Male Peer Talk About Menstruation: Discursively Bolstering Hegemonic Masculinities Among Young Men in South Africa
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Glover, Jonothan M , Makusem, Manase , Kelland, Lindsay , Paphitis, Sharli A
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/426502 , vital:72358 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/23293691.2022.2057830"
- Description: In this paper, we show how male peer talk about menstruating women may be used to discursively bolster hegemonic masculinities and denigrate women. Focus group discussions among 37 young isiXhosa-speaking men from two South African schools were facilitated by two young men; statements garnered from a sexuality education class about menstruation conducted in the same schools were used as cues. Data were analyzed using discourse analysis. The interactive talk constructed a bifurcation: “disgusting” menstruating women versus “reasonable” non-menstruating women who abide by idealized feminine behavior and are available sexually. We argue that as the non-menstruating woman cyclically become the other (menstruating woman) in women of particular ages, the trace of disgust inhabits the signifier “woman” for these men. Menstruation also disrupted a core identity strategy of local hegemonic masculinities: virile (hetero)sexuality. Given this, discursive distancing of the self from the very topic of menstruation is necessary. Small moments of resistance to these constructions were quickly closed down, and caring masculinity emerged only in the context of negotiating sex during menstruation. Involving men in menstrual hygiene management programs may provide spaces for resistance to denigrating discourses about menstruation.
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- Date Issued: 2022
Refining youth sexualities empowerment programmes: The development of the Masizixhobise Toolkit based on a critical sexual and reproductive citizenship framework
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Moore, Sarah
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/434158 , vital:73035 , ISBN 9781003139782 , https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003139782-15/refining-youth-sexualities-empowerment-programmes-catriona-ida-macleod-sarah-moore
- Description: Youth sexualities programmes frequently focus on empowering young people in relation to sexual decision-making and interactions. Within these programmes, however, empowerment is mostly equated with the individualised concepts of self-efficacy and agency to the exclusion of interpersonal and social (i.e. collective) components. Resultantly, the social justice aspects of empowerment may be overlooked. Noting this, some researchers have argued for the adoption of a broader, integrative conceptualisation of empowerment. Macleod’s and Vincent’s critical sexual and reproductive citizenship (CSRC) framework provides such a conceptualisation. This framework draws from feminist re-workings of the principles of citizenship and applies these to understandings of CSRC. Based on this framework, key issues for consideration in programmes are: sexual and reproductive citizenship as status and practice; situated agency; differentiated universalism; the interweaving of the private and public; and the politics of recognition, redistribution and reparation. This chapter discusses the development of a programme refinement toolkit based on a CSRC framework, named the Masizixhobise Toolkit; how the elements outlined above were operationalised into questions; an illustrative example; and the partnership formed with a youth empowerment non-governmental organisation in developing the toolkit.
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- Date Issued: 2022