Mothers, daughters and sexual agency in one low-income South African community

Lesch, Elmien; Kruger, Lou‐Marié

doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2005.01.005

Cited by 43 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…It also underlines the importance of educational work with teachers, already widely noted and being taken up in policy and practice initiatives in this sector. 26,27 The paper further reveals the widespread deployment of "scare tactics" in sexuality education, founded on notions of danger, disease and doom, intended to encourage abstinence. The negative representations of sexuality as inevitably associated with danger, disease and damage, have been reflected on elsewhere.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 96%

“Girls need to behave like girls you know”: the complexities of applying a gender justice goal within sexuality education in South African schools

Ngabaza

Shefer

Macleod

2016

Reproductive Health Matters

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Sexuality education, as a component within the Life Orientation (LO) programme in South African schools, is intended to provide young people with knowledge and skills to make informed choices about their sexuality, their own health and that of others. Key to the programme are outcomes relating to power, power relations and gender. In this paper, we apply a critical gender lens to explore the ways in which the teaching of sexuality education engages with larger goals of gender justice. The paper draws from a number of ethnographic studies conducted at 12 South African schools. We focus here on the data collected from focus group discussions with learners, and semi-structured interviews with individual learners, principals and Life Orientation (LO) teachers. The paper highlights the complexities of having gender justice as a central goal of LO sexuality education. Teaching sexuality education is reported to contradict dominant community values and norms. Although some principals and school authorities support gender equity and problematize hegemonic masculinities, learners experience sexuality education as upholding normative gender roles and male power, rather than challenging it. Teachers rely heavily on cautionary messages that put more responsibility for reproductive health on female learners, and use didactic, authoritative pedagogical techniques, which do not acknowledge young people's experience nor facilitate their sexual agency. These complexities need to be foregrounded and worked with systematically if the goal of gender justice within LO is to be realised.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 96%

“Girls need to behave like girls you know”: the complexities of applying a gender justice goal within sexuality education in South African schools

Ngabaza

Shefer

Macleod

2016

Reproductive Health Matters

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“…This makes it difficult for them to easily access contraceptives out of fear of being discovered. 33,34 In Addis Ababa, social control limited the opportunities for men and women to go out -the freedom of women in particular was limited -and restricted the spaces where young people could meet to those that were hidden from the parental and societal gaze. The context of infrequent sex led some young men and women in Addis Ababa to use ECs as their main method of pregnancy prevention, because they only need to be thought of and taken when sex has actually taken place.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emergency contraceptive use in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Challenging common assumptions about young people’s contraceptive practices

Both

2015

Reproductive Health Matters

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Drawing on an ethnographic case study of young people's (aged 18-29) use of emergency contraceptives (ECs) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, this article highlights areas of disconnect between how reproductive health experts envision EC use and local meanings ascribed to ECs by young people. ECsdesigned by reproductive health experts to be used only in case of emergency -were preferred by study participants over other contraceptive methods because of their ease of use, discreetness, perceived minimal side effects on beauty and future fertility, and usefulness in navigating reproductive intentions. The findings point to features that young people find desirable when it comes to contraceptive methods and suggest that common assumptions of reproductive health experts about young people's contraceptive practices need to be reconsidered, namely: 1) that young people can plan for prevention of unwanted pregnancy by buying a contraceptive method in advance; 2) that existing contraceptive technologies are appropriate for young people; 3) that young people prefer to use modern contraceptive methods; and 4) that young people in premarital relationships aim to prevent unplanned pregnancy.

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“…Within this framework, teenage sexual behaviour is further problematised, and the main concern is that teenagers are engaging in risky sexual behaviour, which leaves them vulnerable to HIV and AIDS infection. However, within this broad disease framework there has been space to explore the complex intersection of gender with teenage sexuality, and to unpack the way in which hegemonic practices of gender and gender power inequalities impact on teenagers' social environments and relationships (Eaton, Flisher & Aero, 2003;Lesch & Kruger, 2005;Varga, 2003).…”

Section: Teenage Sexualitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The intersection of gender with other forms of social identity -cultural practices, age and poverty in particular -has also been a key focus in this area of research (see, for example, Bhana & Pattman, 2010;Lesch & Kruger, 2005). However, it has also been pointed out that the focus on teenage and young women as inevitable victims, particularly of male power, has tended to reproduce deterministic constructions of femininity as passive and submissive (Shefer, 2009).…”

Section: Teenage Sexualitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Positively pregnant: Teenage women's experiences of negotiating pregnancy with their families

Ngabaza¹

2011

Agenda

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Research on teenage pregnancy and motherhood inevitably also involves a focus on teenagers' sexuality, intimate interpersonal relationships and reproductive choices. In South Africa, as in the global context, teenage fertility is mostly problematised -assumed to be a social and health concern. South African research shows that teenage pregnancy and parenting cannot be understood outside the complex realms of culture, class and historically racialised differences. In the local context, teenage pregnancy has in the main been approached as inherently problematic, with pregnant girls positioned as vulnerable victims or misguided, 'bad' girls. The negative, pathologising and judgemental response of communities, families, schools and even peers to pregnant and parenting learners at school has been increasingly documented, as has the tendency of researchers and professionals to reproduce and legitimise such discourses. Conducted within a feminist framework and adopting a social constructionist theoretical base, this article is based on a qualitative study of a group of teenage parents at schools in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, and their narratives of their experiences of becoming pregnant. In particular, how this group of young women negotiated the experience of becoming pregnant and the pregnancy and impending parenthood with their family is explored. Findings revealed that experiences of being pregnant and becoming parents are mostly framed within relationships of control, regulation and power, especially in relation to parental authority. Ways in which this group of young women resisted being constructed negatively and punitively and displayed agentic and strategic creativity in negotiating acceptance and support for their pregnancy within their families are highlighted. keywords teenage sexuality, pregnancy, disclosure, agency, qualitative study

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Mothers, daughters and sexual agency in one low-income South African community

Cited by 43 publications

References 19 publications

“Girls need to behave like girls you know”: the complexities of applying a gender justice goal within sexuality education in South African schools

“Girls need to behave like girls you know”: the complexities of applying a gender justice goal within sexuality education in South African schools

Emergency contraceptive use in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Challenging common assumptions about young people’s contraceptive practices

Positively pregnant: Teenage women's experiences of negotiating pregnancy with their families

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