‘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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Date
2015
Authors
Shefer, Tamara
Ngabaza, Sisa
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Faculty of Education, University of the Free State
Abstract
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.
Description
Keywords
Life Orientation, Sexuality education, HIV, Gender-based violence, Young women’s sexuality, Danger, Pleasure
Citation
Shefer, T., & Ngabaza, S. (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: Life Orientation sexuality education in South Africa: gendered norms, justice and transformation, 33(2), 63-76.