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Contested multiple voices of young masculinities amongst adolescent boys in Alexandra Township, South Africa Malose Langa
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School of Community and Development , University of Witwatersrand , Private Bag X3, Johannesburg, 2050, South Africa Published online: 06 Jul 2010.
To cite this article: Malose Langa (2010) Contested multiple voices of young masculinities amongst adolescent boys in Alexandra Township, South Africa, Journal of Child & Adolescent Mental Health, 22:1, 1-13, DOI: 10.2989/17280583.2010.493654 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.2989/17280583.2010.493654
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JOURNAL OF CHILD AND ADOLESCENT MENTAL HEALTH ISSN 1728–0583 EISSN 1728–0591 DOI: 10.2989/17280583.2010.493654
Research Paper
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Contested multiple voices of young masculinities amongst adolescent boys in Alexandra Township, South Africa Malose Langa School of Community and Development, University of Witwatersrand, Private Bag X3, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] Objective: In this paper, the author explores how adolescent boys negotiate multiple voices of masculinity in Alexandra Township, a historically working-class and black community in Gauteng, South Africa. Method: Thirty adolescent boys were recruited and provided with disposable cameras to take 27 photos under the theme ‘my life as a boy’ in the new South Africa. Arrangements were made for photos to be collected and processed. In the follow-up interviews, boys were asked to give a description of each photo and why and how they had decided to take that photo to represent aspects of their masculinity. Results Some of the photos taken depict books, cars, boys smoking, gambling, fighting and reading books at school. Conclusion: This study reveals that being a boy is not a homogeneous phenomenon. All the participants agreed that there are different ways of being a boy and that some boys are more popular than others, which often depends on the context in which the boys find themselves. The interviews revealed recurring allusions to different ‘types’ of boys at schools in Alexandra Township – namely, tsotsi boys and academic boys. However, it is important to note that boys do not fit neatly into each of these categories. The findings of the study reveal some interesting complexities on how adolescent boys simultaneously accept and reject certain practices of township masculinity in their daily lives, depending on the time and space in which they find themselves. Some positions are more dominant than others and this reveals how adolescent boys ‘police’ each other as part of a process of conforming to idealised norms of township masculinity as lived out in the township context of Alexandra.
Introduction In Britain and Australia, Frosh, Phoenix and Pattman (2003), Haywood and Mac an Ghaill (1996), Gilbert and Gilbert (1998) and Martino and Pallotta-Chiarolli (2003) have led the way in researching young masculinities amongst school-going boys between the age of 12 and 18 years old. Work on young masculinities has demonstrated from several studies that schools provide the space for meanings to develop of what it means to be ‘male’ or ‘female’ (Haywood and Mac an Ghaill 1996: 16), but it is also important to acknowledge other social forces (e.g. family, peers, media) also influence constructions of masculinities. However, the researcher in this article focuses specifically on how the schooling processes influence the formation of gendered identities, marking out ‘correct’ or ‘appropriate’ styles of being a young male (Haywood and Mac an Ghaill 1996). Frosh et al. (2003) argue that young masculinities are multiple, and that different versions of masculinity always compete to be dominant. Young boys’ views on masculinity are also fluid rather than fixed or static, and dependent on the situation in which they find themselves. Boys ‘police’ their identities Journal of Child & Adolescent Mental Health is co-published by NISC (Pty) Ltd and Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
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by constructing certain boys as transgressing gender boundaries and rendering them illegitimate (Frosh, et al. 2003). Boys who do not comply with traditional norms of masculinity are ‘othered’ (Renold, 2004) and called derogatory names such as ‘losers’ (Connell 1995), ‘sissies’ (Frosh et al. 2003), ‘nerds’ (Gilbert and Gilbert 1998) and ‘yimvu’ (sheep) (Bhana 2005). One area of contestation amongst adolescent school boys appears to revolve around academic achievement and heterosexual experience outside school. In their study in the UK Haywood and Mac an Ghaill (1996) found that the lack of heterosexual experience of the academic achievers and A level learners became a resource for other boys in the school to impose legitimate definitions of what it means to be a ‘real boy’. In this study, a ‘real boy’ is one who engages in risk-taking behaviours such as smoking, drinking and having sex with multiple partners. These boys interpret academic achievers’ heterosexual inexperience as illustrating immaturity. In their study Frosh et al. (2003) found that the experiences of social class, ethnicity, and race play an important role in the concepts that adolescent boys develop about their masculine identities. For example, middle class boys in private schools positioned themselves as intellectually superior and as being more career orientated than working class boys in the state schools. While on the other hand, state-school boys describe private-school boys as snobbish and wimpish. In South Africa, black adolescent boys that go to former Model C schools1 are called derogatory names such as ‘coconuts’ by their male counterparts in the township because they speak English in an American accent, wear baggy jeans, play basketball and listen to rap music rather than listening to kwaito (popular township music) and playing ediski (soccer) (Durrheim and Mtose 2006, Stevens and Lockhart 2003). These boys are also seen as lacking in (African) masculinity. Model C schoolboys, on the other hand, see boys in state school as being intellectually inferior (Haywood and Mac an Ghaill 1996). This shows that social class intersects with how boys interpret conceptions of hegemonic masculinity, which defined as an idealised version of what it means to be ‘real’ man (Connell 1995). Frosh et al. (2003) found that middle-class boys were more likely to value leadership and intelligence as characteristics of hegemonic masculinity. Working-class boys, on the other hand, were more likely to suggest that hegemonic masculinity was all about being streetwise (e.g. a gang member), able to attract girls (cherries) and looking ‘cool’ which might involve taking risks such as publicly smoking and drinking excessively. Working-class boys see this as a legitimate form of masculinity. In many South African townships, adolescent boys are expected to be stylish and wear expensive designer clothes. The changing nature of masculinities is also influenced by the socio-historical political context. The current study looks at the shifting nature of young masculinities in Alexandra Township after 16 years of democracy in the new South Africa. Therefore, the understanding of how township boys perform different versions of masculinities in the school context is a central focus of this study. During the struggle against apartheid, militarised masculinity became dominant amongst many township boys. Militarized masculinity refers to boys’ active involvement in politics and violent or protest activities that were aimed at defeating the apartheid regime (Cock 2001, Glaser 2000, Langa and Eagle 2008, Xaba 2001). As part of constructing ‘militarised masculinity’, young township boys were expected to be strong, brave, tough, fearless, aggressive and violent. The incorporation of these qualities heavily influenced the formation of militarized masculine identity for large number of adolescent township boys (Langa and Eagle 2008). The studies by Mokwena (1992) and Glaser (2000) also revealed what is known as ‘tsotsi’ masculinity in South African townships, a masculinity which hinges around fighting skills, street wisdom, clothing style, proficiency in tsotsitaal (tsotsi language), and success with women as trophies of masculinity. This form of masculinity is still celebrated amongst young male South Africans in some sectors of the society. Since 1994 there have been social and political changes in gender relations, with greater 1 ‘Model C school’ refers to schools which were established under apartheid for white children only, but in the late 1980s and post-1994 started to admit children of different races. To this day former Model C schools have the best facilities and best educational opportunities for children. In the past few years there has been an increasing number of black children attending these schools, which primarily service middle-class families.
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emphasis being placed on gender equality. The relevance of the present study is to explore how current socioeconomic and political differences influence township boys to choose one form of masculinity over any other and the subjective experience of negotiating such identities. This will help us to identify factors influencing township boys to choose and live out negative aspects of ‘hegemonic’ masculinity, which may be associated with anti-school behaviours. In addition, this study also facilitates understanding of the positive factors influencing township boys to develop alternative versions of township masculinity, which are school-orientated and non-violent.
