The Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC)

2249  Large

What is the Prize, and who pays the Price? The desired and the desirable are often constellated through our ideas of what is undesired and undesirable, deeply knotted into our sense of self, our sense of where and how we fit into the world. These notions of desire form the backdrop to this powerful volume which examines the historical continuities and interruptions of heteronormativity in South African society.

Leading and emerging scholars disentangle the strands of particular sexual identities, and deepen the reader's understanding of the multiple workings of heteronormativity in South African society in particular, and sexuality in general. Through analyzing where and how heteronormativity intersects with other axes of power and social identity, contributors to this volume reveal that it is not monolithic, and heterosexuality as the South African norm is effectively 'outed' from within heteronormativity.

The chapters extend beyond the well researched areas of sexuality - same sexualities, HIV/AIDS and gender-based violence - to less discussed areas, such as childhood sexuality and disability. The multiplicity of issues raised have relevance for a range of readers interested in the fledgling field of Sexualities Studies, and in its significance the scholarship extends well beyond the borders of South Africa.

Open Access

Product information

Format : 240mm x 168mm (Soft Cover)
Pages : 424
ISBN 10 : 0-7969-2239-X
ISBN 13 : 978-07969-2239-7
Publish Year : 2009
Rights : World Rights

Acknowledgements
Dedication

1. The prize and the price
Melissa Steyn and Mikki van Zyl

NEGOTIATING NEW DEALS

2. Colouring sexualities: how some black South African schoolgirls respond to racial and gendered inequalities
Rob Pattman and Deevia Bhana

3. Glamour, glitz and girls: the meanings of femininity in high school Matric Ball culture in urban South Africa
Elaine Salo and Bianca Davids

4. E-race-ing the line: South African interracial relationships yesterday and today
Rebecca Sherman and Melissa Steyn

FLIPPING THE COIN

5. Renegotiating masculinity in the Lowveld: narratives of male-male sex in compounds, prisons and at home
Isak Niehaus

6. Fauna, flora and fucking: female sex safaris in South Africa
Haley A McEwen

7. Are blind people better lovers?
Reinette Popplestone

8. Sexuality in later life
Helena B Thornton, F C V Potocnik and J E Muller

PAYING THE PRICE

9. The weather watchers: Gender, violence and social control in South Africa
Lillian Artz

10. Nurturing the sexuality of disabled girls: The challenges of parenting for mothers
Washeila Sait, Theresa Lorenzo, Melissa Steyn and Mikki van Zyl

11. A decent place? Space and morality in a former 'poor white' suburb
Annika Teppo

12. Less is (M)orr: Aprs le dluge (Or rather: More or less ...): An essay about and conversation with Margaret Orr
Joan Hambidge and Margaret Orr

HOLDING ONTO THE PRIZE

13. Heterosex among young South Africans: Research reflections
Tamara Shefer and Don Foster

14. Apartheid, anti-apartheid and post-apartheid sexualities
Kopano Ratele

15. 'Astride a dangerous dividing line': A discourse analysis of preschool teachers' talk about childhood sexuality
Jane van der Riet

QUE(E)RYING THE CONTRACT

16. Criminalising the act of sex: Attitudes to adult commercial sex work in South Africa
Jillian Gardner

17. Queer marriage: Sexualising citizenship and the development of freedoms in South Africa
Vasu Reddy

18. Beyond the Constitution: from sexual rights to belonging
Mikki van Zyl

CONCLUSION

19. Shaping sexualities
Melissa Steyn and Mikki van Zyl

Contributors
Index

Melissa Steyn is Associate Professor in Sociology and Director of Intercultural and Diversity Studies of Southern Africa at the University of Cape Town. Although she publishes on many aspects of diversity, she is best known as the author of Whiteness Just isn't What it Used to Be: White identity in a changing South Africa (2001), which was awarded an Outstanding Scholarship award from the National Communication Association, USA, and as co-editor of the series Shaping Sexualities.

Mikki van Zyl, a lifelong anti-apartheid and gender activist, is presently completing a doctorate on same-sex marriage in South Africa, has an MPhil in Feminist Sexual Politics, and has lectured in Media Studies, Sociology, Criminology, Disability Studies and Diversity Studies. For 20 years she has worked as a researcher, trainer and writer in gender, sexualities and development and participatory action research. She co-edited Performing Queer with Steyn.

Share this

You might also consider these related books

Pentecostal Charismatic Women

Pentecostal Charismatic Women: Constructions of Femininity in Alexandra Township

This is a Black feminist autoethnographic study, written from the perspective of an insider in both the Pentecostal community and Alexandra township. The book uncovers the daily lives of women in an African Pentecostal community while relating them to Black/African feminist and womanist theory.

Product information

Format : 135mm x 216mm (Soft Cover)
Pages : 160
ISBN 13 : 978-0-7969-2639-5
Publish Year : February 2023
Rights : World Rights
Price R R245 | $14 | 11,49
Mens  Pathways

Men's Pathways to Parenthood
Silence and heterosexual gendered norms

How does the decision to become a parent unfold for heterosexual men? Is becoming a father a 'decision' at all or a series of events? These questions are the starting point for this critical book, in which the authors unravel the social and interpersonal processes shaped by deeply entrenched socio-cultural norms that come to bear on parenthood decision-making in the South African context.

Open Access

Product information

Format : 240mm x 168mm (Hard Cover)
Pages : 208
ISBN 13 : 978-0-7969-2503-9
Publish Year : July 2015
Rights : World Rights
Price R 190.00
Working Class Homosexuality In South African History 5 Inch 2020 02 28 01

Working class homosexuality in South African history
Voices from the archives

Working Class Homosexuality in South African History provides the first scholarly outline for the development of a narrative of same-sex working class African men. The book’s core analytic thrust centres around a previously unpublished primary source from the early twentieth century as well as unique oral history interviews with men remembering their lives in the gay settlement of Mkhumbane.

Product information

Format : 240mm x 168mm (Soft Cover)
Pages : 288
ISBN 13 : 978-0-7969-2583-1
Publish Year : 2020
Rights : World Rights
Price R R390.00
2079  Large

Gender Equity in South African Education 1994 - 2004
Conference proceedings

Gender Equity in South African Education 1994 - 2004 will provide readers with an overview of the progress of achieving gender equity in post-apartheid South African education. The book brings together the leading South African and international experts on gender equity in education. The papers presented at the conference, included here as chapters of the book, are all substantial contributions. They cast light, from many angles, on the different dimensions and needs in research and social action related to gender in education.

Open Access

Product information

Format : 148mm x 210mm
Pages : 168
ISBN 10 : 0-7969-2094-X
ISBN 13 : 978-07969-2094-2
Publish Year : 2005
Price R 159.00