilling a normal life. Obstacles include perceptions of disabilities, negative stigma and attitudes, barriers to an environment which is accessible for people with disabilities, and constructions of ableism. In a way, these obstacles influence the way people with disabilities construct their identity. Beyond this, the voices of people with disabilities are not always heard and their personal experiences are not always given political recognition. This research aimed to explore how a group of students living with a physical or visual disability constructed their identities in their environment or society. A feminist qualitative method was conducted. The study focused on the experiences and perceptions of nineteen to twenty-seven year old female and male students with disabilities. Out of the six participants, two were coloured, three were black and one participant is classified as coloured, but identifies as biracial. A semi-structured interview was used for data collection and a Qualitative Thematic Analysis was used to analyse the data. Social constructionism and intersectionality were useful theoretical approaches adopted in exploring the lived experiences of students with disabilities. The results of this study revealed that students with disabilities find living with a disability as not being a barrier to living a fulfilling life. Students with disabilities construct their identities in a way that frees them from ideologies which shape the experience of disability in a negative way. However, the study revealed that negative barriers to identity construction still exist. These barriers come in the form of negative perceptions and stigma of disability, ableism and the medical model. The study further revealed that when the lived experiences of students with disabilities are understood through the lens of gender, race and class, these social divisions overlap and are cumulative on the effects of student�s experiences. The one major barrier in identity construction that the study revealed is the negative social perceptions of disability. The way in which students feel that they belong in their society is representative of how they respond to negative social constructions of disability.
The contemporary construction of the causality of HIV/AIDS :a discourse analysis and its implications for understanding national policy statements on the epidemic in South Africa
(University of the Western Cape, 2005) Judge, Melanie; Shefer, Tamara; Institute for Social Development; Faculty of Arts
This study was concerned with the social construction of HIV/AIDS at the policy level in contemporary South Africa, and how such constructions shape the manner in which the epidemic is understood in popular discourse.

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