This discourse endorses the female students‘ struggle to constitute their version of sexuality and femininity from a position of marginalised other within sex education classes. It acknowledges the processes and risks involved for the female students in constructing and authorising what counts as knowledge of sex, sexuality and sexual decision-making, and it takes its name from the
context within which the female students‘ gendered subjectivities are produced. A compromise is generally understood as something that somebody accepts because what is wanted is unattainable; however, it can also refer to an exposure to danger or disgrace. In this instance both meanings are appropriate.
Throughout the sexual health classes, the health educators locate sex, sexuality, and sexual decision-making within a statistical and fact-based frame of reference, which constitutes gender as cohesive and uniform. This construction of gender is authorised by the health educators‘ biological and psychological model of knowledge; a model that is implicitly informed by social biases and assumptions that remain uninterrogated. To achieve good assessment marks in sex education classes all students are expected to take up and reproduce the health educators‘ version of knowledge regarding sex, sexuality and sexual decision-making.
The following excerpt from the female students‘ classroom transcripts demonstrates how, in order to convey meaning about female sexuality, the female students must place themselves in a compromising position. In order to dispute the health educators‘ fact-based and authorised version of knowledge, the female student must be prepared to speak out against the latest survey findings, even though the female students are aware that having access to, and being able to use, contraception is a lot more complicated than merely thinking about it. As such the female students are put in a position where they have to agree with the experts‘ and health educators‘ findings.
Health educator: In the latest survey, how many girls put no thought into using contraception when they had sex for the first time, how many?
Female student: 16,000
Health educator: Yes, 16,000 didn‘t put any thought into it at all. Are we happy with that, Betty ...?
Female student: No.
Health educator: No, we‘re not. It‘s like some girls are just ... they just don‘t use their brains. That‘s the big brain boys, the brain up here, not the one down there. Maybe girls have brains down there as well.
awareness of the limitations of the health educators‘ construction of female sexuality within sex education classes.
Female student: It‘s like ... it‘s not easy using contraceptives you know. I don‘t care what he says [the health educator] I mean first you‘ve got to get hold of them [condoms] and then ... well sometimes you just don‘t get the chance to use them.
Female student: Yeh, like I was going out with this guy and he was all, no way, I‘m not using one of those things, so it‘s like what can you do?
Social worker: You could say no.
Female student: Na ah! That is not an option.
Female student: Yeh, not if you want to keep your boyfriend.
Female student: My sister, she went out to this party and had sex with this guy, right, and it was her first time and she fell pregnant. Dad didn‘t freak out or anything, but it was like, she had condoms, Dad made sure she had them, but she couldn‘t do it.
The Discourse of Compromised Knowledge compromises the female students‘ production of gendered subjectivity, by placing them in an ambiguous and potentially dangerous position. The health educators‘ authorised version of knowledge not only contradicts and/or silences much of the female students‘ lived experiences; it oppresses and exploits them through its support of the male students‘ dichotomous view of gender; a view that privileges the male over the female. The female students are forced into a position where they either agree with the authorised version of knowledge that positions all females as passive and non-sexual, and excludes the influences of social, political and economic factors on their production of gendered subjectivity, or they resist the authorised version and position themselves as active sexual beings who negotiate the meaning of sex, sexuality and sexual decision-making through a variety of complex inter-discursive relationships.
In the following excerpt, the health educator defines female sexual activity as being deviant; this is resisted by the female students; however, they are unable to justify female sexual activity within the discourse so they must justify the use of the pill for medical reasons.
Health educator: Are girls who go on the pill easy?
Male student: Yeh, they want a bit [lots of laughter amongst male students].
Female student: No, but wouldn‘t it be because they‘re being responsible and they may even be on it for other reasons?
Health educator: Sure, but what do we mean by easy ...? We mean they‘re a quick and easy shag, you know, like Barney said, they want a bit and they don‘t care who it is ... That‘s what we mean by easy.
Female student: It doesn‘t mean just because she‘s on the pill she‘s sexually active. You go on the pill for lots of reasons you know? Like health reasons, or her periods.
The one female student who suggests that females are capable of being sexually active is silenced by the other female students in a context of palpable fear and panic, indicative of the context in which the female students‘ subjectivity is produced.
Female student: Well it depends, if you are a girl and you‘re not on the pill, you could be like into sex and want it so you…
Female student: No, no, it would be just because of her periods you know.
Female student: Yeh, cause it doesn‘t mean she‘s sexually active, it‘s not just about sex, it could be to control her periods and stuff.
To take up the authorised version of knowledge means the female students will be given a good assessment mark by the health educators as the following comment demonstrates.
1. So if you answer at least three of those five questions with the answers I‘ve just given you, then you‘ll pass. Ok?
However, it will also mean that the female students are silenced and marginalised by discourses that implicitly devalue their role in sex, sexuality and sexual decision-making and place them in a socially inequitable position. To take up this version of knowledge will also be construed by many to mean that the female students are giving their consent and support to the authorised version of knowledge.
To resist the authorised version of knowledge by voicing their own opinion means the female students will probably be given a low assessment mark. It also means that the female students are positioned in opposition to the health educators, whose pedagogy has already demonstrated a capacity for privileging the role of the male over and above the role of the female, reproducing gendered stereotypes, supporting a hegemonic and patriarchal approach to sex, sexuality and sexual decision-making, while using ridicule, sarcasm and sexist comments as part of their pedagogical tools. Resisting the authorised version of knowledge also exposes the female students to the censure and sexual predation of the male students in terms of the dominant male discourses of masculinity and femininity.