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Method Participants and procedure Thirty adolescent boys between the ages of 13 to 18 years in Grade 10 and 11 were recruited from two secondary schools in Alexandra Township. The permission to conduct the research was obtained from Gauteng Department of Education and school principals. Nineteen boys were recruited from the first school and the remaining 11 boys were recruited from the other school. The researcher advertised the study by visiting classes to meet with adolescent boys to explain the nature of the research project and to provide them with an information sheet, parental consent and participant assent forms which required the appropriate signatures. Only boys who returned the signed forms were included in the study. All other ethical guidelines such as confidentiality and anonymity were also followed. Data collection methods Photography as a research method All the boys who became participants were given disposable cameras to take 27 photos (the total available on the film) under the theme ‘my life as a boy’. In taking their photos, boys were encouraged to think about the following questions: What is it like to be a boy? What are the things that make boys feel like ‘real boys’? How do boys spend their time? What are some of the challenges that boys face at school? What makes some boys more popular than others? Are there alternative ways of being a boy? Do they ever imagine becoming different to other boys? Boys were then given a period of two weeks to take photos. The space and time afforded to participants enabled them to think about how they wanted to represent themselves but also required them to focus on the task. After two weeks, arrangements were made for the researcher to collect all the disposable cameras and process the photos. Individual interviews In the individual interviews, boys were asked to provide a description of each photo and why and how they decided to take that particular image. What was the intention in taking a particular photo and what were the feelings and emotions that accompany the photos taken? How did the participant relate feelings and emotions back to the photo both at the time and in the interview? This kind of interview process is referred to as photo-elicitation, where photos are used to prompt interview responses (Blackbeard and Lindegger 2007). Boys were also asked to describe how the images represented aspects of their masculinities. Focus groups In this study, focus groups were combined with individual interviews. In the group interviews, boys were asked to choose five images (of their 27) that best described them as boys and to show them to the other boys in the group. This helped to set the mood for the group discussions. The exercise served the function of what Morgan (1997) terms ‘icebreakers’, but also added value in terms of contextualising the groups. The combination of individual interviews and focus group interviews thus provided rich information, insight and ideas about what it means to be a boy. The use of photographic images as a route into discussing masculinity in both individual and focus group interviews seemed to enhance the discussion and produced a heightened level of engagement
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on the part of the boys. Both the content of the images as well as their discussions around the images provided useful data as will be illustrated in the subsequent section on findings and discussion.
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Data analysis All interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed for detailed discursive data analysis (Potter and Wetherell 1989) to analyse how adolescent boys talk about the competing multiple voices of being a school-going boy in Alexandra Township, a historically work-class and black community in Gauteng. In the data analysis, particular attention was also paid on the emotional processes that adolescent boys go through in resisting, subverting and challenging the existing dominant norms of township masculinity. Key findings and discussion The findings show that being a boy is not a homogeneous phenomenon. All the participants agreed that there were different ways of being a boy and that some boys were more popular than others, which often depended on the context in which boys found themselves. The interviews revealed recurring allusions to different ‘types’ of boys at schools in Alexandra Township – namely, tsotsi boys and academic boys. However, it is important to note that boys do not fit neatly into each of these categories. They vacillate between multiple positions, confirming Frosh et al.’s (2003) view that masculinities are fluid, multiple and contradictory. It was evident that adolescent boys were flexible about the positions they occupied and were not rigidly bound to one position. Some positions were more dominant than others and this revealed how adolescent boys monitor each other as part of a process of conforming to idealized norms of township masculinity as lived out in the township context of Alexandra. Tsotsi boys as ‘popular’ versus academic boys as ‘teacher’s pets’ In the study, it was reported that tsotsi boys are boys that miss classes, defy teachers’ authority and perform poorly in their grades. Meanwhile academic boys conform to school rules and perform well academically. Academic boys mentioned that tsotsi boys belong to gangs and are more likely to commit violent crime as well as bringing weapons to school. In the following extract, Martin talks about tsotsi boys at his school: Martin2: This man and this man {see Photo 1}… because this guy, whenever we are in class, he always wears a cap. When they tell him to remove the cap, he would take it off and then wear it again. He made a ‘7’ sign3, and I am also doing it here {see Photo 1}. Researcher: So the sevens (tsotsi boys) are the ones who beat up girls? Martin: Yes, they can beat up anything that is beatable. Researcher: Are they feared – those ‘7’ boys? Martin: Yes, everyone is scared of this one in class. Researcher: What does 7 represent? Martin: It represents that you are an ‘outlaw’. We’re saying, I’m giving you seven. And a seven means a gun. Researcher: It’s a gun? Martin: Yes, whenever you mess with me, I’ll beat you. So this boy is always out of the picture, there is no one like him in the class. He is always ‘out’. Photo 1 shows two boys, one them using two fingers to demonstrate the ‘seven’ sign. Martin in this individual interview mentioned that tsotsi boys are also known as ‘sevens’ (seven is township lingo for a gun). Apparently this ‘seven’ sign is very popular amongst adolescent boys in Alex, but tsotsi boys usually make this sign as a gesture of being ‘gevaarlike’ (Afrikaans word for dangerous, but 2
All names have been changed to protect the privacy of the participants.
3 Bolding of certain words indicate some form of stress (important points for in-depth analysis and discussion by the researcher).
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Photo 1: Picture of two boys, one of whom uses two fingers to demonstrate the ‘seven’ sign4
is also slang for being defiant) (Cooper 2009). According to Martin in the above extract, tsotsi boys represents an ‘outlaw’ as they bring guns and other weapons to school and are also the troublemakers and bullies at school. Martin mentioned that ‘everyone’ is scared of tsotsi boys at his school. In his research on school violence in South Africa, Burton (2008) found that teachers were also scared of tsotsi boys. Mabena (1996) in his work describes tsotsi boys as ‘vuilpops’ (meaning they do not care about schooling because they always defy teachers’ authority). In this study, tsotsi boys were also defying school rules, threatening and also perpetrating violence against school teachers. There was an incident that was reported in one of the group interviews of a boy who had a fight with a male teacher in one of the schools. Many participants reported that these incidents are very common in which male learners often fight with male teachers. The fight with male teachers could be interpreted as one of the examples of how tsotsi boys prove their manhood through defying any form of authority. Male teachers in this study were described as strict, less tolerant and less reasonable than female teachers. It is possible that male teachers were seen as a threat to tsotsi boys’ conception of township masculinity because of their strictness and toughness in dealing with anti-school behaviours. It is through male-to-male violence that tsotsi boys were trying to assert their tsotsi masculinity as males always consider other males to be worthy rivals or opponents to be fought (Connell 1995). In these schools, violence was associated with an anti-authority position. It was through anti-authority and defiant behaviours that tsotsi boys were able to sustain a particular masculine identity within the school environment. This view was confirmed by William, a 16 year-old boy. In his narrative, he mentioned that fighting with other boys is all about gaining respect and proving that ‘I am a man’. Many participants in the interviews were boasting and taking pride in some of the fights that they have had with other boys at school (see Photo 2). 4 Photos have altered to protect the privacy of the participants. All the participants have also signed a consent forms for their photos to be used in this research project on young masculinities.
