Sexuality, parenthood, and identity : relationships among female and male youth living on the streets of Durban CBD.
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Date
2011
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Abstract
This study was designed to explore sexuality, parenthood, identity, and relationships
among female and male youth living on the streets of Durban CBD. It sprung from
my previous engagement on the street, which suggested the striking impact of gender
on the lives of the youth. Much literature on children and youth living on the street
ignore the gendered nature of street life, and this study filled the knowledge gap about
gender constructions and gendered relationships on the street. Framed by critical
theory, this study explored how constructions of masculinities and femininities are
played out on the street and impact the youth’s relationships. It specifically focused
on intersectionalities with socio-economic and other structures in understanding
gender. Focus groups and individual interviews were conducted with 37 youth on the
street, of which 17 were female. Approximately 50 focus group sessions and
individual interviews were conducted. Due to drug use and lack of sleep, the
concentration levels of the youth would vary a great deal, and the analysis is mainly
based on approximately 25 of the focus groups sessions and interviews, which
provided satisfactory depth. My extensive involvement on the street and the study’s
embeddedness in practical, therapeutic, and conscientising social work ensured rich
material. With the participants’ permission, the sessions were tape-recorded. The
material was analysed according to critical discourse analysis. Four themes emerged
during the analysis: Men as providers, violence, sex, and sexuality on the street; Girls’
violence and contestations of femininity and masculinity; Gang culture and
constructions of masculinity; and Constructions of motherhood and fatherhood.
Male provision was a major construction of masculinity among the youth on the
street, greatly compromised by their socio-economic marginalisation. Consistent with
international literature, poverty`s assault on masculinity was evident, and violence
was a means to compensate for a wounded sense of masculinity and to establish male
superiority. Girls’ sex work was a major gender role transgression, contesting
hegemonic femininity, males’ control over women, and the provider role of
boyfriends, and was violently opposed by the males living on the street. Girls worked
hard to present themselves according to acceptable constructions of femininity, and
framed their sex work according to the mandate of male provision, as caring
relationships with wealthier men. Young mothers on the street struggled with the
contradiction between constructions of motherhood and sex work. There was a
demand for them to not give up custody of their children, yet the conditions of
homelessness and the street made adequate caring impossible, and the mothers were
almost inevitably doomed to condemnation and failure as ‘good’ women. Though
male provision was a dominant construction of masculinity, it was not reflected in the
actual lives of the youth on the street, and violence was by far the most important
means to establish and confirm manliness. The significance given to violence was, in
addition to the significant impact of poverty and consequent male vulnerability,
framed by rules of the 26 gang.
Conscientising work among the youth to reveal the real sources of their oppressions is
called for, as well as practical and therapeutic work. Their lives reflect dominant
structure in the larger society, and work towards egalitarian relations among genders
in society overall as well as measures to transform the profound socio-economic
inequality nationally and globally are called for.
Description
Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu Natal, Durban, 2011.
Keywords
Sexuality--Adolescent--KwaZulu-Natal., Parenthood--KwaZulu-Natal., Theses--Social work., Street children--KwaZulu-Natal.