Masculinity and Mayhem

Abstract

We describe an incident of disruptive behavior which occurred in a boys’ school in South Africa, and the context in which it occurred. The incident of mayhem is deconstructed in order to illuminate what it reveals about the performance of masculinity in the school. Descriptions are offered of practices and rituals which show how gender is performed within an elite boys’ school and how this incident illuminates the gender regime of the institution. The discussion highlights the contradictory and contested nature of performances of masculinity within the school.

Keywords

masculinity schools gender performance of gender gender regime hegemony disruptive behavior

Introduction

There is a growing body of literature which argues that disruptive behavior in schools is sometimes a function of institutional culture, gender politics, hegemonic masculinity and broader sociopolitical forces which shape the behavior of students and teachers (Bantjes and Nieuwoudt 2011; Ferguson 2001; Fiqueira-McDonough 1986; Ringrose and Renold 2011; Salisbury and Jackson 1996; Saltmarsh, Robinson, and Davies 2012). These accounts draw attention to the need to consider the role of hegemonic masculinity in precipitating boys’ antisocial behavior in educational institutions. It is however not always a simple matter to analyze the relationship between the masculine culture of schools and pupils’ disruptive behavior without falling back on reductionist arguments, ignoring the larger sociopolitical contexts in which schools operate, drawing on essentialist notions of masculinity or oversimplified descriptions of gender performances which attempt to illustrate a coherent and consistent model of hegemonic masculinity within the institution. In this article, we attempt to illustrate the challenges of describing and deconstructing an incident of disruptive behavior in which a large group of students at an independent monastic traditional boys’ school in South Africa (hereafter referred to as the school) behaved in an unexpected and bizarre way. In a series of events, dubbed Mayhem, the boys wreaked havoc on the school campus, damaged property, tagged the school with obscene graffiti, desecrated the school chapel, insulted teachers, and disrupted the normal running of the school. This article begins with a detailed description of the research method employed to investigate Mayhem and the context in which this incident occurred. This is followed by a discussion of “gender as performance” (which is used as the theoretical framework for deconstructing Mayhem). The details of the incident of Mayhem are then presented and analyzed. An argument is advanced that sometimes disruptive behavior in schools can be conceptualized as symptomatic of the institution’s gendered culture, which implies that interventions might need to be at an organizational level and targeted at redressing unhealthy gender practices rather than simply punishing “miscreant” pupils. Furthermore, the analysis contests that there is a single hegemonic masculinity within the school and proposes that gender dynamics are better understood by employing the construct of a “gender regime.” The discussion offers insight into institutional gender dynamics and contradictions in the performance of gender within a boys’ school.

Methodology

An ethnographic research method was employed in this study. Data were collected largely by means of participant observation by the first author (J.B.) who was working at that time as a consultant psychologist in the school. J.B. had been employed in the school for five years prior to the incident and thus had protracted experience of the culture of the school. This privileged position as an insider to the institution meant that J.B. had firsthand knowledge of the school’s rituals, practices, and policies. An official report on the incident of Mayhem was also prepared by the school’s management committee and this served as an additional source of data. Further data were collected by means of open-ended interviews with teachers in the school. All teaching staff were invited to share their experience and understanding of Mayhem with J.B. Thirty teachers (approximately half the staff) volunteered to be interviewed. These interviews were unstructured and the content and direction was determined by those being interviewed. The interviews were audiotaped, transcribed, and analyzed by J.B. Thematic content analysis was employed to identify common themes in the interviews. These common themes were presented to the teachers in a written summary of the interviews and the teachers were invited to make corrections and hence coauthor the document and validate the data analysis. Among the most important themes to emerge in these narratives were (1) the idea that Mayhem was the result of a handful of miscreant and antisocial boys who were not adequately dealt with by the schools’ disciplinary system; and (2) the belief that Mayhem occurred as a consequence of the masculine culture of the school and was thus indicative of gendered practices which are frequently (albeit unconsciously) performed within the school.

Keeping within the tradition of ethnographic research the data collected is presented subsequently in the form of a narrative account of Mayhem. Extracts from the interviews with teachers and J.B.’s observations are offered to substantiate this narrative. Prior to publication of this article, the narrative was also presented to the school’s management who were invited to correct any inaccuracies in the data in an effort to achieve greater integrity and validity. Inviting the teachers to coauthor the initial summary of the interviews and allowing the management to correct inaccuracies was employed as a deliberate strategy to improve the trustworthiness of the research findings.

Permission to report this event was obtained from the school’s management, who not only enabled research of this topic but also encouraged retelling of the narrative presented here to those interested in the culture of schools and the administration of educational institutions.