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Photo 2: Picture of two boys fighting
Shaun: Sometimes we feel that if I do not fight they would say that I am weak or I am scared of him. That guy would then take advantage that I did not fight him. He would then look down on me, and say awful things about me. William: So you are proving yourself that yeah you can’t tell me a thing. I am a man, you can’t tell me such things. It seemed enhancing one’s social position was an important factor of why adolescent boys were getting involved in fights at school. Adolescent boys who failed to live-up to this image of being violent were considered ‘fools’. Tsotsi boys asserted in the interviews that reputation and respect is only gained through a fight with other boys at school. This finding explains the increasing level of violence in many South African schools (Burton 2008). It is reported that one in five school learners are at risk of being bullied, harassed or beaten-up in schools (Burton 2008). Violence is used as a means of asserting one’s power. The notion of manhood also seems to be playing an influential role in some of the fights reported in the study. In many of the narratives, violence served as a proof of being a ‘real’ man. Shaun: boys generally like fighting to show who is the man. If you don’t fight people will laugh at you and think you are weak. William: if you are a boy, you are a man, you’ve got to show power, you have to have power, people should not play around your head and stuff. However, being seen as ‘weak’ as illustrated in Shaun’s quote is a shameful and humiliating experience. This data reveals something significant at a psychological level that male-to-male violence also functions as a defence mechanism against feelings of shame and humiliation. This point was illustrated very well in the following extracts: Shaun: We fight as boys. We fight and fight. We also fight for girls because I would not be standing with a girl, my girlfriend, at around 20:00 or 21:00 at night, and then some guy comes and take her away from me. To me it shows that he does not respect me, he is looking down on me, and I’ll show him the other side of me. William: In most cases we boys always fight over girls. You can’t allow someone to come and take your girlfriend. Many participants asserted that boys more often fight over girls at school. In many of their narratives, girls were treated as masculine ‘possessions’ that needed to be protected against potential intruders. Girls’ affection affirmed the participants’ sense of manhood. So fighting over
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Photo 3: Boys playing dice (a popular gambling game)
girls was centered around feeling threatened by other males. These feelings of threat appeared to link with Shaun and William‘s understanding that their girlfriends belonged to them only. There was a sense of ownership and therefore expected other boys to respect this ownership, but this was not always the case. In situations like this, violence was linked to a public display of power and authority. Power dynamics of how academic and tsotsi boys compete for power, visibility and legitimacy within the school environment All the participants mentioned that tsotsi boys were well-known for bunking classes to smoke zol (dagga) and gamble (play ama-dice and zwipi) in the school toilets. Tsotsi boys were accused by academic boys of being the law unto themselves, for example, not wearing school uniform or doing school work. I found, based on my observation, that academic boys were always wearing a school uniform and were always in class at all the time. It seems schooling was considered by tsotsi boys to be irrelevant and ‘emasculating’ to their conception of township masculinity. They were invested on proving their manliness in the eyes of other boys by breaking school rules rather than achieving academic success. In the interviews, academic boys spent a lot of time talking about school toilets as privileged ‘spaces’ for a certain group of boys (especially tsotsi boys). Photo 3 shows a group of adolescent boys playing dice during school hours. Many were not even wearing the school uniform. In the interviews, the participants mentioned that gambling (especially playing ama-dice) is very common amongst adolescent boys in Alexandra. Martin: ‘Tsotsi boys always hang around school toilets at all the time. They don’t go to classes. They are the bullies and make other learners to pay toilet fee so that they can gamble’. Researcher: Do you also gamble? Tommy: No, I don’t gamble. Researcher: Where do they gamble? Tommy: They gamble in the school toilets Researcher: When? After school Tommy: No. They gamble during school hours. Many boys miss classes to go and play zwipi and ama-dice in the school toilets.
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Researcher: Is this common for boys to gamble during school hours? Martin: It is very common. Many boys go to school, but many do not go to classes. They go and gamble...These boys that gamble are bullies. They harass other learners. It was clear in the narratives that school toilets were ‘masculinised’ spaces. Tsotsi boys were the main gatekeepers of this ‘space’. They were setting rules and regulations of who enters and who does not enter. For example, it was reported that some boys (mainly academic boys) were forced to pay a ‘toilet fee’ before being allowed to use the bathrooms. In the extract above, academic boys such as Martin and Tommy reported feeling unsafe to go to school toilets. Apparently, many bullying activities take place there. What was evident is that both tsotsi and academic boys were competing for power, visibility, legitimacy and dominance in the school environment. Tsotsi boys had more power outside the classroom context, on the soccer fields or during break, in the school toilets, while academic boys had more power in the classroom context due to their active participation in answering maths and science-related questions and doing school homework. As a researcher I observed that many of the participants who classified themselves as academic boys had pictures of books in their albums. Picture 5 shows two academic boys doing their school work. In the study, tsotsi boys were negatively labelling academic boys as ‘teachers’ pets’ or ‘Mr Goodboys’ because they always do their school work. Herman: Yes, they sometimes call me and say you are acting like you know it all, when I am holding books. You think you are Mr Goodboy. Simon: We are labelled as losers ... teachers’ pets and ‘snaai’ (fools) because I will always carry books. Academic boys were subjected to insults and were teased and called derogatory names such as ‘losers’ and snaai (fools). Studiousness was not highly valued among some of the boys in Alex. Boys who do well academically were taunted and ridiculed. Tsotsi boys were apparently more popular than academic boys, and, in this study, the academic boys complained that tsotsi boys were not only popular with teachers but also with girls. Simon: But then if you disrespect the teachers you become popular in that group of becoming popular, in that bad way. But then if you play sport, and not being the teacher’s pet necessarily, and you (don’t) do your home work, you become popular amongst the girls. And the girls would like you that this guy. Nathan: I don’t know, these girls of these days, when they see a boy drinking, smoking and missing classes, they get proud of the boy. Despite their commitment to studying and doing well academically, academic boys were feeling disadvantaged that girls do not like them, ‘especially girls of these days’. Simon bitterly complained that ‘you don’t do your home work but girls would like this’. Frosh et al. (2003) found that girls do like more academic boys because they do not harass/abuse girls and they also respect teachers, but girls do not necessarily like them as potential boyfriends. Girls see such boys as being too effeminate and lacking key characteristics of hegemonic masculinity, such as roughness and toughness. Academic boys were puzzled by girls’ preference for tsotsi boys as potential boyfriends. It was clear in the findings that there were some costs to be identified as an academic boy. This, for example, involved being rejected by girls as a potential boyfriend. Academic boys were also seen as boring. This is because they do not go out to parties and were forever at home reading or doing school work. One academic boy (Nathan) spoke about feeling hurt when his girlfriend of two years decided to end their relationship to go out with one popular tsotsi boy at their school. He suspects he lost his girlfriend because he was not in the ‘cool’ group of tsotsi boys. Other looses and sacrifices that came with being an academic boy included being bullied and called derogatory names such as ‘teachers’ pets’. As a result, in the following extract, some of the boys who classified themselves as ‘academic boys’ seemed to be experiencing conflicting emotions and ambivalence about their masculine identities: Nathan: Yes. It’s like I am that simple guy. I wouldn’t say I am popular, I wouldn’t say I am a loser. I feel that I am in between. Simon: Yes, being like in between, you wouldn’t impress people doing bad things. And
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Photo 4: Picture of books taken by one of academic boys in the study
Picture 5: Two academic boys doing their school work at home
