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.

摘要

结束南非学校中针对女孩的性别暴力是一项持续的挑战。在本文中，我们报告了焦点小组和深入访谈的结果，这些访谈探讨了南非乡镇高中女孩对性别暴力的描述。我们的研究结果阐明了男孩对女孩的暴力行为的常态化：这种暴力行为高度性化，表现形式复杂。女孩在学校的不同场所受到男性同龄人的性骚扰、暴力和性胁迫。除了将女孩仅仅视为受害者的简单二元立场之外，研究中的一些女孩还参与了有问题的受害者指责话语；经常出入以吸毒男孩和女孩为主的学校空间的女孩，例如 dagga，他们经常因遭受的暴力而受到污名和指责。此外，在研究期间发现了在异性恋竞争背景下发生的女性对女性暴力（打架和羞辱）的证据。这种暴力强化了女孩在更广泛的异性父权制中的从属地位。我们通过提供一些建议来结束本文，以解决基于学校的暴力侵害女孩行为的复杂表现。