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By Robert Morrell
Introduction
For nearly ten years, the slogan 'Break the Silence' has been a feature of AIDS prevention work in South Africa. The slogan is a response to the reluctance of individuals who are HIV positive either to test or to disclose their status. 'Breaking the Silence' is a campaign that seeks to promote acceptance for people living with AIDS and, as a direct consequence, seeks to encourage people to be medically tested for HIV.
The silence around HIV status is not the only silence that bedevils efforts to limit HIV transmission. In many schools there is a culture of silence. Certain subjects are taboo for discussion and teachers and learners are guarded, unable or unwilling to reflect personally on issues of gender and sexuality. Such school cultures seriously undermine AIDS prevention initiatives and place learners and teachers at risk of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS.
In this article, I examine some of the gendered causes and consequences of silence, particularly in school settings. I argue that work which, firstly, acknowledges the importance of silence in blocking prevention messages and, secondly, seeks to break this silence has the potential to impact dramatically on life choices, gender equality and HIV prevention.
AIDS and Schools
South Africa has a demographic profile characteristic of developing countries - 33 per cent of the population is under the age of 19 years. Put another way, a very large proportion of the population is either in school or will shortly be of school-going age. In 1999, over 22 per cent of the population was HIV positive in South Africa [1]. Infection disproportionately affects the young - the highest incidence of full-blown AIDS is recorded in the 20-24 age group, where females are much more likely to be the sufferers. Since AIDS normally only presents after 6-8 years, one can extrapolate that it is while at school that many people become infected [1].
Most of South Africa's school population is black, working class and attends public school. We do not know how many learners are HIV positive. The only reliable sources of such details are State-run ante-natal clinics where blood tests are routinely conducted. These figures are generally used in calculating the extent of the pandemic but are not translated into school settings. In schools, male and female learners show little inclination to test or to discover their status. A recent World Bank Report suggests that 12 per cent of the country's teachers are HIV positive [2].
AIDS is already considered a serious problem for schools, teachers and learners. Many different types of intervention conducted by the State and non-government organisations are underway. These concentrate on prevention. AIDS and sexuality are handled in the Life Skills section of the school curriculum. Although gender is formally included in these lessons and in the curriculum, it is often omitted, neglected or taught from a medical perspective that focuses, for example, on the mechanics of reproduction or sexual intercourse [3]. This may be one of the reasons why levels of transmission continue to be very high. KwaZulu-Natal has the highest rates of new infections in the world [1]
Definitions of Silence
In the course of research work in public schools in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal's most populous city, I was confronted by a silence about AIDS and its personal impact. Direct questions to groups big and small yielded the same order of answer. AIDS was a problem, but it was a problem for somebody else. It was not a problem in the school, for any of its learners or teachers. The reluctance to talk about AIDS was my initial experience of silence. I understood that one of the reasons for this silence was the stigma attached to being HIV positive or dying of AIDS [4]. But I was also very much aware that silence reached into many other areas.
Suppressed Discourse
What is silence? In this article it has two meanings. In the first instance it is a social phenomenon experienced collectively. The language of discourse offers a useful way to explain silence. Silence is a result of prohibition and policing [5]. Understood in this way, silence is a suppressed discourse. It is thus an effect of power. Dominant discourses permit and legitimate certain vocabularies and values while marginalising or silencing others.
The second meaning which silence takes in this article involves the personal. A person who either feels unable to talk about certain subjects or emotions or is unaware of certain aspects of his or her history suffers from silence. Although the two ways in which I use silence cannot actually be separated because they fuel one another, it is nevertheless helpful to begin by distinguishing them.
Unequal Power
Silence is an effect of unequal power. Dominant discourses deprive certain acts and phenomena of names. Without names, these 'things' are not recognised [6]. Carrie Herbert argued in the context of sexual harassment that normalising discourses ensured that certain types of discrimination and abuse could not be named and hence were not recognised [7]. Where such discourses operate, victims believe that they are themselves responsible for their misfortune. In cases of rape, for example, women may feel that they provoked the assault by wearing provocative clothes. They therefore elect not to talk about their experience.
Silence is not a problem for women alone. For men, the inability to access difficult emotions has long been identified as a serious problem, not just for the individuals concerned, but as obstacles in the way of gender equality [8].
Silence Widespread
In South Africa the phenomenon of silence is widespread and its effects deep. Patriarchal power in the household leads to the silencing of women. Women cannot resist gender tyranny unless they are willing to accept violence or contemplate expulsion from the home. Despite the introduction of domestic violence legislation in South Africa, black women seldom press charges. They silently endure abuse. When they do speak out, they are frequently victimised. In the most notorious case of AIDS victimisation, Gugu Dlamini was stoned to death in Durban in 1998 for publicly revealing her status. Many women now remain silent (about rape, about being HIV positive) for fear of such consequences.