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again you wouldn’t be that guy that doesn’t socialize, like you lock yourself out. Here, the participants spoke about the benefits of being ‘in between’ or ‘in the borderland’, which means being caught between two opposing masculine positions (Martino and Pallota-Chiarolli 2003). Academic boys think it is better to be ‘in between’ and a ‘simple guy’ who is neither popular nor a ‘loser’. However, being in the middle constitutes a dilemma as they want to do well academically, but at the same time they do not want to be categorised as teachers’ pets or bookworms. They want to be considered ‘real’ township boys by doing what other boys do (e.g. socializing and spending time with other boys on the street corners), but still get good grades at school. The balance is difficult to achieve. It was evident that being an academic boy was not a simple process. As Reay (2003: 161) argues that ‘to be both academically successful and acceptably male requires a considerable amount of careful negotiation on the part of academic boys’. Like the adolescent boys in Reay’s (2003) study, both Nathan and Simon were also caught between two opposing positions in attempting to ensure that their tough township masculinities were kept intact while simultaneously endeavoring to maintain their academic success. It was an internal battle that many academic boys in this study needed to manage in order to be seen as ‘real’ township boys. As indicated earlier tsotsi boys are very popular with both teachers and girls. In the interviews, academic boys found themselves feeling conflicted that they want to belong to the ‘cool’ group, but simultaneously they were questioning some practices of tsotsi boys such as missing classes or not doing school work. The interviews revealed academic boys’ anxieties to conform with certain masculine practices in order to obtain the ‘cool’ image status. One academic boy said this involves ‘downplaying one’s academics and publicly rebelling against teachers in order to be seen as ‘cool’’. Evidently, there is pressure on young adolescent boys to behave in a particular manner in order to gain some membership into the ‘cool’ group rather than do school work. Walking on a tightrope: academic boys’ discursive strategies to maintain ‘alternative’ masculinities Some academic boys were confidently able to reject dominant norms of tsotsi boys without having to straddle between positions or occupy multiple positions. These boys were aware of the peer pressure to conform to certain practices but we able to rebuff them as illustrated in the interview with Themba, a 16-year-old boy. He mentioned that when tsotsi boys tease him that he is a bookworm he consoles himself by telling them, ‘Let’s put five years down the line and see what is going to happen, who is going to be a bookworm, who is going to wash whose car, who is going to be whose ‘garden boy’, who is going to … you know stuff like that.’ Themba seemed to be coping well and resisting peer pressure to engage in anti-school behaviours such as missing classes or defying school teachers. He narrated that he sees education as an investment for the future. He believes that he is currently in an inferior position but later he will be in a superior position. In his photo album, he had photo of a new Mercedes Benz and a big house. In talking about this photo, Themba remarked that tsotsi boys now think they are clever, but later in life will be working as his servants, washing his car and working as garden boys in his big house. It will be pay-back time. It is evident that the use of photography in this research project allowed the participants to create and express their fantasies about life and their futures as young males living in a disadvantaged community such as Alex. This could be seen in photos taken that included flashy cars and big houses, suggesting a projection into a different desirable future. The meanings attributed to or associations with some of the pictures also allowed the participants to elaborate their ideas in the directions that made sense to them, thus allowing for somewhat more open-ended data collection and an expression of feelings and emotions. Brett, another 16-year-old academic boy, also had a picture of a big house with swimming pool in his album. He also mentioned feeling hurt when tsotsi boys at school call him a ‘fool’ because he is always reading and doing his school work. He recounted that the coping strategy that he uses is to ignore all these negative comments and concentrates on his goal of becoming a civil engineer. It was evident in the study that many academic-orientated boys were more concerned about the future, which represented an ideal lifestyle in which many will able to leave the squatter camps of Alex to go and live in the neighboring suburbs of Sandton and Sunninghill. All these narratives do, however, also point to the tension that many academic boys were
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Photo 6: Picture of Mercedes Benz and a big house (identified as aspirational)
experiencing in negotiating the paradoxes of township masculinity. Their narratives were proliferated with contradictory sentiments and ambiguities as it is not easy to be a ‘different’ boy who adopts non-popular masculine positions. Balancing the academic and social sides is integral to achieving a desirable masculinity, but this seemed to elicit feelings of ambivalence and contradiction. This confirms Frosh et al. (2003) that the process of being a different boy who adopts non-popular positions is not an easy step, as it involves discrimination and being called derogatory names such as ‘teachers’ pets’ for not complying with traditional views of tsotsi masculinity. One area of contestation amongst this group of adolescent school boys was an involvement in risky sexual behaviours with multiple girlfriends in imposing legitimate definitions of what it means to be a ‘real’ township boy in Alex. The discussion of these risky sexual behaviours is beyond the scope of the current article. However, what emerged was that tsotsi masculinity was tied to particular performances of heterosexuality, in which having sex with multiple partners was very important. Meanwhile, academic boys were teased for their lack of heterosexual experience and as a result, many had doubts about their sense of masculinity which was non-risk taking. As Ratele et al. (2007: 126) put it being a different boy is ‘hard work’. So it is important that young adolescent boys are assisted in negotiating all these challenges of what it means to be a boy and also the transition into healthy manhood. Conclusion This article reveals some interesting power dynamics on what it means to be a school-going boy in Alex. It is evident that there are different groups of boys in Alex and these boys compete with each other for legitimacy and domination and in the course of which some practices of masculinity enjoy greater popularity than others. The contestation and preferences for different masculine identities change from one context to another. The subjective positions that boys occupied were fluid rather than rigid and fixed. The participants were vacillating between these multiple positions, and simultaneously accepting and rejecting certain practices of township masculinity. What was apparent from the findings was that boys’ status was derived from having a certain position within
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the peer group hierarchy. In terms of the hierarchy of masculinities at school, tsotsi boys were at the top of the hierarchy and highly visible and projected an idealized form of township masculinity. However, their visibility and dominance was being challenged and subverted by academic boys, although this process had its own emotional costs. Some of the costs involved being rejected by girls as potential boyfriends and being called derogatory names. As a result, academic boys found themselves feeling conflicted about their masculine positions. Some wanted to be popular, but still obtain good grades at school. According to Martino and Pallotta-Chiarolli (2003) these boys were forced to be in the ‘borderland’, which they did not want to classified as either tsotsi or academic boys. They preferred to be ‘in-between’ by simultaneously occupying multiple masculine identities depending on the context in which they were in. These boys will publicly perform tions, is a complex process characterized by feelings of hesitation and ambivalence. These are contradictions that young academic boys in this study needed to manage in order to maintain and sustain emerging alternative voices of masculinity that are school orientated. It is therefore important that intervention programmes are initiated to assist adolescent boys in negotiating ‘healthy’ voices of young masculinities that are non-violent, non-risk taking and non-sexist. Acknowledgements — I would like to thank the boys who took the time to take photos and participate in the interviews. Thanks also to my PhD supervisor Gill Eagle for her detailed comments on the first draft of my paper. The research project was funded by SANPAD (South African Netherlands Partnership on Alternative Development, under the leadership of Prof Graham Lindegger) and the National Research Foundation (NRF) and the African Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowship (ADDRF) offered by African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) in partnership with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and Ford Foundation.
