Abstract
Background:
Parents play an important role in shaping young people’s sexual lives and behaviours with implications for their current and future sexual and reproductive health. This study examined the perspectives of rural Zimbabwean parents on young people’s sexual health.
Design:
Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with 19 (6 men and 13 women) participants.
Setting:
Interviews were conducted in a rural district in Zimbabwe.
Method:
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with Community Field Officers who were the parents or caregivers of teenage learners in two rural secondary schools. Transcripts were coded and thematic analysis conducted by reading, re-reading, interpretation and reflection on the coded texts.
Results:
Parents approached the question of young people’s sexual health by placing young women’s sexuality under surveillance and regulation. Puberty and female bodily changes triggered concern about heterosexual relationships informed by protectionist and moralising discourses. Abstinence and self-control were promoted as expectations for female sexuality based on cultural norms concerning purity and female virginity. Female sexual purity provided a claim to status, was differentiated from other forms of femininity and was an important cultural and economic resource. In a context of economic precarity, the institutions of marriage and bride wealth, whereby female virginity status is valued, provide opportunities for future economic security and reinforce cultural norms concerning respectability.
Conclusion:
Working with parents to address the ways in which gender and cultural norms operate within the local social and economic context is vital to understand the enduring processes by which young female sexuality is placed under surveillance while reinforcing gender inequalities.
Introduction
In Zimbabwe, poor sexual health outcomes for young people threaten their well-being, especially in the context of HIV, sexual violence and early childbearing. As a low-income country struggling with socio-economic malaise, Zimbabwe has the fifth highest HIV prevalence rate in the world (Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS [UNAIDS], 2021). Despite rates dropping from 26.5% in 1997 to 11.6% in 2021, women and girls aged between 15 and 49 years continue to be most at risk to new infections in comparison to young men of the same age (UNAIDS, 2021; World Health Organisation [WHO], 2017). Against the backdrop of economic pressure and long-standing cultural practices that reify gender norms, several factors shape poor sexual health outcomes and increased risk for young women including, ‘early sexual debut, engagement in sexual relationships with older men, transactional sex, coerced sex, concurrent and overlapping sexual partners, and intimate partner violence’ (Skovdal et al., 2022: 2–3).
Recently, it was reported that approximately 5,000 teenage girls became pregnant between January and February 2021 and approximately 1,800 entered into early marriage during this time period (Mavhunga, 2021). Complicating young women’s poor sexual health outcomes are reports from the Ministry of Health and Child Care in Zimbabwe that 9% of girls and 1% of boys experience sexual violence, with girls reporting forced and coercive sex (Ministry of Health and Child Care, 2019). In this context, scholars have shown how prevailing gendered and cultural norms converge with the political economy to have grave effects on young people’s sexual health (Chiang et al., 2021; Turner et al., 2022). There is no sign that these risk factors have diminished in Zimbabwe (Chiang et al., 2021; Saul et al., 2018; Turner et al., 2022). Poor sexual health outcomes are associated not only with gender and cultural norms but also with the context within which young women live. In the light of young people’s vulnerability to sexual risk, health education, knowledge and skills that take heed of contextual specificities are necessary to prepare young people to make important decisions to secure gender equality, health and well-being (WHO, 2017).
Parents have an important role to play in providing sexual health information and education. In this article, we set out to analyse how gender norms shape how parents conceive of their role in promoting sexual well-being. We examine parents’ gendered conceptions as embedded within a Shona cultural setting in Zimbabwe to elucidate the persistence of gender norms which place girls’ bodies and sexuality under surveillance, regulation and control. Parents attempt to uphold appropriate and respectable femininity, where abstinence is endorsed and where puberty triggers parents’ anxieties about emerging female sexuality. In the context of poverty and persistent cultural norms concerning bride wealth and marriage, the control of female sexuality by parents contributes a shared collective understanding of what it means to be respectable. In these circumstances, an emphasis on respectable femininity affects the ability of parents to adequately support girls’ sexual health and well-being.