The School Context

The school in which Mayhem occurred is a private boys’ school in a large South African city. The school was crafted in the tradition of English public schools and has a strong Anglican tradition. The school gathers in the Chapel (which is at the center of the school) for weekly devotional services. Competitive sports (particularly rugby, cricket, and hockey) are an integral part of the school’s ethos. The school has a deeply gendered history. It was started by men more than 160 years ago as a school for boys. It has continued to be led by men and for a long time was staffed exclusively by men. At the time of Mayhem, the school continued to be a male-dominated environment (with women making up less than 23 percent of the academic staff) and the senior management being constituted exclusively by white male heterosexuals (in essence making the school a patriarchy in which the fifteen most senior academic posts were held by white male heterosexuals). The school’s phallocentric history has inevitably given rise to a culture which prizes traditional masculine traits while simultaneously marginalizing women and more feminine ways of being and doing.

The incident of Mayhem occurred just before 2010 and thus took place within the context of postapartheid South Africa (SA) where gender equality is enshrined in the country’s liberal constitution, and political and economic transformation is the order of the day. This is significant given that the school is one of the most expensive private educational institutions in SA, which means that it serves the wealthy, mostly white, subsection of the country’s population. In the early 2000s, the school’s management had committed itself to changing the racial composition of the school and a target was set to achieve 40 percent black enrolment by 2010. In 2001, black boys constituted approximately 8.5 percent of the school. The school fell short of its intention to achieve 40 percent black enrolment and by 2010 black pupils only made up 15 percent of the school. Nonetheless, the school had consciously and deliberately targeted race as an area in need of transformation but had given little attention to issues of gender beyond affirming that it was a school for boys and that conversations about enrolling girls would not be entered into.

Theoretical Framework and Literature Review: The Performance of Masculinity

The narrative of Mayhem presented subsequently is deconstructed within a poststructural paradigm which employs the idea, initially proposed by the feminist philosopher Judith Butler (1990), that manhood and masculinity are performed by adopting and demonstrating those behaviors, attitudes, and characteristics defined as masculine within a given culture. Masculinity is thus understood to be something achieved by undertaking a dramaturgical task (Goffman 1959; West and Zimmerman 1987; Udry 1994) by putting on a convincing manhood act (Schwalbe 2005). The act is witnessed by an audience who interprets the actions and judges the credibility of the performance. In this way, an individual’s masculine identity is negotiated between their performance and the audience’s interpretation of it. An individual’s identity as a man is only a virtual reality or a dramatic effect, since it is a consequence of how their performance is interpreted and evaluated by others (Goffman 1959).

An individual’s performance of manliness is aided by having a male body, although this is neither a necessary prerequisite nor a sufficient condition for a successful performance (Dozier 2005). A male body, far from being the source of one’s gender, is only a prop used to aid the performance, although certain bodies are better props than others. The body is not the only prop employed; individuals enact masculinity via the appropriate use of clothes, gestures, language, and speech (Dozier 2005; Johnson 2005) as well as gadgets, movements, and choreography. Masculinity has a “certain feel to the skin, certain muscular shapes, certain postures and ways of moving” (Connell 1995, 52–53).

The script for masculinity varies historically and culturally, thus “manhood means different things in different times and to different people” (Kimmel 1996, 5). The term “hegemonic masculinity” is used to signify the kind of manhood act most revered in a culture at a particular time (Connell 2000). Furthermore, acts which are judged as masculine vary depending on features of the actor (such as their age, race, ethnicity, and class), the audience, and the situation (Schrock and Schwalbe 2009). Gender performances are thus always contextual and embedded in sociocultural practices. In the same way that gender is enacted and reinforced by sociocultural norms, it can also be embedded within institutional practices. Within any institution, there are a host of rituals, policies, and practices which reflect gender roles and relations. These organized and institutionalized gendered practices are, among other things, reflected in the patterns of communication, division of labor, exercise of authority, and allocation of resources. Connell (1996) has coined the phrase “gender regimen” to denote the totality of these institutional arrangements which shape the performance of gender within organizations such as schools.

Various authors have described practices typically associated with the performance of masculinity in different settings. For example, Johnson (2005) noted that sometimes a convincing manhood act requires one to exert control and resist being controlled. Clare (2000) contends that for many men in contemporary western societies control is the defining feature of their masculinity and “any suggestion or threat of being out of control challenges the very essence of what being a male is all about” (p. 5). In this context, control refers not only to the capacity to shape one’s environment and regulate the actions of others, but it also refers to the ability to make things happen (to exercise agency). For some men control equates with the capacity to direct and regulate subordinates (Sinclair 1995); be the dominant partner in romantic relationships (especially when the performance is public; Tichenor 2005); and be in control of one’s life, independent, invulnerable, and needless of help (Courtenay 2000; Pollack 1998). Masculinity is sometimes achieved by demonstrating that one is not easily intimidated by those with power and authority (Courtenay 2000; Pollack 1998).

Closely allied to resisting control is the idea that in some contexts men perform masculinity by disregarding rules (Ferguson 2001), resisting being bossed (Collinson 1992) and opposing domination (Schrock and Schwalbe 2009). Research on masculinity in schools suggests that boys sometimes enact masculine toughness by breaking rules, showing disrespect for teachers and demonstrating disdain for academics (Ferguson 2001; Fordham and Ogbu 1986; Mac an Ghaill 1994; Polce-Lynch 2002; Willis 1977).