References Bhana D (2005) Violence and the gendered negotiation of masculinity among young black school boys in South Africa. In: Ouzgane L. Morrell R (eds). African masculinities: men in Africa from the late 19th century to the present. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press. pp 202–225 Blackbeard D and Lindegger G (2007) Building the wall around themselves: Exploring adolescent masculinity and abjection with photo-biographical research. South African Journal of Psychology 37: 25–46 Burton P (2008) Merchants, skollies and stones: experiences of school violence in South Africa. Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention: Cape Town Cooper A (2009) ‘Gevaarlike transitions’: negotiating hegemonic masculinity and rites of passage amongst Coloured boys awaiting trial on the Cape Flats. Psychology in Society 37:1–17 Cock J (2001) Gun violence as an issue of community psychology in contemporary South Africa. In: Seedat M, Duncan N and Lazarus S (eds), Community Psychology Theory, Method and Practice: South African and Other Perspectives. Cape Town: Oxford University Press. pp 293–306 Connell RW (1995) Masculinities. Cambridge: Polity Press Glaser C (2000) Bo-tsotsi: The Youth Gangs of Soweto, 1935–1976. London: Heineman Gilbert R and Gilbert P (1998) Masculinity Goes to School. Sydney: Allen & Unwin Durrheim K and Mtose X (2006) Being-black-in-the-new-South-Africa. In: Stevens G, Franchi V and Swart T (eds), A Race Against Time: Psychology and the Challenges of Deracialisation in South Africa. Pretoria: University of South Africa Press. pp 153–170 Frosh S, Phoenix A and Pattman R (2003) Young Masculinities: Understanding Boys in Contemporary Society. London: Palgrave Haywood C and Mac an Ghaill M (1996) Schooling masculinities. In: Mac an Ghaill M (ed.), Understanding Masculinities. Buckingham: Open University Press. pp 78–102 Langa M & Eagle G (2008) The intractability of militarised masculinity: interviews with former combatants in the East Rand. South African Journal of Psychology 38: 152–175 Mabena SS (1996) Violence in Diepkloof: youth gang subcultures in Diepkloof, Soweto. Masters thesis. University of Witwatersrand, South Africa Martino W and Maria-Pallotaa-Chiarolli M (2003) So What is a Boy? Addressing Issues of Masculinity and Schooling. Philadelphia: Open University Press Mokwena S (1992) Living on the wrong side of the law. In: Everatt D and Sisulu E (eds), Black Youth Crisis: Facing the Future. Braamfontein: Ravan Press. pp 45–78
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Morgan D (1997) Focus Groups as Qualitative Research (2nd edn). London: SAGE Publications Potter J and Wetherell M (1989) Discourse and Social Psychology: Beyond Attitudes and Behaviour. London: SAGE Publications Ratele K, Fouten E, Shefer T, Strebel A, Shabalala N and Buikema R (2007) ‘Moffies, jock and cool guys’: boys’ accounts of masculinity and their resistance in context. In: Shefer T, Ratele K, Strebel A, Shabalala N and Buikema R (eds), From Boys to Men: Social Constructions of Masculinity in Contemporary Society. Cape Town: UCT Press. pp 112–127 Reay D (2003) Troubling, troubled and troublesome? Working with boys in the primary school. In: Skelton C and Francis B (eds), Boys and Girls in the Primary Classroom. Buckingham: Open University Press. pp 151–161 Renold E (2004) ‘Other boys’: negotiating non-hegemonic masculinities in the primary school. Gender and Education 16: 654–663 Stevens G and Lockhat R. 2003. Black Adolescent Identity During and After Apartheid. In Ratele K and Duncan N (eds), Social Psychology: Identities and Relationships. UCT Press: Lansdowne. pp 130–146 Xaba T (2001) Masculinity and its malcontents: the confrontation between ‘struggle masculinity’ and ‘post-struggle masculinity’ (1990–1997). In: Morrell R (ed), Changing Men in Southern Africa. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press. pp 105–124
Journal of Child & Adolescent Mental Health Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcmh20
Contested multiple voices of young masculinities amongst adolescent boys in Alexandra Township, South Africa Malose Langa
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School of Community and Development , University of Witwatersrand , Private Bag X3, Johannesburg, 2050, South Africa Published online: 06 Jul 2010.
To cite this article: Malose Langa (2010) Contested multiple voices of young masculinities amongst adolescent boys in Alexandra Township, South Africa, Journal of Child & Adolescent Mental Health, 22:1, 1-13, DOI: 10.2989/17280583.2010.493654 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.2989/17280583.2010.493654
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JOURNAL OF CHILD AND ADOLESCENT MENTAL HEALTH ISSN 1728–0583 EISSN 1728–0591 DOI: 10.2989/17280583.2010.493654
Research Paper
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Contested multiple voices of young masculinities amongst adolescent boys in Alexandra Township, South Africa Malose Langa School of Community and Development, University of Witwatersrand, Private Bag X3, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] Objective: In this paper, the author explores how adolescent boys negotiate multiple voices of masculinity in Alexandra Township, a historically working-class and black community in Gauteng, South Africa. Method: Thirty adolescent boys were recruited and provided with disposable cameras to take 27 photos under the theme ‘my life as a boy’ in the new South Africa. Arrangements were made for photos to be collected and processed. In the follow-up interviews, boys were asked to give a description of each photo and why and how they had decided to take that photo to represent aspects of their masculinity. Results Some of the photos taken depict books, cars, boys smoking, gambling, fighting and reading books at school. Conclusion: This study reveals that being a boy is not a homogeneous phenomenon. All the participants agreed that there are different ways of being a boy and that some boys are more popular than others, which often depends on the context in which the boys find themselves. The interviews revealed recurring allusions to different ‘types’ of boys at schools in Alexandra Township – namely, tsotsi boys and academic boys. However, it is important to note that boys do not fit neatly into each of these categories. The findings of the study reveal some interesting complexities on how adolescent boys simultaneously accept and reject certain practices of township masculinity in their daily lives, depending on the time and space in which they find themselves. Some positions are more dominant than others and this reveals how adolescent boys ‘police’ each other as part of a process of conforming to idealised norms of township masculinity as lived out in the township context of Alexandra.
Introduction In Britain and Australia, Frosh, Phoenix and Pattman (2003), Haywood and Mac an Ghaill (1996), Gilbert and Gilbert (1998) and Martino and Pallotta-Chiarolli (2003) have led the way in researching young masculinities amongst school-going boys between the age of 12 and 18 years old. Work on young masculinities has demonstrated from several studies that schools provide the space for meanings to develop of what it means to be ‘male’ or ‘female’ (Haywood and Mac an Ghaill 1996: 16), but it is also important to acknowledge other social forces (e.g. family, peers, media) also influence constructions of masculinities. However, the researcher in this article focuses specifically on how the schooling processes influence the formation of gendered identities, marking out ‘correct’ or ‘appropriate’ styles of being a young male (Haywood and Mac an Ghaill 1996). Frosh et al. (2003) argue that young masculinities are multiple, and that different versions of masculinity always compete to be dominant. Young boys’ views on masculinity are also fluid rather than fixed or static, and dependent on the situation in which they find themselves. Boys ‘police’ their identities Journal of Child & Adolescent Mental Health is co-published by NISC (Pty) Ltd and Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
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by constructing certain boys as transgressing gender boundaries and rendering them illegitimate (Frosh, et al. 2003). Boys who do not comply with traditional norms of masculinity are ‘othered’ (Renold, 2004) and called derogatory names such as ‘losers’ (Connell 1995), ‘sissies’ (Frosh et al. 2003), ‘nerds’ (Gilbert and Gilbert 1998) and ‘yimvu’ (sheep) (Bhana 2005). One area of contestation amongst adolescent school boys appears to revolve around academic achievement and heterosexual experience outside school. In their study in the UK Haywood and Mac an Ghaill (1996) found that the lack of heterosexual experience of the academic achievers and A level learners became a resource for other boys in the school to impose legitimate definitions of what it means to be a ‘real boy’. In this study, a ‘real boy’ is one who engages in risk-taking behaviours such as smoking, drinking and having sex with multiple partners. These boys interpret academic achievers’ heterosexual inexperience as illustrating immaturity. In their study Frosh et al. (2003) found that the experiences of social class, ethnicity, and race play an important role in the concepts that adolescent boys develop about their masculine identities. For example, middle class boys in private schools positioned themselves as intellectually superior and as being more career orientated than working class boys in the state schools. While on the other hand, state-school boys describe private-school boys as snobbish and wimpish. In South Africa, black adolescent boys that go to former Model C schools1 are called derogatory names such as ‘coconuts’ by their male counterparts in the township because they speak English in an American accent, wear baggy jeans, play basketball and listen to rap music rather than listening to kwaito (popular township music) and playing ediski (soccer) (Durrheim and Mtose 2006, Stevens and Lockhart 2003). These boys are also seen as lacking in (African) masculinity. Model C schoolboys, on the other hand, see boys in state school as being intellectually inferior (Haywood and Mac an Ghaill 1996). This shows that social class intersects with how boys interpret conceptions of hegemonic masculinity, which defined as an idealised version of what it means to be ‘real’ man (Connell 1995). Frosh et al. (2003) found that middle-class boys were more likely to value leadership and intelligence as characteristics of hegemonic masculinity. Working-class boys, on the other hand, were more likely to suggest that hegemonic masculinity was all about being streetwise (e.g. a gang member), able to attract girls (cherries) and looking ‘cool’ which might involve taking risks such as publicly smoking and drinking excessively. Working-class boys see this as a legitimate form of masculinity. In many South African townships, adolescent boys are expected to be stylish and wear expensive designer clothes. The changing nature of masculinities is also influenced by the socio-historical political context. The current study looks at the shifting nature of young masculinities in Alexandra Township after 16 years of democracy in the new South Africa. Therefore, the understanding of how township boys perform different versions of masculinities in the school context is a central focus of this study. During the struggle against apartheid, militarised masculinity became dominant amongst many township boys. Militarized masculinity refers to boys’ active involvement in politics and violent or protest activities that were aimed at defeating the apartheid regime (Cock 2001, Glaser 2000, Langa and Eagle 2008, Xaba 2001). As part of constructing ‘militarised masculinity’, young township boys were expected to be strong, brave, tough, fearless, aggressive and violent. The incorporation of these qualities heavily influenced the formation of militarized masculine identity for large number of adolescent township boys (Langa and Eagle 2008). The studies by Mokwena (1992) and Glaser (2000) also revealed what is known as ‘tsotsi’ masculinity in South African townships, a masculinity which hinges around fighting skills, street wisdom, clothing style, proficiency in tsotsitaal (tsotsi language), and success with women as trophies of masculinity. This form of masculinity is still celebrated amongst young male South Africans in some sectors of the society. Since 1994 there have been social and political changes in gender relations, with greater 1 ‘Model C school’ refers to schools which were established under apartheid for white children only, but in the late 1980s and post-1994 started to admit children of different races. To this day former Model C schools have the best facilities and best educational opportunities for children. In the past few years there has been an increasing number of black children attending these schools, which primarily service middle-class families.