Contextualising gender and sexuality in Zimbabwe
Shona cultural values and practices are largely patriarchal (Kufakurinani, 2022), with gender and sexuality profoundly shaped by what are seen as traditional cultural values. These values are tighter in rural areas where adherence to cultural norms and male authority remain important in the performance of rural identities (Comrie-Thomson et al., 2020). From an early age, women are taught to be selfless and responsible for household chores and childcare (Comrie-Thomson et al., 2020; Konyana, 2018). In line with patriarchal culture and despite some opposition, women are routinely subordinated in different aspects of society such as the arts, politics and in marriage (Bengesai and Derera, 2021). On the other hand, men are expected to be heads of households and economic providers (Comrie-Thomson et al., 2020; Kufakurinani, 2022).
However, these gender relations are not fixed and economic and political change in the country creates conflicts and shifts whereby masculinity and femininity are constantly under revision. Scholars suggest that new versions of manhood and womanhood are coming to the fore both at home and abroad as Zimbabweans become economic migrants on the African continent and beyond (Musanga, 2016). Women in particular are challenging patriarchal ideals that confine them to the private sphere. Increasingly, they make important economic decisions, provide for the family and engage in farming and cross-border trading with neighbouring South Africa (Mutopo, 2010). Both migration and cross-border trading have altered the gender order in complex ways, creating new spaces and possibilities for men and women. For instance, as men migrate, women have become heads of families and men too are becoming involved in childcare and household chores while women engage in cross-border trading (Musanga, 2016; Mutopo, 2010).
In relation to sexuality, Zimbabwe’s heteropatriachal society is steeped in cultural norms whereby men are bestowed with the authority to regulate women’s bodies and movements (Bengesai and Khan, 2021). Power over a woman’s sexuality is initially vested in fathers and brothers and is reassigned to the husband upon marriage (Shamu et al., 2012). In contrast, multiple sexual partnering among men is expected and accepted as natural (Venganai, 2018). Male sexuality is shaped by ideas of virility (Venganai, 2018), while women are socialised to suppress sexual interest lest their morality becomes questionable (Dune and Mupedzahama, 2017). Consequently, positive messages about women’s sexuality are not common since they are expected to be sexually passive (Shamu et al., 2012).
Furthermore, the regulation of sexuality is particularly intense for young girls and interwoven with issues of virginity and bride wealth. Cultural norms linked to young people’s sexuality among the Shona people in Zimbabwe include sexual purity, respectable femininity and the stigmatisation of pre-marital sex. Sex before marriage is viewed as immoral (Muwonwa, 2017; Skovdal et al., 2022), with expectations of girls’ abstinence until marriage since it is believed that a worthy woman should be a virgin at marriage. In cases of pre-marital sex, the male partner is normally expected to pay damages to the girl’s family. In contrast, male pre-marital sexual activity is normalised thereby reinforcing the gender binary concerning male and female sexuality.
With respect to regulation of sexuality, studies with Zimbabwean parents highlight their ambivalence regarding safer sexual practices and support for sexual abstinence. Young people’s access to contraceptives and pre-exposure prophylaxis is regarded as sinful and a violation of cultural norms, and is deemed to promote pre-marital sex (Mudonhi et al., 2020; Skovdal et al., 2022). Moreover, girls’ access to contraceptives in particular is underlined by normative understandings of femininity as respectable and virginal and thus frowned upon (Skovdal et al., 2022).
Notably, sexual activity is sanctioned within a heterosexual marriage centred on reproduction and male satisfaction (Dune and Mupedzahama, 2017; Konyana, 2018). Despite evidence that women seek sexual pleasure outside of this context (Mugweni et al., 2015), marriage remains central in Shona culture (Dune and Mupedzahama, 2017), with women expected to remain subservient and obedient (Konyana, 2018). Marriage among the Shona people in Zimbabwe is based on payment of bride wealth to the woman’s family in lieu of her labour and future childbearing within the man’s family (Comrie-Thomson et al., 2020). Bride wealth, which can take many forms including cattle or cash, is fundamental in providing legitimacy to a marriage and bestowing dignity and respect on women and their families, although it has also been vital in buttressing domination and abuse of married women by their husbands (Chitakure, 2016).
