Normalising violence? Girls and sexuality in a South African high school

ABSTRACT

Ending gender violence against girls in South African schools is an ongoing challenge. In this paper, we report on findings from focus groups and in-depth interviews that explore girls’ accounts of gender violence in a South African township high school. Our findings illuminate the normalization of violence instigated by boys against girls: such violence is highly sexualized and complex in its manifestations. Girls were sexually harassed, subjected to violence and sexual coercion by their male peers in different spaces at school. Beyond simplistic binary positions through which girls are constructed as merely victims, some girls in the study engaged in the problematic discourse of victim-blaming; girls who frequent school spaces dominated by boys and girls who use drugs, such as dagga, were often stigmatized and blamed for the violence they experienced. Furthermore, evidence of female-on-female violence (fights and humiliation) that occurred in the context of heterosexual competition came to light during the study. This kind of violence reinforced the subordination of girls in the broader hetero-patriarchal system. We conclude the paper by providing some recommendations towards addressing the complex manifestations of school-based violence against girls.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender violence
• girls
• sexual harassment
• South African high schools
• victim blaming

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the The South African Research Chairs Initiative of the Department of Science and Technology and National Research Foundation of South Africa [98407].

Notes on contributors

Emmanuel Mayeza

Emmanuel Mayeza, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, University of the Free State, South Africa. His current research interests include gender identities, violence, education, social inequalities and feminist theory.

Deevia Bhana

Deevia Bhana is the NRF/DST South African Research Chair and Professor in Gender and Childhood Sexuality at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Among her recent book publications are Love, Sex and Teenage Sexual Cultures in South Africa; 16 turning 17 (2018) and Childhood Sexuality and AIDS Education: The price of innocence (2016).

Delarise Mulqueeny

Delarise Mulqueeny (PhD, MBA, MSW) is a post-doctoral research fellow in Gender and Childhood Sexuality at the School of Education, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.