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emphasis being placed on gender equality. The relevance of the present study is to explore how current socioeconomic and political differences influence township boys to choose one form of masculinity over any other and the subjective experience of negotiating such identities. This will help us to identify factors influencing township boys to choose and live out negative aspects of ‘hegemonic’ masculinity, which may be associated with anti-school behaviours. In addition, this study also facilitates understanding of the positive factors influencing township boys to develop alternative versions of township masculinity, which are school-orientated and non-violent.
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Method Participants and procedure Thirty adolescent boys between the ages of 13 to 18 years in Grade 10 and 11 were recruited from two secondary schools in Alexandra Township. The permission to conduct the research was obtained from Gauteng Department of Education and school principals. Nineteen boys were recruited from the first school and the remaining 11 boys were recruited from the other school. The researcher advertised the study by visiting classes to meet with adolescent boys to explain the nature of the research project and to provide them with an information sheet, parental consent and participant assent forms which required the appropriate signatures. Only boys who returned the signed forms were included in the study. All other ethical guidelines such as confidentiality and anonymity were also followed. Data collection methods Photography as a research method All the boys who became participants were given disposable cameras to take 27 photos (the total available on the film) under the theme ‘my life as a boy’. In taking their photos, boys were encouraged to think about the following questions: What is it like to be a boy? What are the things that make boys feel like ‘real boys’? How do boys spend their time? What are some of the challenges that boys face at school? What makes some boys more popular than others? Are there alternative ways of being a boy? Do they ever imagine becoming different to other boys? Boys were then given a period of two weeks to take photos. The space and time afforded to participants enabled them to think about how they wanted to represent themselves but also required them to focus on the task. After two weeks, arrangements were made for the researcher to collect all the disposable cameras and process the photos. Individual interviews In the individual interviews, boys were asked to provide a description of each photo and why and how they decided to take that particular image. What was the intention in taking a particular photo and what were the feelings and emotions that accompany the photos taken? How did the participant relate feelings and emotions back to the photo both at the time and in the interview? This kind of interview process is referred to as photo-elicitation, where photos are used to prompt interview responses (Blackbeard and Lindegger 2007). Boys were also asked to describe how the images represented aspects of their masculinities. Focus groups In this study, focus groups were combined with individual interviews. In the group interviews, boys were asked to choose five images (of their 27) that best described them as boys and to show them to the other boys in the group. This helped to set the mood for the group discussions. The exercise served the function of what Morgan (1997) terms ‘icebreakers’, but also added value in terms of contextualising the groups. The combination of individual interviews and focus group interviews thus provided rich information, insight and ideas about what it means to be a boy. The use of photographic images as a route into discussing masculinity in both individual and focus group interviews seemed to enhance the discussion and produced a heightened level of engagement
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on the part of the boys. Both the content of the images as well as their discussions around the images provided useful data as will be illustrated in the subsequent section on findings and discussion.
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Data analysis All interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed for detailed discursive data analysis (Potter and Wetherell 1989) to analyse how adolescent boys talk about the competing multiple voices of being a school-going boy in Alexandra Township, a historically work-class and black community in Gauteng. In the data analysis, particular attention was also paid on the emotional processes that adolescent boys go through in resisting, subverting and challenging the existing dominant norms of township masculinity. Key findings and discussion The findings show that being a boy is not a homogeneous phenomenon. All the participants agreed that there were different ways of being a boy and that some boys were more popular than others, which often depended on the context in which boys found themselves. The interviews revealed recurring allusions to different ‘types’ of boys at schools in Alexandra Township – namely, tsotsi boys and academic boys. However, it is important to note that boys do not fit neatly into each of these categories. They vacillate between multiple positions, confirming Frosh et al.’s (2003) view that masculinities are fluid, multiple and contradictory. It was evident that adolescent boys were flexible about the positions they occupied and were not rigidly bound to one position. Some positions were more dominant than others and this revealed how adolescent boys monitor each other as part of a process of conforming to idealized norms of township masculinity as lived out in the township context of Alexandra. Tsotsi boys as ‘popular’ versus academic boys as ‘teacher’s pets’ In the study, it was reported that tsotsi boys are boys that miss classes, defy teachers’ authority and perform poorly in their grades. Meanwhile academic boys conform to school rules and perform well academically. Academic boys mentioned that tsotsi boys belong to gangs and are more likely to commit violent crime as well as bringing weapons to school. In the following extract, Martin talks about tsotsi boys at his school: Martin2: This man and this man {see Photo 1}… because this guy, whenever we are in class, he always wears a cap. When they tell him to remove the cap, he would take it off and then wear it again. He made a ‘7’ sign3, and I am also doing it here {see Photo 1}. Researcher: So the sevens (tsotsi boys) are the ones who beat up girls? Martin: Yes, they can beat up anything that is beatable. Researcher: Are they feared – those ‘7’ boys? Martin: Yes, everyone is scared of this one in class. Researcher: What does 7 represent? Martin: It represents that you are an ‘outlaw’. We’re saying, I’m giving you seven. And a seven means a gun. Researcher: It’s a gun? Martin: Yes, whenever you mess with me, I’ll beat you. So this boy is always out of the picture, there is no one like him in the class. He is always ‘out’. Photo 1 shows two boys, one them using two fingers to demonstrate the ‘seven’ sign. Martin in this individual interview mentioned that tsotsi boys are also known as ‘sevens’ (seven is township lingo for a gun). Apparently this ‘seven’ sign is very popular amongst adolescent boys in Alex, but tsotsi boys usually make this sign as a gesture of being ‘gevaarlike’ (Afrikaans word for dangerous, but 2
All names have been changed to protect the privacy of the participants.
3 Bolding of certain words indicate some form of stress (important points for in-depth analysis and discussion by the researcher).