Theorising femininities
This study seeks to understand Zimbabwean parents’ perspectives on their role in promoting sexual health among young people. When parents in this study were given an opportunity to understand their role in sexual health promotion, they directed attention to girls and the preservation of respectable female sexuality. This version of femininity is based on the preservation of virginity, abstinence and the expectation of ‘good girl’ femininity (Skovdal et al., 2022). Within the local context, this pattern of emphasised femininity, following Connell (1987: 24), is dominant and ‘given [the] most cultural and ideological support’.
Emphasised femininity is defined by compliance, docility and subordination within gender relations based on maintaining patriarchal relations whereby the interests of men are upheld. In other words, the preservation of femininities based on compliance and being sexually receptive to male desires is culturally and socially defined. While there are many variations of femininity (Hamilton et al., 2019), emphasised femininity allows us to understand why parents’ engagement with the question of young people’s sexual health is primarily directed towards girls and the regulation of young female sexuality. Parents’ negotiation of the normative discourses surrounding emphasised femininity is grounded in and shaped by the socio-material context which constrains the ability to subvert and challenge the culturally coded ideological versions of femininity which are upheld in their local contexts. Following this line of thought, femininities are not static and are heterogeneous (Hamilton et al., 2019) but the culturally dominant version of femininity in the local context exerts an influence on the ways in which parents understand sexual health promotion and gender dynamics.
Emphasised femininity operates alongside hegemonic versions of masculinity which, following Connell (1987), are based on social practices that legitimise male power over others including women and girls and subordinated men. In this paper, we take up the challenge of understanding the ways in which femininity operates within its local context as parents reinforce normative understandings of femininity. They do so in ways that reinforce gender hierarchies while also demonstrating the materiality of young female sexuality and the significance of abstinence, virginity and respectable femininity in sexual and reproductive futures. Ultimately, the patterns that we discuss in the paper elucidate how emphasised femininity accommodates male power and hegemonic masculinity and, in this Zimbabwean context defined by economic depression, femininity still means accommodating the interests of men while safeguarding respectable femininity as a vital part of securing bride wealth and status.
Methods
This paper draws on data from a qualitative case study which sought to understand teenage learners’ negotiation of sexuality in rural Zimbabwe (Matswetu, 2019). In this paper, we present data generated from 19 semi-structured interviews with purposively selected parents or caregivers of teenage learners in two rural secondary schools in Shamva district in Zimbabwe.
Nineteen villages lie in the catchment area of the two schools. Each village chooses one parent or caregiver of a teenage learner at either of the secondary schools to become a Community Field Officer (CFO). While the main source of income for CFOs (who are parents or caregivers) is subsistence farming, their work as CFOs is based on community-based programmes to promote the rights and interests of teenage learners on a variety of issues, including academic matters, skills and personal development. Regular meetings, workshops or discussions are held between CFOs, learners, teachers, other parents and caregivers in the community. Six male and 13 female CFOs constituted the sample.
CFOs are deemed important sources of information relevant to the study by virtue of their firsthand experience and awareness of the issues that confront young people in the area. As parents/caregivers, they are knowledgeable about parents’ perspectives on the topic of this study as well. The interviews sought to explore the ways in which parents engaged with young people’s sexual health and well-being and the issues that arose in light of young people’s sexual expression. Interviews with parents were conducted either in the participant’s home or in an available office at the school. A semi-structured interview guide focused on the following topics: young people’s relationship dynamics; constructs of femininity and masculinity in the Shona cultural context; teenage heterosexual relationships, virginity and marriage; and teenage pregnancy and parenthood. All interviews were conducted in ChiShona, the vernacular language of the participants, digitally recorded and later transcribed and translated into English by the second author who is fluent in both languages.
Permission to conduct the interviews was obtained from the District Education Office and the school heads, while approval for the study was granted by the University of KwaZulu-Natal Humanities and Social Sciences Ethics Committee and the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education in Zimbabwe. Informed consent was sought from all participants who signed forms to indicate agreement and voluntary participation in the study. Pseudonyms are used throughout the paper to protect confidentiality.
Thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2012) was undertaken, with data being read and re-read by both authors. We searched for repeated patterns of meaning and coded each pattern unto a thematic map. Codes were identified relating to poverty, education, puberty, abstinence, pre-marital sex, pregnancy and parenthood. Sexual double standards underpinned these codes, and we identified the following patterns: condemnation of sex in childhood and outside of marriage; the gendered dimensions of abstinence as informed by cultural norms; and challenges to promoting contraceptive use. A recurrent theme concerned the focus given to young women’s sexuality and the policing mechanisms associated with this. Four themes were developed from the data that relate to the surveillance of female sexuality which we discuss in the next section.
