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From the findings the respondents have a strong sense of respect for culture. When asked about virginity testing most of the respondents were fond of the custom despite the challenges that come with it. For example, corruption, the rejection and stigmatisation of girls who are not virgins and the risk of getting raped if you are a virgin, due to the belief that having sexual intercourse with a virgin can cure HIV/AIDS. Virginity testing in the Zulu community is not just a custom that seeks to protect young girls from falling pregnant or contracting HIV/AIDS, but it gives them a sense of pride, not just to the girls themselves but to their families and the community as a whole. This shows that the culture gives a sense of identity and belonging. There are also morals and values that are taught by parents and the virginity testers (abahloli) to girls, about how a girl must behave and how she should carry herself, therefore, affirming the results found in the quantitative section on culture, of common morals and values that are to be followed. This is can also be seen in the way both the men and women respondents, be it young or old, understood the value of a girl as linked to keeping her virginity, supporting sexist interpretations.

In general, the findings showed that many respondent’s value human rights and its contribution in helping to protect both men and women and therefore saw ukuthwala as harmful they point out issues such as the risk of being raped if you are a virgin according to the custom of virginity testing. The results of the quantitative research show that the respondents do not see it as undermining human rights. This may be true because although the law states that girls should be tested for their virginity from the age of 16 and above most of the respondents disagreed with this. For them virginity testing as a custom seeks to protect girls, instilling good morals and values for the girls to follow. One of the older women respondents mentioned that human rights’ demise is that it does not teach children the morals and values that need to be followed in Zulu culture and therefore is not beneficial. This includes respecting elders and how to behave properly as a girl or a boy, and how to respect oneself. Therefore, culture gives a set of “do’s and dont’s” that

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are observed in ethnic communities that human rights do not address. This points to a clash between the ideologies that are the foundation of human rights and ethnic communities. Because human rights focus on the individual and his or her agency it negates the impact of decisions made on a whole community and what Zulu culture holds as important. The community as an entity is more important than the absolute agency of the individual.

Assessing the respondents’ responses on gender equality, specifically linking them with their views on ukuthwala, it was clear that the respondents opposed the custom mainly because it infringes on the rights of the girl child of choice and bodily integrity. The respondents mentioned the issue of rape also pointed to the fact that it infringes the rights of the girl because if she is ‘thwala’d’ she won’t be able to refuse to have sexual intercourse with the man she has been abducted by.

Some of the respondents made comments on virginity testing and its importance when the girl is getting married and the pride the girl’s parents have when their daughter is still a virgin when she gets married. It is important to note that the responsibility of keeping one’s virginity is placed solely on the girl. This, therefore, places the responsibility for the community on the girl. It can be assumed according to culture that men expect to get a virgin wife, however, this expectation is not placed on men to be virgins. The issues of HIV/AIDS and teenage pregnancy are in essence seen as the woman’s fault, as a way of controlling the girl’s sexuality in the Zulu culture.

The findings described above confirm the views given by Naidu (2008) where she reflects on at body politics, specifically at the gendered discourses on HIV and AIDS. She speaks of the ‘hijacking’ of the female body within the “popular discourses of AIDS [which is itself a] socially constructed and gendered disease” (Naidu, 2008:28). As highlighted in Chapter 2, the epidemic disproportionately affects women and adolescent girls and because of this the discourses around the virus and the ‘solutions’ to curb the epidemic are targeted at women and/or girls and their bodies, turning a blind eye to the role men play in the spread of HIV and AIDS.

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Because the current discourse on HIV and AIDS is centred on women and the policing of their bodies and sexuality, African leaders as well as the government will need to change the discourse around the disease. They have to clarify that the virus does not discriminate, but can be transmitted not only by women, but by men as well, and not just in heterosexual relationships but also in homosexual relationships. This will need a change of mindset on HIV/AIDS transmission.

To change the discourse on HIV and AIDS from being a gendered virus that targets women, men and children patriarchy will also have to be addressed. The notion of manhood in Zulu culture will need to be redefined and reconstructed as men need to be held accountable sexual activity that affects women, adolescent girls, and the community as a whole. The men would need to realise that controlling woman’s sexuality does not address the issue of HIV and AIDS, but that it takes two people to spread HIV and AIDS through sexual intercourse.