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Photo 1: Picture of two boys, one of whom uses two fingers to demonstrate the ‘seven’ sign4
is also slang for being defiant) (Cooper 2009). According to Martin in the above extract, tsotsi boys represents an ‘outlaw’ as they bring guns and other weapons to school and are also the troublemakers and bullies at school. Martin mentioned that ‘everyone’ is scared of tsotsi boys at his school. In his research on school violence in South Africa, Burton (2008) found that teachers were also scared of tsotsi boys. Mabena (1996) in his work describes tsotsi boys as ‘vuilpops’ (meaning they do not care about schooling because they always defy teachers’ authority). In this study, tsotsi boys were also defying school rules, threatening and also perpetrating violence against school teachers. There was an incident that was reported in one of the group interviews of a boy who had a fight with a male teacher in one of the schools. Many participants reported that these incidents are very common in which male learners often fight with male teachers. The fight with male teachers could be interpreted as one of the examples of how tsotsi boys prove their manhood through defying any form of authority. Male teachers in this study were described as strict, less tolerant and less reasonable than female teachers. It is possible that male teachers were seen as a threat to tsotsi boys’ conception of township masculinity because of their strictness and toughness in dealing with anti-school behaviours. It is through male-to-male violence that tsotsi boys were trying to assert their tsotsi masculinity as males always consider other males to be worthy rivals or opponents to be fought (Connell 1995). In these schools, violence was associated with an anti-authority position. It was through anti-authority and defiant behaviours that tsotsi boys were able to sustain a particular masculine identity within the school environment. This view was confirmed by William, a 16 year-old boy. In his narrative, he mentioned that fighting with other boys is all about gaining respect and proving that ‘I am a man’. Many participants in the interviews were boasting and taking pride in some of the fights that they have had with other boys at school (see Photo 2). 4 Photos have altered to protect the privacy of the participants. All the participants have also signed a consent forms for their photos to be used in this research project on young masculinities.
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Photo 2: Picture of two boys fighting
Shaun: Sometimes we feel that if I do not fight they would say that I am weak or I am scared of him. That guy would then take advantage that I did not fight him. He would then look down on me, and say awful things about me. William: So you are proving yourself that yeah you can’t tell me a thing. I am a man, you can’t tell me such things. It seemed enhancing one’s social position was an important factor of why adolescent boys were getting involved in fights at school. Adolescent boys who failed to live-up to this image of being violent were considered ‘fools’. Tsotsi boys asserted in the interviews that reputation and respect is only gained through a fight with other boys at school. This finding explains the increasing level of violence in many South African schools (Burton 2008). It is reported that one in five school learners are at risk of being bullied, harassed or beaten-up in schools (Burton 2008). Violence is used as a means of asserting one’s power. The notion of manhood also seems to be playing an influential role in some of the fights reported in the study. In many of the narratives, violence served as a proof of being a ‘real’ man. Shaun: boys generally like fighting to show who is the man. If you don’t fight people will laugh at you and think you are weak. William: if you are a boy, you are a man, you’ve got to show power, you have to have power, people should not play around your head and stuff. However, being seen as ‘weak’ as illustrated in Shaun’s quote is a shameful and humiliating experience. This data reveals something significant at a psychological level that male-to-male violence also functions as a defence mechanism against feelings of shame and humiliation. This point was illustrated very well in the following extracts: Shaun: We fight as boys. We fight and fight. We also fight for girls because I would not be standing with a girl, my girlfriend, at around 20:00 or 21:00 at night, and then some guy comes and take her away from me. To me it shows that he does not respect me, he is looking down on me, and I’ll show him the other side of me. William: In most cases we boys always fight over girls. You can’t allow someone to come and take your girlfriend. Many participants asserted that boys more often fight over girls at school. In many of their narratives, girls were treated as masculine ‘possessions’ that needed to be protected against potential intruders. Girls’ affection affirmed the participants’ sense of manhood. So fighting over
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Photo 3: Boys playing dice (a popular gambling game)
girls was centered around feeling threatened by other males. These feelings of threat appeared to link with Shaun and William‘s understanding that their girlfriends belonged to them only. There was a sense of ownership and therefore expected other boys to respect this ownership, but this was not always the case. In situations like this, violence was linked to a public display of power and authority. Power dynamics of how academic and tsotsi boys compete for power, visibility and legitimacy within the school environment All the participants mentioned that tsotsi boys were well-known for bunking classes to smoke zol (dagga) and gamble (play ama-dice and zwipi) in the school toilets. Tsotsi boys were accused by academic boys of being the law unto themselves, for example, not wearing school uniform or doing school work. I found, based on my observation, that academic boys were always wearing a school uniform and were always in class at all the time. It seems schooling was considered by tsotsi boys to be irrelevant and ‘emasculating’ to their conception of township masculinity. They were invested on proving their manliness in the eyes of other boys by breaking school rules rather than achieving academic success. In the interviews, academic boys spent a lot of time talking about school toilets as privileged ‘spaces’ for a certain group of boys (especially tsotsi boys). Photo 3 shows a group of adolescent boys playing dice during school hours. Many were not even wearing the school uniform. In the interviews, the participants mentioned that gambling (especially playing ama-dice) is very common amongst adolescent boys in Alexandra. Martin: ‘Tsotsi boys always hang around school toilets at all the time. They don’t go to classes. They are the bullies and make other learners to pay toilet fee so that they can gamble’. Researcher: Do you also gamble? Tommy: No, I don’t gamble. Researcher: Where do they gamble? Tommy: They gamble in the school toilets Researcher: When? After school Tommy: No. They gamble during school hours. Many boys miss classes to go and play zwipi and ama-dice in the school toilets.
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Researcher: Is this common for boys to gamble during school hours? Martin: It is very common. Many boys go to school, but many do not go to classes. They go and gamble...These boys that gamble are bullies. They harass other learners. It was clear in the narratives that school toilets were ‘masculinised’ spaces. Tsotsi boys were the main gatekeepers of this ‘space’. They were setting rules and regulations of who enters and who does not enter. For example, it was reported that some boys (mainly academic boys) were forced to pay a ‘toilet fee’ before being allowed to use the bathrooms. In the extract above, academic boys such as Martin and Tommy reported feeling unsafe to go to school toilets. Apparently, many bullying activities take place there. What was evident is that both tsotsi and academic boys were competing for power, visibility, legitimacy and dominance in the school environment. Tsotsi boys had more power outside the classroom context, on the soccer fields or during break, in the school toilets, while academic boys had more power in the classroom context due to their active participation in answering maths and science-related questions and doing school homework. As a researcher I observed that many of the participants who classified themselves as academic boys had pictures of books in their albums. Picture 5 shows two academic boys doing their school work. In the study, tsotsi boys were negatively labelling academic boys as ‘teachers’ pets’ or ‘Mr Goodboys’ because they always do their school work. Herman: Yes, they sometimes call me and say you are acting like you know it all, when I am holding books. You think you are Mr Goodboy. Simon: We are labelled as losers ... teachers’ pets and ‘snaai’ (fools) because I will always carry books. Academic boys were subjected to insults and were teased and called derogatory names such as ‘losers’ and snaai (fools). Studiousness was not highly valued among some of the boys in Alex. Boys who do well academically were taunted and ridiculed. Tsotsi boys were apparently more popular than academic boys, and, in this study, the academic boys complained that tsotsi boys were not only popular with teachers but also with girls. Simon: But then if you disrespect the teachers you become popular in that group of becoming popular, in that bad way. But then if you play sport, and not being the teacher’s pet necessarily, and you (don’t) do your home work, you become popular amongst the girls. And the girls would like you that this guy. Nathan: I don’t know, these girls of these days, when they see a boy drinking, smoking and missing classes, they get proud of the boy. Despite their commitment to studying and doing well academically, academic boys were feeling disadvantaged that girls do not like them, ‘especially girls of these days’. Simon bitterly complained that ‘you don’t do your home work but girls would like this’. Frosh et al. (2003) found that girls do like more academic boys because they do not harass/abuse girls and they also respect teachers, but girls do not necessarily like them as potential boyfriends. Girls see such boys as being too effeminate and lacking key characteristics of hegemonic masculinity, such as roughness and toughness. Academic boys were puzzled by girls’ preference for tsotsi boys as potential boyfriends. It was clear in the findings that there were some costs to be identified as an academic boy. This, for example, involved being rejected by girls as a potential boyfriend. Academic boys were also seen as boring. This is because they do not go out to parties and were forever at home reading or doing school work. One academic boy (Nathan) spoke about feeling hurt when his girlfriend of two years decided to end their relationship to go out with one popular tsotsi boy at their school. He suspects he lost his girlfriend because he was not in the ‘cool’ group of tsotsi boys. Other looses and sacrifices that came with being an academic boy included being bullied and called derogatory names such as ‘teachers’ pets’. As a result, in the following extract, some of the boys who classified themselves as ‘academic boys’ seemed to be experiencing conflicting emotions and ambivalence about their masculine identities: Nathan: Yes. It’s like I am that simple guy. I wouldn’t say I am popular, I wouldn’t say I am a loser. I feel that I am in between. Simon: Yes, being like in between, you wouldn’t impress people doing bad things. And