Findings
Puberty triggering anxieties: girls, bodies and sexuality
When parents spoke about young people’s sexuality, they drew upon norms tied to the surrounding cultural context where expectations of sexual purity placed female bodies under surveillance:
From the age of 10 years, girls are encouraged to learn about their bodies. At that stage we expect them to understand that they must take care of their body. Their breasts must not be touched by boys, or even any person for that matter. They should not expose their breasts . . .
Concern with puberty, femininity, gender and bodies coalesced to create particular anxieties about sex and sexuality. It was girls who were seen as being responsible for rejecting male sexual advances and performing a respectable femininity. Gender differences were evident in teaching and learning about the body. For instance, Mandinema talked about the gendered roles through which boys and girls are differentiated:
. . . he [father] advises the boys and instructs them in the way of life according to our culture, that they must be disciplined and knowledgeable about masculine tasks. . . Whilst in the kitchen I will be doing the same for my daughter . . . I would advise her that since she is growing up, you must be disciplined. She must also dress properly without showing everyone what you are going through.
Gender, age and the onset of puberty established the terms of sexual surveillance. Physiological development and bodily maturation were seen as signals for increased regulation as noted earlier by Chihera: ‘take care of bodies, must not be touched by boys and should not expose their breasts’. A constellation of social and cultural practices was evident in the attempt to control female sexuality based on the desire to protect virginity and sexual purity:
The girls require more vigilance because from zero [grade] until 11 or 12 years of age, they are not much of a problem. However as soon as they get to puberty . . . the child will start showing interest in boys, seeing herself as grown up . . . it requires strictness.
Puberty was seen as awakening sexual urges in girls from which they needed to be protected. As Zvamaita suggested, the remedy here was one of ‘strictness’ with any indication of sexual desire and sexual attraction being brought under adult regulation. Sexuality was therefore the prism through which adult–child relations were maintained and transgressed. Of equal importance was the regulation of cross-gender association between girls and boys
. . . when a girl reaches puberty, she is told that she must not play with boys or that she must not allow anyone to touch her.
In line with such a view, girls were seen as requiring protection from sexuality in a context where male–female relationships were strongly heterosexualised and underpinned by danger (Bhana and Mayeza, 2019). In doing so, puberty signalled the separation of boys and girls as a strategic means to avoid heterosexual connections. Gender inequalities in the domain of sexuality were further entrenched with the onset of menstruation, which was associated with secrecy and a degree of panic:
When she has her first menstrual period, a girl might be confused and afraid because it is something she would not have experienced before. Therefore, she must be taught what to do, how to dress so that not everyone knows about it.
I should also advise her that now that you are having periods you will attract attention, but once you have sex then you will not go to school well. You may be made pregnant by a poor boy, which is not wise because then you will remain poor.
Menstruation, as a biological process, should be understood within a larger socio-cultural perspective. While the family provides girls with practical support to help them deal with anxieties relating to menstruation, the emphasis given to concealment serves to heighten shame whereby girls’ sexuality is policed. Menstruation symbolises a movement from childhood to a less distinct transitional state in which a girl’s body is simultaneously capable of reproduction yet regulated, being viewed as too young for sexual activity. In this rural setting, teenage pre-marital sex was discouraged as pregnancy often necessitated an early marriage and the reproduction of gendered poverty. This heightens panic and increases adults’ surveillance over female sexuality whereby any interaction with boys is assumed to likely be sexual and risky.
In contrast, when boys reach puberty, their sexual desire is acknowledged and they are consciously prepared for sex:
They [boys] . . . take local traditional medicines for enhancement of sexual drive and performance when they have reached puberty. They are taught what they should do when they meet a girl.
Chihera’s statement reveals a gender imbalance, whereby boys receive advice and instruction from peers and older men about sexual relationships, but girls receive little other than the warning to keep way from boys. Manbedvu on the other hand stresses the warnings that boys too may receive.