More men were inclined to support cultural views than the women. When asking the respondents about their perceptions of gender equality in the home it was found that women and men had differing views on what the role of a man and woman should be in the home. Men leaned more towards culture, however, the women were divided. Men were mostly supporting cultural views perhaps because of the benefit it affords them and the patriarchal dividend of having power both in the private (home) and public (work) spheres of life. This speaks of the continuing patriarchal structures that exist in African cultures that need to be challenged as it leads to gender discrimination. Men’s keen inclination towards culture is also evident as a majority of them agreed that gender equality is a Western concept and that culture is more important than human rights. Women were divided with some supporting human rights and others supporting culture, but their responses showed that the two concepts do not exist as a binary, but that women (in this sample) are attempting to find a balance between the two. Although culture is important human rights and the morals and values that come with it are also important. The custom of virginity testing is still seen as important to the women as they saw it as

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beneficial despite its drawbacks. Women also saw ukuthwala as a custom that needed to be abolished because of its violation of the rights of women and girls.

This constant back and forth between human rights and culture is seen when the women were asked about gender equality in the workplace. Women respondents did not support women earning more than men and were divided on whether it is fine for men and women to earn the same salary when having the same job with the same qualifications. Women support human rights and equality in terms of women being allowed to work and pursue a career, however, when it comes to matters of wages and salaries there is a sense of apprehension about women earning equal to or more than men. This is because salaries may have an impact on the power balance in the home.

Culturally men are meant to be the breadwinners of their families giving them a sense of power in the home. The majority of women agreed that men should be the breadwinners, perhaps because of the fact that economically it is beneficial for women to work. It is interesting to note that although they believe women should work and can be the breadwinners of the family the patriarchal foundations of the culture are not directly challenged by the women. Even if women bring in a salary to help provide in the home, they do not challenge men’s status as breadwinners. This shows how prominent patriarchy is in the home. Women in this sample do believe that culture is important but in the current social and economic conditions the roles of men and women in the home need adjustment.

When looking at the participant’s views on gender equality at work and at school the majority of men and women respondents agreed that women should be allowed to work and further their career and that boys and girls should be given equal access to education. Therefore, the respondents believe that there should be no hindrances in one’s work and educational aspirations.

Regarding intergenerational differences there was little variation found as most of the findings were inconclusive due to the small sample size. Regarding which laws respondents believe they live according to, it was interesting to find that the older women (35-49 and 50+) stated that they live according to customary law and the younger women

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(18-24) stated that they live either according to common law or both. This intergenerational difference shows that the younger generations who are exposed to information through education technological advancement and urbanisation chose common and customary law because their lives consist of engaging both sets of laws, as they interact with cultural and modernity each day. The older generation may have grown up in rural or semi-rural areas where culture may have had a larger impact on their lives and because of this, they chose customary law.

Looking at the findings the respondents support human rights as well as culture. It is difficult to see the binary between the two concepts because these concepts, and what they stand for are accepted and applied in the daily lives of this sample. The respondents in this sample live hybrid lives, more especially the women as they try to find a balance between culture and modernity.

4.10 Conclusion

For the sample from KwaZulu-Natal culture as well as human rights as important. Most of the respondents were fond of virginity testing as a custom stating that it helps combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic and the high number of teenage pregnancies. Although there are positives to virginity testing the respondents also spoke of the negatives that result from the custom such as corruption as well the risk of girls being raped. However, most of the respondents opposed the custom of ukuthwala saying that it goes against human rights. Overall, the respondents’ responses showed that they embrace both human rights and culture. They agree that women should be able to pursue a career and that girls and boys should be given access to education, but gender equality remains a problem because the home continue to be a space where issue of gender equality persist. The men and women had differing views on gender equality in the home. The men leaned more towards a cultural understanding what men and women’s roles should be in the home however the women were divided in their responses. Some of the women supported a more modern understanding of their role in the home whilst others supported a cultural view of a woman’s role in the home. One can therefore see that the respondents’ lives have a

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balance between culture and human rights. The next chapter will discuss the findings of the data collected in Zimbabwe.

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CHAPTER 5 ZIMBABWE – DATA PRESENTATIONS AND ANALYSIS