Uncomfortable, but Necessary: Fact-based sex ed as a tool to combat gender based violence

This article was written in response to a series of social media posted protesting the content of South Africa’s Comprehensive Sex Education curricular in 2019. CSE has been part of South Africa’s Life Orientation subjects since 2008. It aims to contextualize the role of public education in combatting the scourge of gender-based violence in South Africa.

An abbreviated version of this article was published in the bi-monthly Amandla! Newsletter

In August and September, 2019 South Africans across the political and religious spectrum were up in arms against gender-based violence, as the brutal brutal killing of 19-year Uyinene Mrwetyana shook the nation. We prayed, we marched to parliament and demanded that President Ramaphosa take-action. In particular, school-children around the country begged us to STOP, while the hashtag #AmINext? highlighted how fear of Gender-Based Violence, has become part of everyday life in South Africa.  While there is no classroom-lesson that Uyinene could have had to protect her from the brutality that awaited her on 24 August, perhaps if she had been able to grow up in a society that spoke openly about sex, consent and what it means to respect one another’s human dignity, her no would have been respected.

One of the basic responsibilities of our schooling system is to create a common basis for understanding the society that we live in. The reality is that we live in a society where 35% of South Africans under 18-year-old report having experienced sexual abuse in their lifetimes. The reality is that we live in a society that is okay with raping and killing queer people to ‘fix’ them. The reality is that only 1 in 4 children in South Africa lives in households that look like a ‘normal’ nuclear family.    As a society, we need to prepare our young people for the world that we are actually living in. Comprehensive Sex Education, which has been part of the South African curriculum since 2008, is one very important way for us to do this. In a study of 48 countries, CSE was shown to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS, delay when young people start having sex and reduce the incidence of unwanted pregnancies.  

Whatever our personal or religious beliefs about sex, gender, and sexuality, the South African constitution protects all people’s right to non-discrimination on the basis of sex, gender, and sexual orientation. The public education system is surely one of the best tools that the government has to address crises like HIV/AIDS and Gender-Based Violence. As parents and teachers who benefit from the protections enshrined in the Consitution, it is our responsibility to engage with efforts to create a more informed, safer society in a proactive, rather than alarmist way. 

Nobody is saying that talking about sex is easy - but the discomfort that CSE poses for some parents and teachers, should not be greater than the discomfort that we feel about sexual abuse and violence in this country. Frank and factually accurate conversations about puberty, sexuality and sex education is something that South African society has pushed under the rug for too long. A side effect of this is that young people become vulnerable to half-truths and tales, that put both themselves and others in danger. Comprehensive Sex Education is not about turning youth against religion or family values - educated and well-informed people are still able to choose to wait, and knowing about the existence of multiple genders and sexual orientations isn’t likely to “turn” anyone into someone they are not.  

About a month ago Freedom of Religion South Africa (FORSA), released a powerpoint of decontextualised material from CSE scripted lessons plans which they find offensive. The Department of Basic Education has since responded and shared both educator and learner guides for the units concerned. After reading and engaging with statements from both sides, these are my thoughts:

  Grade 4 learners need to be able to point out private parts on a line drawing not so that they know where to start touching other people’s private parts,  but so that they feel empowered to say no, and report someone (often a parent, an aunt, an uncle or a sibling) tries to molest them and tells them that its’ okay because they are family. 

Grade 7 learners need to understand the hormonal changes that happen to their body as they go through puberty, so that if they choose to masturbate they don’t need to worry myths like going blind or that they are a sexual deviant. Being a teenager is confusing enough without that misinformation! 

Grade 10 learners need to be able to differentiate between gender and biological sex, not because of its “liberal sexual ideology” but because it’s what science tells us is fact. Teaching CIS and heterosexual learners these differences doesn’t hurt them, but it could reduce the chance that one of their queer classmates attempts suicide.

Grade 11s need a Life Orientations curriculum that includes 4 out of five “heroes and role models” that are HIV positive and/or LGBTQI not as propaganda, but to counter the massive social stigma that millions of South Africans still face in their everyday lives. Lastly, including same-sex cases as an example of the kind of abuse that young people might need to report, is not homosexual propaganda but teaches learners that sexual abuse isn’t always between a man and a woman. 

Should sex education be culturally sensitive? Yes. Should teachers and parents be part of discussions about these topics? Definitely. But when it comes to discussions about sex and our bodies, we need science to be part of the conversation as well, even if it makes us a little uncomfortable. Since children and young adults don’t get to ‘opt-out’ of the collective consequences of discrimination, violence and HIV/AIDs, they should not get to opt-out of an education that can meaningfully prepare them for the realities they face. Honest, open and empowering education about our bodies, sex and gender and the stereotypes that we have grown up with, have to be part of what it means to create a new ‘normal’ in South African society. Classrooms are definitely the right place to start creating a  new normal where womxn and children don’t need to wonder #AmINext? 

Rehana Thembeka Odendaal is born and bred in Cape Town, and currently reading towards a PhD in Education, Culture and Society at the University of Pennsylvania, USA.