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Photo 4: Picture of books taken by one of academic boys in the study
Picture 5: Two academic boys doing their school work at home
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again you wouldn’t be that guy that doesn’t socialize, like you lock yourself out. Here, the participants spoke about the benefits of being ‘in between’ or ‘in the borderland’, which means being caught between two opposing masculine positions (Martino and Pallota-Chiarolli 2003). Academic boys think it is better to be ‘in between’ and a ‘simple guy’ who is neither popular nor a ‘loser’. However, being in the middle constitutes a dilemma as they want to do well academically, but at the same time they do not want to be categorised as teachers’ pets or bookworms. They want to be considered ‘real’ township boys by doing what other boys do (e.g. socializing and spending time with other boys on the street corners), but still get good grades at school. The balance is difficult to achieve. It was evident that being an academic boy was not a simple process. As Reay (2003: 161) argues that ‘to be both academically successful and acceptably male requires a considerable amount of careful negotiation on the part of academic boys’. Like the adolescent boys in Reay’s (2003) study, both Nathan and Simon were also caught between two opposing positions in attempting to ensure that their tough township masculinities were kept intact while simultaneously endeavoring to maintain their academic success. It was an internal battle that many academic boys in this study needed to manage in order to be seen as ‘real’ township boys. As indicated earlier tsotsi boys are very popular with both teachers and girls. In the interviews, academic boys found themselves feeling conflicted that they want to belong to the ‘cool’ group, but simultaneously they were questioning some practices of tsotsi boys such as missing classes or not doing school work. The interviews revealed academic boys’ anxieties to conform with certain masculine practices in order to obtain the ‘cool’ image status. One academic boy said this involves ‘downplaying one’s academics and publicly rebelling against teachers in order to be seen as ‘cool’’. Evidently, there is pressure on young adolescent boys to behave in a particular manner in order to gain some membership into the ‘cool’ group rather than do school work. Walking on a tightrope: academic boys’ discursive strategies to maintain ‘alternative’ masculinities Some academic boys were confidently able to reject dominant norms of tsotsi boys without having to straddle between positions or occupy multiple positions. These boys were aware of the peer pressure to conform to certain practices but we able to rebuff them as illustrated in the interview with Themba, a 16-year-old boy. He mentioned that when tsotsi boys tease him that he is a bookworm he consoles himself by telling them, ‘Let’s put five years down the line and see what is going to happen, who is going to be a bookworm, who is going to wash whose car, who is going to be whose ‘garden boy’, who is going to … you know stuff like that.’ Themba seemed to be coping well and resisting peer pressure to engage in anti-school behaviours such as missing classes or defying school teachers. He narrated that he sees education as an investment for the future. He believes that he is currently in an inferior position but later he will be in a superior position. In his photo album, he had photo of a new Mercedes Benz and a big house. In talking about this photo, Themba remarked that tsotsi boys now think they are clever, but later in life will be working as his servants, washing his car and working as garden boys in his big house. It will be pay-back time. It is evident that the use of photography in this research project allowed the participants to create and express their fantasies about life and their futures as young males living in a disadvantaged community such as Alex. This could be seen in photos taken that included flashy cars and big houses, suggesting a projection into a different desirable future. The meanings attributed to or associations with some of the pictures also allowed the participants to elaborate their ideas in the directions that made sense to them, thus allowing for somewhat more open-ended data collection and an expression of feelings and emotions. Brett, another 16-year-old academic boy, also had a picture of a big house with swimming pool in his album. He also mentioned feeling hurt when tsotsi boys at school call him a ‘fool’ because he is always reading and doing his school work. He recounted that the coping strategy that he uses is to ignore all these negative comments and concentrates on his goal of becoming a civil engineer. It was evident in the study that many academic-orientated boys were more concerned about the future, which represented an ideal lifestyle in which many will able to leave the squatter camps of Alex to go and live in the neighboring suburbs of Sandton and Sunninghill. All these narratives do, however, also point to the tension that many academic boys were
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Photo 6: Picture of Mercedes Benz and a big house (identified as aspirational)
experiencing in negotiating the paradoxes of township masculinity. Their narratives were proliferated with contradictory sentiments and ambiguities as it is not easy to be a ‘different’ boy who adopts non-popular masculine positions. Balancing the academic and social sides is integral to achieving a desirable masculinity, but this seemed to elicit feelings of ambivalence and contradiction. This confirms Frosh et al. (2003) that the process of being a different boy who adopts non-popular positions is not an easy step, as it involves discrimination and being called derogatory names such as ‘teachers’ pets’ for not complying with traditional views of tsotsi masculinity. One area of contestation amongst this group of adolescent school boys was an involvement in risky sexual behaviours with multiple girlfriends in imposing legitimate definitions of what it means to be a ‘real’ township boy in Alex. The discussion of these risky sexual behaviours is beyond the scope of the current article. However, what emerged was that tsotsi masculinity was tied to particular performances of heterosexuality, in which having sex with multiple partners was very important. Meanwhile, academic boys were teased for their lack of heterosexual experience and as a result, many had doubts about their sense of masculinity which was non-risk taking. As Ratele et al. (2007: 126) put it being a different boy is ‘hard work’. So it is important that young adolescent boys are assisted in negotiating all these challenges of what it means to be a boy and also the transition into healthy manhood. Conclusion This article reveals some interesting power dynamics on what it means to be a school-going boy in Alex. It is evident that there are different groups of boys in Alex and these boys compete with each other for legitimacy and domination and in the course of which some practices of masculinity enjoy greater popularity than others. The contestation and preferences for different masculine identities change from one context to another. The subjective positions that boys occupied were fluid rather than rigid and fixed. The participants were vacillating between these multiple positions, and simultaneously accepting and rejecting certain practices of township masculinity. What was apparent from the findings was that boys’ status was derived from having a certain position within
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the peer group hierarchy. In terms of the hierarchy of masculinities at school, tsotsi boys were at the top of the hierarchy and highly visible and projected an idealized form of township masculinity. However, their visibility and dominance was being challenged and subverted by academic boys, although this process had its own emotional costs. Some of the costs involved being rejected by girls as potential boyfriends and being called derogatory names. As a result, academic boys found themselves feeling conflicted about their masculine positions. Some wanted to be popular, but still obtain good grades at school. According to Martino and Pallotta-Chiarolli (2003) these boys were forced to be in the ‘borderland’, which they did not want to classified as either tsotsi or academic boys. They preferred to be ‘in-between’ by simultaneously occupying multiple masculine identities depending on the context in which they were in. These boys will publicly perform tions, is a complex process characterized by feelings of hesitation and ambivalence. These are contradictions that young academic boys in this study needed to manage in order to maintain and sustain emerging alternative voices of masculinity that are school orientated. It is therefore important that intervention programmes are initiated to assist adolescent boys in negotiating ‘healthy’ voices of young masculinities that are non-violent, non-risk taking and non-sexist. Acknowledgements — I would like to thank the boys who took the time to take photos and participate in the interviews. Thanks also to my PhD supervisor Gill Eagle for her detailed comments on the first draft of my paper. The research project was funded by SANPAD (South African Netherlands Partnership on Alternative Development, under the leadership of Prof Graham Lindegger) and the National Research Foundation (NRF) and the African Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowship (ADDRF) offered by African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) in partnership with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and Ford Foundation.
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