In South Africa, stern Calvinist traditions compounded by the authoritarianism of Apartheid produced a silenced society for the majority of black and white people. Racial and gender inequalities underpinned the silence. Black people were silent before whites; women were silent and obedient to men. During the period of heightened political resistance to Apartheid (in the 1970s and 1980s), silence was a defence mechanism that could save one from incarceration at the hands of the security police. But it also became a habit that seeped into many areas of life. The schooling system became a site for the production of silence: corporal punishment was widely used and any signs of curiosity or independence of thought were taken as impertinence and so punished. However, silence is not universal and neither are schools automatically repressive. There are always places where the unspoken finds expression and there are always people who speak the unspoken.
Silence is not only the effect of repression and of forces external to the individual. As already indicated, boys and men also suffer silence. Alice Miller, the European psychologist, offers some explanation for this destructive condition [9]:
Experience has taught us that we have only one enduring weapon in our struggle against mental illness: the emotional discovery of the truth about the unique history of our childhood. Is it possible to free ourselves altogether from illusions? History demonstrates that they sneak in everywhere, that every life is full of them - perhaps because the truth often seems unbearable to us. And yet the truth is so essential that its loss exacts a heavy toll, in the form of grave illness. (Miller 1997, p. 1)
Here Miller commends the acquisition of an emotional vocabulary as a means to confront our 'illusions' and avoid 'mental illness'. In so doing, she argues, people can find their true voices and end the silence that entraps them. In this article, silence refers to the issues, subjects and topics which are not talked about. It also refers to that negotiated, regulated and policed communicative space between people which does not accommodate certain subjects, issues or topics.
Violence
South Africa is an extremely violent country. Much of this violence is played out in the interpersonal realm where men use their power over women to affirm their masculinity. It is predicated on the view that, in the words of a young, black informant, 'Love is worth nothing if [there is] no sex' [10]. A combination of a belief in male entitlement to women's bodies and misogyny produced a situation where half the men who participated in a national survey in the year 2000 thought women were to blame for rape. Despite recent legislation making marital rape a criminal offence, 58 per cent of participants believed that a woman could not be raped by her husband [11].
A second explanation for the violence of men towards women intimates is offered by Wood and Jewkes who question whether violence is purely an expression of male power [12]. In the context of South African townships characterised by acute poverty and poor life chances, the emphasis on heterosexual 'success' propels boys into sexual competition that makes them vulnerable to their male friends (and rivals) and opens them to ridicule (by boys and girls) if they 'fail'. Without the words to talk about this state of anxiety, the result of 'dangerous love' is normally violence against girlfriends.
A third cause of silence concerns the patriarchal structure of the family and the obedience and submission expected of girl children. This includes the expectation that girls will keep to themselves and not raise difficult issues. The same is not true for boys. There is very little communication between parents and children. Mothers assume that when girls have boyfriends, they will engage in sex and therefore send them to the clinic for contraception.
Stigma
Stigma is a fourth cause of silence. As already mentioned, so great is the stigma that people who publicly declare their HIV status are physically at risk from community members. It is publicly seen as a sign of irresponsibility because it is linked to sex and unregulated sex in particular [13]. The 1998 murder of Gugu Dlamini was justified by her (male) killers who said she had 'degrad[ed] her neighbourhood by disclosing that she had the disease [thus] bringing shame on her community'
(The Sunday Times 27 December 1998).
Gendered Silence
In this section I draw on interviews and class discussions conducted during a two year British Council-sponsored research project on HIV/AIDS, gender and violence in two Durban secondary
schools.1 The learners interviewed were all African, from working class
backgrounds.2 I was interested to see how the young interviewees (their ages ranged from 15 to 20 years) would talk about AIDS, given the stigma associated with the disease.
Instead of talking about AIDS, learners acknowledge its presence but keep it at a distance. Why bother to find out, they ask, because 'then you're going to worry too much' (Class discussion 10 October 2000). There is a major disincentive to test: 'To know or believe that one has the HIV/AIDS virus is to feel "spiritually dead" . You lose hope. You know you'll be rejected; you know you're going to die' [14].
No Audience
Many learners have no audience to discuss the problems they encounter. Neither parents nor friends are available. They may not be sympathetic. They might be
judgmental. Furthermore, discourses which make available a language of disclosure and which legitimate open discussion on a range of topics are absent in most schools. As has been suggested, part of the explanation lies in South Africa's authoritarian past and in oppressive pedagogies. But another part of the explanation is to be found in the gender subject positions of learners. Girls who cannot express or discuss their trauma are left isolated and powerless. Healing is retarded. They are robbed of their agency and avoid developing the relationships that might succour them.
Challenges
The inability of a person to express emotion can be considered to be that individual's problem. In this article, I have argued that silence should be understood as a social phenomenon. It is of concern to society because in the AIDS pandemic the deadly consequences of people being unable to negotiate safe sex are widespread. To break the silence there are many challenges to be met. These include: promoting gender equity in classrooms and schools; developing a climate of tolerance in order to end the culture of stigma; encouraging discourses of disclosure; and working with young people to reshape gender identities and develop capacity for openness and honesty. These are all challenges not just to individuals locked in cages of silence, but to the gender structures which create and support that silence.