Yes, I encourage the boy that he must not have desire for many girls. . . that he must exercise restraint because there are diseases these days.
Importantly, self-discipline for boys does not mean abstaining from sex altogether, but rather being astute in one’s choice of sexual partners within the context of HIV. Given this, the purchase of local traditional aphrodisiacs by teenage boys is perhaps best understood within a broader patriarchal cultural framework in which a skilful male subject capable of sexually satisfying a female partner is to be expected (Fiaveh, 2020).
Abstinence and self-control: regulating female sexuality
Cultural norms have important consequences for young people’s sexual and reproductive health. Importantly, however, young people do not passively accept adult decisions and norms concerning sexuality but interpret and negotiate these expectations against their own experiences and constructions of sexuality (Vanwesenbeeck et al., 2019). Parents acknowledged that despite the stress placed on abstinence and saving sex for marriage, young people do engage in sexual activity beforehand. The importance attached to abstinence however meant that parents discouraged their children from using condoms and other contraceptives.
. . . self-control is best.
Mandebvu (m): We do not want to teach our children to feel that they can do whatever they want, that there will be no consequences because they are taking family planning pills. That is not right; children must be told to have self-control.
Yes, we are assisted by health workers who say it is good for a girl to keep condoms to prevent pregnancy. So, that she can keep going to school for the sake of her future. But now our culture, as adults we are not happy with our children being told such things, because the child will not know the right thing when she starts taking part in sexual activity at a young age.
Even though parents were aware of teenagers’ sexual activity, the promotion of protected sex was unacceptable on two counts: first it might be construed as condoning sex between children, and second, it might be viewed as promoting promiscuity. Gender and sexuality were deeply intertwined within local culture. In the study setting, the ‘right thing’ for girls was abstinence rather than knowledge about how to prevent pre-marital pregnancy because separating sex from reproduction threatened a girl’s respectability. A previous study in Zimbabwe has found that parents view the use of condoms by unmarried young people as linked to Western norms which they regard as interfering with traditional African cultural values (Mudonhi et al., 2020).
Cultural norms also shaped how parents responded to children’s sexual agency:
Yes, the child will be afraid that if the parents come across them [condoms] she will be beaten. So, she cannot keep them [openly].
I do not think that is proper, because if I allow my child to be in such kind of relationships, sleeping with a man who might not be the one who marries her in the end [because] when she later finds someone who wants to marry her, and she has already known a man, or maybe she has already been infected. That would be a difficult situation.
According to Chigogoda, parents were likely to respond with violence towards teenage girls’ sexual agency, emphasising danger and risk and believing it was in their daughters’ best interest to practise self-control. Underlying parents’ concern were fears about the eligibility of their daughters for marriage in future; hence, female respectability had to be protected at all costs.
Parental communication with daughters incorporated both moralising and hostile messages. Pariera and Brody (2018) contend that this kind of communication prevents meaningful engagement with children over issues around sexuality. Parents in this study considered their teenage daughters incapable of making appropriate personal decisions about whether to use contraceptives. When parents reject their daughters’ sexual agency in this way, they stop girls from learning how to embrace their sexuality and practise sex in a safe and responsible way.
Female respectability: nzenza and virgins
In the context in which this study took place, patriarchy is reinforced and maintained through Shona norms regulating young people’s sexuality. Teenage girls’ recognition of their own sexual desire is explicitly discouraged and viewed as dangerous:
That is how women fail to value themselves as women. If you have those feelings but then keep telling yourself that you have the feelings, you will breach the set boundaries. At times, you have these feelings because you are the one who keeps thinking about it, that a man and a woman do this and that . . . Yes, when that time comes [marriage] then you can think about it. Yes, you may have [sexual] feelings but you must resist them, [tell yourself] that I should not lose control. It [sex] is good when you are with your husband.
Here, Chihera recognises that girls’ sexuality entails the continuous negotiation of desire and danger. Marriage is presented as the only safe and honourable place for sex. Female sexual desire before marriage is believed to be dangerous. Sexual purity and restraint signify a respectable femininity, where sexual desire is kept in check. Acting upon sexual desire before marriage breaches the set boundaries with damaging consequences.
In the Shona cultural context, the term nzenza refers to a girl or woman who is perceived to be sexually available and immoral, bringing shame and dishonour to the family.
