“I feel scared of being a girl”: Adolescent girls’ conversations about heteropatriarchal sexual violence in South African townships

Abstract

This paper examines the perspectives of black African adolescent girls about heteropatriarchal sexual violence in their resource-poor townships in South Africa. The study was set in a social geographic area that is burdened by chronic poverty, high levels of crime, and heteropatriarchal violence. Rape culture – the pervasive norms and ideologies that effectively support or excuse heterosexual violence – framed the study, and qualitative group conversations were used to generate data. Findings point to a culture of heteropatriarchal sexual violence used by men to dominate and control girls’ freedom and behavior across township spaces. Adolescent girls faced widespread violence that was a systematic and overlapping feature of their neighborhoods and households. While girls employed several strategies to insulate themselves from violence, they did so in a context in which gender ideologies worked against them. In talking back to their victimization, girls conjured notions of stolen dignity, lost humanity, and diminished existence.