Khau, Mathabo, Post Doc

By Katherine Harrison on 21 May | 0 comments

Biographical notes: 
Mathabo Khau’s PhD looked into women teachers’ experiences of teaching sexuality education in rural schools in the age of HIV and AIDS. The study was done within the Gender and Education Department of the Faculty of Education, University of KwaZulu-Natal. Her Masters study, within the same institution, looked into how women teachers’ own experiences of adolescent sexuality influence their teaching of sexuality and HIV and AIDS education in Lesotho classrooms. Her interests are on the intersections of religion, culture, gender and education in the understandings of sexual health issues, sexuality education, and the formation of sexual identities. She also has extensive experience teaching high school biology and chemistry in Lesotho.
 
GEXcel project, Themes 4 & 5:
Statistics show that AIDS is a disease for young people, with an estimated 5, 000 – 6, 000 young adults aged 15- 25 becoming infected everyday and accounting for more than half of new infections (UNAIDS, 2006). With education being hailed as the vaccine against new HIV infections among the youth, it is important to understand how teachers, as facilitators, are implicated in the teaching of sexuality education. This project seeks to explore the gendered experiences of women teachers teaching sexuality education in rural schools. It aims at highlighting how the gender dynamics characteristic of rural communities play out in the construction of sexualities and sexuality discourses in relation to women teachers, and how such constructions create im/possibilities for women teachers’ facilitation of sexuality education. It also aims to explore how the two identities of womanhood and teacher-hood influence and shape each other in being and becoming a sexuality education woman teacher. This study will be important in adding to feminist scholarship on the embodied and gendered experiences of woman teacher-hood within sexuality education classrooms. It will also provide important information for curriculum developers and education officials on how the female teacher’s body, female sexuality, and contextual gender dynamics are implicated in the effectiveness of sexuality education programs, such that these issues can be incorporated in the planning of programs that will curb further spread of HIV infections among the youth.

GEXcel project, Themes 7 & 8 - Inner labia elongation as violence against women
ABSTRACT: Issues of sexuality remain taboo in many communities, with female sexuality being a highly policed domain. Within the context of silence, women and girls are violated daily in relation to performing their gendered and sexual identities and this increases their vulnerability to HIV and AIDS infections. This paper explores the politics of female genital modification, especially inner labia elongation, and the socially constructed notions of genital beauty through the lens of gendered violence. The paper draws from a study which explored how Basotho women teachers see themselves as sexual beings through focus group discussions and memory work. Within the context of heterosexuality, the paper discusses women’s need to modify their genitalia for promoting male sexual pleasure at the expense of female pleasure. Using Bourdieu’s theory of social practice I argue that inner labia elongation is a form of symbolic violence against women and girls as it limits their chances of enjoying a healthy and pleasurable sexuality. This paper provides important information in relation to female sexuality and the violence perpetuated against women in the name of culture.

EXTENDED OUTLINE: Traditionally in Lesotho, sex education, counselling and preparation of young girls for womanhood and marriage was done by older sisters and aunts under the supervision of grandmothers. The older women were responsible for transmission of sexual knowledge and acceptable sexual practices to girls. The sexual preparation of the female body mainly involved girls being taught how to elongate their inner labia as a rite of passage into womanhood. It was through this socialisation process that a girl acquired knowledge and skills and her attitudes and values towards sexual relationships were constructed (Gay, 1986).

The practice of labial elongation in Africa has been researched by various researchers (Bagnol & Mariano, 2008; Johansen, 2006; Koster & Price, 2008; Gallo et al., 2006). These researchers have established that labial elongation begins very early in a girl’s life before her first menstruation. They argue that in Buganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Mozambique respectively, elongation is through massaging and stretching the labia from the top to the bottom, with the tips of the thumb and index finger of each hand. To ease the pulling, girls use different locally available herbs which are ground into a paste. These are believed to soften and lubricate the labia such that the pulling does not cause any skin laceration and allow the labia to stretch. 

It is worth noting that practices aiming to reduce, enlarge or beautify the external female genitalia are highly controversial, with the World Health Organisation classifying inner labia elongation as a Type IV female genital mutilation (FGM) (WHO, 2000), and the United Nations classifying it under “harmful traditional practices” (United Nations, 2006: 45) while some scholars prefer “ethnic genital modification” (Gallo, Tita & Viviani, 2006: 65). According to the United Nations’ (2006: 45) report on ending violence against women, more than 130 million girls and women alive today have undergone female genital mutilation/cutting mainly in Africa and the Middle East. Mwenda (2006), on the other hand, has taken a rights approach to labial elongation and looks into the extent to which labial elongation violates the rights of women in Africa. He argues that “as long as labial elongation is undertaken freely, and with full consent, it does not violate the rights of women” (353-354). According to Mwenda (2006), there should be a distinction between voluntary labia elongation and other forms of FGM that either compromise the health of women or are non-consensual.

The stance taken in this paper is that labial elongation is a form of genital modification because it does not compromise the health of women. My understanding is that African women and women from other countries who practice labial elongation do so to augment their sexuality. The elongated labia make their genitalia to be more attractive and supposedly more effective in pleasuring their sexual partners. While these are important issues to bear in mind in interpreting the meanings made in this paper, I am also aware that discussing the reality or perceived nature of the augmentation would warrant another paper. I am, however, troubled by the apparent silence on labial elongation and its effects on female sexual desire and pleasure, in the context of Lesotho, and this has forced me to question the legitimacy of the practice. I am also troubled by Mwenda’s (2006) argument that if women undertake to elongate their labia freely then the practice is not violating their rights. Through this paper I aim to highlight how the practice of labial elongation perpetuates the violation of women and girls’ rights to sexual pleasure. Despite the many debates raised on labial elongation, little has been written about its role in the construction of female sexual identity, specifically in relation to sexual pleasure, eroticism and desire among women.

This paper aims to highlight the silences around sexual pleasure and desire for Basotho girls and women through discussing the importance of labial elongation in the construction of sexual identities. It presents the challenges that women face as they negotiate the spaces between the social constructions of proper womanhood and female sexualities.