The girl is the one who must be decent because she will be labelled nzenza [loose] . . . as she will end up with a child . . . The father of the child will abandon the girl. The one who remains with the baby or pregnancy is considered the loose one . . . once you lose your virginity you are now an nzenza [loose woman]. Even the man who marries you will look down upon you.
. . . you will be telling her that virginity is important, and no man wants an open well. Once he realises that this well is open, he will say probably various items fall into this well.
Gender and sexuality intersect with cultural expectations to affect the management of female bodies. With the study context, sexually active unmarried girls are considered immoral for violating social norms regarding sexual purity and ideal femininity. Labelling a girl who loses her virginity before marriage as nzenza, or ‘an open well’ into which various objects can fall suggests that she has lost her respectability and status within gender relations and the family.
Parents sought to restrict girls’ movements in other ways.
. . . if I go to bed before my daughter gets home [and at] 12 or 1am then you hear her opening the door, where would she be coming from? If the father is there, he will order her to go back to wherever she was, so she will elope to her boyfriend. That is not the right time to get home. A decent girl must be home by 5 o’clock . . . if she moves [around] at night and is raped, then she gets pregnant or acquires diseases . . . bad things happen in the dark.
Here, surveillance extends to the ‘right time’ for girls to come home. The threat of rape makes the scrutiny of teenage girls a matter of both protection and regulation. Findings from other research in Zimbabwe reveal how girls are seen as responsible for making themselves vulnerable to male violence and accountable for averting it (Turner et al., 2022).
Bride wealth and marriage: gender, femininity and materiality
Marriage is central to Shona womanhood (Muwonwa, 2017) and is connected to propriety and status in society. Parents justified the scrutiny of girls’ sexuality so as to protect their future marital relationships. Virginity was seen as a special gift that a woman gives to her husband offering the possibility of enhanced bride price and a stable marriage:
Virginity must be preserved because these days if a man marries a virgin, he might even say he wants to add more to the bride wealth because he would have got what he was looking forward to.
. . . (We) advise young people that if you get married while still a virgin you preserve your marriage.
In contrast, Shona social norms apply different standards to men:
It [virginity] is very important for the girl.
So, that means the boy may not even be a virgin?
Yes, it is not a problem.
Discourse about virginity discourse is strongly gendered and centres on the monitoring and control of female bodies particularly at puberty, whereas boys’ pre-marital sexual experiences are approved of. By imparting these patriarchal values to teenagers, parents strengthen the gender inequalities which impact the future sexual and reproductive well-being of young men and women.
For some girls, the stigma of pre-marital pregnancy necessitates kutizira or elopement with the father of the unborn baby (Bengesai et al., 2021). This is viewed negatively according to parents.
It would be good for young people to wait and get married the proper way after informing the in-laws. Most marriages that start off due to elopement do not last because some of them are forced marriages.
There is no honour in elopement because people have to search for their daughter as if looking for a lost cow, because they will not know immediately where you have gone. There is a lot of anxiety as people wonder if you are at this or that boy’s place because they have seen you together at times, and they thought you could be in a relationship. So, there is nothing praiseworthy about this at all.
Pre-marital sexual activities and elopement reflect badly on the upbringing provided by parents. To avoid stigma and shame, elopement may therefore take place at the instigation of parents as they try to shore up notions of respectability. Some parents try to deal with the shame of female pre-marital activity by swiftly arranging a marriage (Crossouard et al., 2019), since adults perceive pre-marital pregnancy to be a reflection of low morals, not simply the outcome of unprotected sex.
Despite the moral opprobrium that accompanies pre-marital sex, a degree of change is underway with respect to the question of economic standing and early marriage:
. . . If I have the roora (bride wealth) and [reach an agreement] with the girl’s parents, I think I would want my son to continue going to school even if he has married early. Even his wife, once she has given birth, should go back to school. Life nowadays is different from the life we had all along . . . I do not want a child’s life to be destroyed just because she got pregnant, that’s bad.
Teenage pregnancy and sexual activity here are recognised and managed within the cultural value placed on marriage and bride wealth. Some of the negativity associated with teenage pregnancy can be assuaged by the timely payment of roora which secures an early marriage without stalling the educational opportunities of the young parents.
