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“Boys Rule, Girls Drool”: Masculinities, Femininities and the Fight for Power

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Book cover Gender and Childhood Sexuality in Primary School

Part of the book series: Perspectives on Children and Young People ((PCYP))

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Abstract

This chapter explores the salience of gender through the accounts by, and observations of: boys and boys; boys and girls; and girls and girls. The primary concern is to explore the micro mediations, contestations and negotiations as masculinities and femininities are enacted. These contestations provide a framework for understanding how children become active agents in shaping their worlds. Children’s subjective worlds are structured around the battle for power and struggle to get gender right. As this chapter suggests gender struggles are strongly connected to and influenced by the broader social world. Boys and girls come to school and operate alongside identities already arranged by gender binaries and divisions where masculinity and femininity are oppositional and hierarchically ordered categories. By paying close attention to boys and girls, the chapter argues that the early years of the primary school are a critical site where gender is enacted—performed within the constraining and regulatory framework of male power and the struggle to achieve hegemonic masculinity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa

    Deevia Bhana

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  1. Deevia Bhana
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Correspondence to Deevia Bhana .

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© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore

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Bhana, D. (2016). “Boys Rule, Girls Drool”: Masculinities, Femininities and the Fight for Power. In: Gender and Childhood Sexuality in Primary School. Perspectives on Children and Young People. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2239-5_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2239-5_9

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-10-2238-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-10-2239-5

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

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