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What does it mean to be a boy? Implications for girls’ and boys’ schooling experiences in Lesotho rural schools

2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 23; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/09540253.2010.527828

1360-0516

Pholoho Morojele,

Children's Rights and Participation

Abstract A doctoral study on constructions of gender in Lesotho rural primary schools has found that meanings attached to children's identities play a role in undermining gender equality in schools. The study employed the social constructionist paradigm as its theoretical framework. Drawing from ethnographic data (conversations, observations and informal discussions), this article discusses boys' constructions of gender and their implications for gender in/equality in the schools. Analysis shows that being a boy was closely linked to certain qualities that every boy had to perfect. Boys' strivings to attain these qualities was the source of gender-based violence. Boys' failure to attain these qualities was the source of anguish and embarrassment for them. Gender inequality in the schools could be traced to forms of masculinities that boys were encouraged and pressured to perform. The conclusion provides strategies that Free Primary Education could employ to address the scourge of gender inequality in Lesotho schools. Keywords: hegemonic masculinitiesalternative masculinitiesboy heirsFree Primary Educationgender inequalityLesotho rural schools Acknowledgements The author wishes to express gratitude to the following: The Commonwealth Scholarship Commission (United Kingdom), National Manpower Development Secretariat (Lesotho) and the Spencer Fellowship Grant (University of KwaZulu-Natal) for financially supporting the PhD study on which this article is based; Professor Deevia Bhana and Professor Relebohile Moletsane for supervising the study that led to the production of this article; Mr Crispin Hemson for critically reading and copy-editing this article; and the Gender and Education journal reviewers of this article. Attempts to address their critical and constructive comments have had far-reaching positive implications in enhancing the author's research and academic capacity. Notes The first wife of my father died after they had six daughters. Due to the minority cultural status of females in Basotho communities there were worries that all the cattle, sheep and fields that belonged to my family would be inherited by other Morojele's families who had boys who were entitled by law to own property. Consequently, my father married (albeit, as I was informed, with much contempt from extended family members) a second wife (my mother) at the age of 60, with whom they were blessed with a first-born (an heir) boy (myself). I was named Pholoho (which means salvation/redemption) denoting that my birth rescued my family from losing all its property to extended family members upon the death of my father. From a very early age I was socialised to be protective of my sisters against the social ills to which the patriarchal Basotho society relegated girls and women. I was also pressurised to grow up quickly so I could take on my father's responsibilities as he grew older and became unable to carry out some of the male duties. To grow up quickly so I could protect my sisters (girls and women) was part of my earliest consciousness of being. This might partly explain my political inclination towards gender equality, and my subjectivity which has inflected analysis in this paper. Scholars such as Morrell (Citation2001), Connell (Citation1995), Epstein (Citation1997) and Epprecht (Citation2000) served as intellectual bolsters of this inclination, which culminated in a motivation to focus my PhD studies on gender equality. Basotho means people of Lesotho. Mosotho is the singular. Sesotho is the language of Basotho. Lesotho people speak Sesotho. Customary laws refer to the customs and traditions of the Basotho which have been part of them for centuries. Originally these were not written down, but in 1903 the Basutoland National Council wrote these laws down for reference in the judiciary and also as means to preserve Basotho customs which were seen to be under threat due to the introduction of the Western (commonly known as the Dutch) laws. These laws are still intact even today and thus Lesotho has a dual legal system with customary laws having the same legal force and recognition as the Dutch/Common laws in the judiciary (Poulter Citation1972). However, there is a wealth of scholarship that describes how the phenomenon of Sesotho culture has been changed and complexified in response to various factors including Christianity, colonialism, capitalism etc. (Coplan Citation1981; Eldredge Citation1993; Epprecht Citation2000). According to the dominant discourse in Lesotho, it is a thing of shame in Basotho communities to have a woman who is not married. The Bill was passed into law in 2006 to repeal the gender-biased customary law. Under customary law, women were regarded as minors; married women were under the guardianship of their husbands and unmarried women were under the guardianship of their fathers, brothers or even sons. In 2000 when Free Primary Education was first introduced in Grade 1, in most Lesotho primary schools, children who did not attend school because their parents could not afford to pay school fees enrolled in huge numbers. As there were no age restrictions, the eldest enrolled, according to the Ministry of Education and Training, Lesotho (Citation2001), was a 56-year-old male learner. This might partly explain why much of the data in this article comes from children in their teens. Conversations were conducted in Sesotho and were later transcribed in English. Muthi is part of traditional Basotho belief systems. When I was young my father made small cuts with a razor on all the joints throughout my body and inserted a black itchy substance. This ritual was performed every year towards summer months like October. We were told that the muthi protected us from being struck by the lighting and from 'bad spirits'. It was believed that traditional witches/wizards also used muthi to bewitch people. I used to be scared to sleep at night since I was told that witches/wizards used muthi to enter in the house while people sleep and give them poison. A small container locally used to keep lip balm. Phehla is a mysterious traditional Basotho muthi believed to make men calm, soft and understanding. In traditional Basotho villages, if a man co-operated, loved and spent time with his wife, this was normally blamed on the wife. The wife was ridiculed and insulted as a wicked wizard who has given the husband phehla. Other men and women laughed at the man saying he had eaten phehla-mokh'obolo – phehla the pacifier. So being cruel, not co-operating, and sometimes abusing their wives was seen as proof that the man had not eaten phehla. Goebel (Citation2002) has identified an analogous form of husband-taming herb among the Shona women in Zimbabwe, which also denotes the role of African women's metaphysical powers.