Conclusion
When parents in this study approached the question of young people’s sexual health, it was female sexuality that was placed under surveillance. Our findings show that in the context of rural poverty and the value given in female respectability, girls’ and young women’s sexuality is an important resource in relation to present and future ideals concerning reproduction and sexuality. In a context where materials, resources and economic malaise mark everyday experience in rural areas, the preservation of female sexuality as virtuous has value in sustaining cultural identities that reinforce gender norms while also providing future security in relation to bride wealth and family status.
In Zimbabwe, scholars have repeatedly attested to the limited choices available in education (Bengesai and Derera, 2021), high unemployment (Bengesai and Derera, 2021; Skovdal et al., 2022) and uncertainty in the economic and political context (Kufakurinani, 2022; Mutopo, 2010). Early marriage and parents’ aspirations and ideals about future marriage possibilities for their daughters must be considered both in relation to these factors and the policing and regulation of female sexuality more generally. Parents thus approach young people’s sexuality in ways that value traditional routes to gaining respectability and power, and young female sexuality as an important means to achieve this while maintaining and giving coherence to rural Zimbabwean identity.
Within the rural setting focus on in this study, puberty is approached with concern as it may compromise the idealised aspirations and claims to female respectability. The value ascribed to sexual abstinence, the protection of virginity and the castigation that accompanies the use of the term nzenza are means safeguarding and keeping intact gender norms based on not only the idealisation of female respectability but also the protection of future possibilities and the resources related to bride wealth and future claims to power. In the absence of employment and the context of deep poverty in rural Zimbabwe, the reproduction of gender norms and the idealisation of marriage and bride wealth are tied to the hope of attaining economic resources while simultaneously acquiring respectability. This study thus sheds light on how structural disadvantage coheres with the value and regulation placed on female sexuality and the reproduction of prevailing gender norms.
Shona gender norms emphasising female virginity limit girls’ freedom of movement and choice, through heightened parental surveillance. Endorsing abstinence as culturally suitable for protecting girls from social and health risks, coupled with the possibility of violence when girls’ covert use of contraceptives is exposed, limits their sexual autonomy and leaves them vulnerable to sexual and reproductive health hazards such as unplanned pregnancy and HIV infection. Conservative cultural norms among the Shona people in rural Zimbabwe do not take account of the lived sexual realities of young people and inhibit parents from positively influencing the sexual well-being of their children. Social control through virginity discourse and the stigma attached to pre-marital sex and contraceptive use limit the development of a more expansive understanding of girls’ sexual agency. Moreover, the restricted sense of sexuality and sexual health information is undergirded by the desire to protect, regulate and keep female sexuality under constant surveillance, which also limits opportunities for parents to engage constructively with teenage sexuality. The cultural value placed on female virginity, abstinence and the idealisation of marriage is contiguous with the gendered construction of heterosexuality. Thus, parents’ stigmatisation of teenage pre-marital sex and pregnancy is profoundly entwined with anxieties about their daughters’ educational and marital prospects which are deeply connected to not only female respectability and status but also bride wealth and its economic incentive for families.
In moving to the future, parents need to become part of, if not central to, interventions that are based on protecting the outcomes of sexual health for the young people they are raising. There is pressing need to educate parents about the significance of gender equality and the value of a supportive socio-cultural setting in which to address teenage sexual choices and promote the sexual health and well-being of girls in particular. The argument that female sexuality is intensively regulated by parents is key to this paper, but is not new. What we have provided insight into is how female sexuality is regulated within a specific socio-cultural context, and to what ends.
Gender and sexuality are structured within local norms and cultural practices that entwine with economic and political structures of power. In this regard, interrogating the socio-cultural and relational circumstances in which girls’ sexual passivity is endorsed requires interrogation. The emphasis placed on morality and cultural norms seeks to control young people’s sexual agency and is in direct contrast to evidence which suggests that young Zimbabwean women do engage in unprotected sex and age-disparate sexual relations (Skovdal et al., 2022). Moving forward, working with parents is integral to programmes and interventions that seek to address young people’s sexual health while tackling damaging gender norms and the wider social, economic and cultural context in which the intensive surveillance of female sexuality takes place.
