'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

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dc.contributor.authorShefer, Tamara
dc.contributor.authorNgabaza, Sisa
dc.date.accessioned16/02/2017 14:07
dc.date.available16/02/2017 14:07
dc.date.issued2015
dc.description.abstractYoung 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.en_US
dc.description.accreditationDHETen_US
dc.identifier.citationShefer, T. et al. (2015). '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. Perspectives in Education, 33(2): 63-76en_US
dc.identifier.issn0258-2236
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10566/2538
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC171666
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.privacy.showsubmitterFALSE
dc.publisherUniversity of the Free Stateen_US
dc.rightsThis is the post-print version of the article published available online at https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC171666
dc.status.ispeerreviewedTRUE
dc.subjectLife Orientationen_US
dc.subjectSexual practicesen_US
dc.subjectWomenen_US
dc.title'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 schoolen_US
dc.typeArticleen_US

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