Breaking the Silence
Two kinds of school-based interventions can break the silence. In the process of conducting research, researchers can provide interviewees with cues and safe space that make it possible for hidden narratives to be accessed [15]. Similarly, certain gender-sensitive, behaviour change interventions which consciously work to access personal history and to explore vulnerability are able to give the young people involved a new language and confidence to speak out.
Hegemonic masculinity and emphasised femininity both depend in large measure on the 'unsaying' of these feelings and emotions. This is why it is so important for the silence to be broken; because in breaking it, the necessary work of reconstructing new gender relations and identities will begin.
AIDS activists working in Uganda and Italy have found that an approach that encourages maximum openness by developing a language to deal with a wide range of sensitive topics is very useful in 'telling children' [16]. This self-revealing approach documents family history and relieves the burden of secrecy. It also facilitates planning (including identifying a future guardian), reduces stigma and increases trust and confidence.
One of the most successful programmes dealing with youth, sexuality and AIDS is Gethwana Makhaye's Shosholoza project which works with young African teenagers in KwaZulu-Natal who are united by their passion for soccer. Her work begins with exploring the young men's attitudes towards relationships and sex.
The research findings suggest that masculinities are changing. Young men are finding a language to break the silence. This is very good news and it is fortunately not isolated.
Conclusion
Silence (particularly in the areas of disease and sex) remains a major challenge for individuals and society. This article has argued for a gendered approach which engages with the construction of gender identities. In the process, silence can be confronted and a contribution made towards breaking down stigma and producing more harmonious and equitable gender relations.
In this article I have drawn on a number of literatures and traditions. From radical feminism there has been the focus on women's sexuality and from education the critical literature on getting boys to talk (rather than fight). From critical men's studies has come the insight that the context of gender relations is vital and that male power must not be ignored when working with men.
It has become quite common in the last few years for researchers to call for the inclusion of men in AIDS work. In fact, it has become the formal position of UNAIDS which argues that 'cultural beliefs and expectations also heighten men's vulnerability . as politicians, front-line workers, fathers, sons, brothers and as friends they have much to give. The time is ripe to start seeing men not as some kind of problem, but as part of the solution' (UNAIDS 2000, p. 6).
It will be imperative to tackle silence. Teachers and learners should be encouraged to talk about themselves, to themselves, to reveal their interiors to themselves if not to others. In this way a deadly silence can be broken.
Acknowledgement
Full article published in Australian Educational Researcher, 30, 1, April 2003, 41-62. Reprinted with permission. The author would also like to thank Dr Richmond Tiemoko for his editorial efforts.
Notes
1 The two township schools minister entirely to working class African learners. My research collaborators were Debbie Epstein, Lebo Moletsane and Elaine Unterhalter. Informants are identified in the text by pseudonyms which they chose themselves.
2 I conducted a survey in September and October 2000 among 450 African learners at the schools aged 13-20. The sample was 44 per cent male and 56 per cent female.
Reference
1. Whiteside, A. and C. Sunter (2000) AIDS: The Challenge for South
Africa, Human and Rousseau and Tafelberg, Cape Town.
2. Education Foundation Trust (2002) A Current Awareness Bulletin (May).
3. Harrison, A., J. A. Smit and L. Myer (2000) "Prevention of HIV/AIDS in South Africa: a review of behaviour change interventions, evidence and options for the
future", South African Journal of Science, no. 96, pp. 285-90.
4. AIDS 2000 (© Coordinated by H&D Networks: www.hdnet.org) (1999)
"PWHA Participation - An Experience of Silence" (Plenary extracts, 23-27 October 1999).
5. Foucault, M. (1978) A History of Sexuality, Volume 1, Pantheon, New York.
6. Spender, D. (1980) Man Made Language, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London
7. Herbert, C. M. H. (1989) Talking of Silence: The Sexual Harassment of
Schoolgirls, Falmer Press, London.
8. Brod, H., ed. (1987) The Making of Masculinities, Allen & Unwin, Boston, MA
9. Miller, A. (1997) The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self, Basic Books, New York (original in English, 1981).
10. NPPHCN/UNICEF (1997) Youth Speak Out . A Study on Youth
Sexuality, UNICEF, Braamfontein
11. Kedama, P. (2000) "Men as partners in prevention: a case study from South
Africa", email posting to GENDER-AIDS discussion forum 7 June 2000. Online:
gender-aids@hivnet.ch
12. Wood, K. and R. Jewkes (2001) "Dangerous love: reflections on violence among Xhosa township
youth", in R. Morrell, ed., Changing Men in Southern
Africa, University of Natal Press, Pietermartizburg
13. Marcus, T. (1999) Living and Dying with AIDS (Wo! Zaphela Izingane), CINDI Network, Johannesburg.
14. Leclerc-Madlala, S. (1997) "Infect one, infect all: Zulu youth response to the AIDS epidemic in South
Africa", Medical Anthropology, no. 17, pp. 363-80.
15. Frosh, S., A. Phoenix and R. Pattman (2002) Young Masculinities: Understanding Boys in Contemporary
Society, Palgrave, London.
16. www.hdnet.org - 'Telling Children',
Paris 99, 7 December 1999.
*Robert Morrell is a professor in the Faculty
of Education at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in
Durban, South Africa.
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