Sex, Gender, Becoming - PULP

Agency amidst adversity: poverty and women’s reproductive lives 103
pregnant and he left me, I had to give up school and use all the money
that I had saved — for the baby.
Although women have shouldered the burden of childrearing and
child-support for many generations, younger women (particularly in
the aftermath of a first birth and desertion) seem to be more cautious
in averting possibilities of further unplanned pregnancies, and in some
cases delay marriage and desire fewer children in the long run. In the
case above, LM’s mother permitted her to go back to school only after
she agreed to use contraception to avoid any future pregnancies.
A further recurring difficulty talked about by schoolgirls has been the
role of teachers and taxi-drivers, that is, men regarded as having
status and money. As a school pupil in a group session claimed: 38
Male teachers are not too strict because some are going with schoolgirls
— even 14 and 15-year-olds ... There was this teacher who ... promised a
girl a number one pass — in exchange for sex. At the end of the year that
girl fainted when she saw her results because she had failed. That
teacher got into serious trouble.
Another pupil remarked, ‘Sometimes teachers do give students a child
and promise to look after them. But they have their own wives and
children to look after’. Not only was it claimed that teachers often
abuse their authority in initiating relationships with schoolgirls, but it
was also suggested that money is sometimes exchanged in these
encounters. Money is also the main reason offered for schoolgirls
pursuing relationships with taxi-drivers. Having a taxi-driver’s baby is
also a way of ensuring some measure of financial support over the
years.
In the course of fieldwork I often heard it suggested that intra-familial
sexual encounters, as in those between teenage girls and their
mother’s partner(s), sometimes lead to pregnancy. Community
workers also referred to many instances in which they have had to
‘rescue’ a girl from a situation in which she was being sexually abused
by a stepfather or relative upon whom the family was dependent
financially. Given high levels of female unemployment and participation
in a predominantly informal economy, women in families often
find themselves highly dependent on men. Sister IM at St. Peter’s
Clinic in Winterveld said: 39
At times you find a mother knows the child is having sex with her
husband — that he is using her. By challenging him they will be left
without an income. She keeps quiet so that the husband can continue to
look after them. Sometimes the child may report the incident to the
mother. In some cases she may protect the husband even though she
knows that it’s true. The child is then helpless.
38
Group session, ‘Youth Group’, 22 June 1999.
39 Interview, Sister IM, 11 February 2000.