In some environments, a convincing manhood act requires the regulation and restriction of emotional displays (Cleaver 2002; Kindlon and Thompson 1999). The message given to some men is “push it down, stuff it inside, don’t show that feeling otherwise you will be seen as weak and as a failure” (Horne and Kiselica 1999, 8). Contemporary western societies often “supports emotional expression for girls and discourages it for boys” (Pollack 1998, 3). In particular, the display of fear, vulnerability, and pain are sometimes censored in the service of masculinity (Curry 1993; Messner 1992) resulting in a belief that to be a man one must act brave and take risks (Polce-Lynch 2002).

The performance of masculinity is sometimes aided by having an Adonis type muscle bound athletic body (Pope, Phillips, and Olivardia 2000), enacting displays of strength and endurance (Collinson 1992), and demonstrating a particular attitude of disregard for one’s body. For some men, the performance of masculinity requires them to treat their body harshly and with furious, stoic discipline; to be sick or listen to the sufferings of the body or to display physical feelings is to be weak and hence unmanly (Harvey 2001). Men can perform this aspect of masculinity through participation in contact and dangerous sports (McBride 1995), being indomitable (Messerschmidt 1993), taking part in dangerous acts (risk-taking), and binge drinking (Peralta 2007).

The performance of masculinity is often enhanced by affirming heterosexuality and displaying a veracious sexual appetite (Fine 1987; Pascoe 2007; Thorne 1993). Some adolescent boys enact this aspect of masculinity in the way they speak about girls and women; the jokes they tell; sharing pinups, sexually explicit material and pornography; and presenting themselves as heterosexually active and knowledgeable (Fine 1987; Renold 2007; Thorne 1993).

Women are sometimes sexualized by men and used as props in the service of masculinity as a way to signify heterosexuality, demarcate gender boundaries, challenge women’s authority, and protect males from homophobic abuse by their peers (Higate 2007; Quinn 2002; Grazian 2007). Some manhood acts entail displays of homophobia and homophobic taunting which are enacted to signify heterosexuality; police the boundaries of acceptable manhood acts; and reinforce a hierarchy among males (Mac an Ghaill 1994; Pascoe 2007). Homophobic bullying can also be used to reinforce sexist ideology and reproduce gender inequality through its implication that a male who wants to have sex with other males is like a woman (which is to say he is less than a man; Schrock and Schwalbe 2009).

The term masculinity is sometimes used to denote practices which subordinate women and hence maintain the privileged position of men (Carrigan, Connell, and Lee 1985; Connell 1995). This definition of masculinity highlights that the performance of gender can be a micropolitical act which seeks to maintain the privileged position of one group while simultaneously marginalizing the other groups. Masculinity, thus, can give rise to sexist practices which maintain patriarchy. In this context, it is noted that masculinity is sometimes performed by exhibiting loyalty to the male hierarchy (Jackall 1988; Martin 2001); men thus support each other and subordinate themselves to other men in order to exclude women from assuming status.

The Role of Schools in Regulating the Performance of Gender

Young children are groomed into productions of manhood by learning the “identity codes” which signify masculine gender roles (Schwalbe and Mason-Schrock 1996). This aspect of symbolic culture is acquired by children through repeated interactions with parents and other adults (Cahill 1986; Kane 2006; McGuffey 2008; Pomerleau et al. 1990); the games they play (Thorne 1993), the sport they participate in (McBride 1995; Messner 1990, 1992), interactions with their peers (McGuffey and Rich 1999, and the media (Dietz 1998; Dyson 1994; Evans and Davies 2000; Hamilton et al. 2006; Milkie 1994; Pecora 1992; Sheldon 2004).

There is a mounting body of literature describing the role schools play in shaping and reinforcing dominant gender roles. One early example of this work is an ethnographic study undertaken over three years in the early 1990s to explore the construction and regulation of masculinities in a state secondary school in the United Kingdom (Mac an Ghaill 1994). Similar work subsequently explored constructions of masculinity in Australian (Gilbert and Gilbert 1998) and South African schools (Morrell 1994, 1998).

Schools shape gender through a variety of mechanisms, including historically reproduced rules, routines, expectations, relationships, and rewards; the deployment of artifacts, resources, and space; the structure and composition of school administration; the style of leadership and the way authority is exercised; the division of labor among teachers along gender lines; the content of the curriculum and the range of subjects offered; sport; the way pupils are addressed by teachers; and discipline practices (Gilbert and Gilbert 1998). These mechanisms create the culture of a school; actively shaping what happens within it, influencing all its inhabitants, and profoundly impacting how gender is performed by creating what Connell (1996) has termed a “gender regime.” Schools thus participate in the performance of gender and can contribute to productions of violent, sexist, and antisocial acts (Renold and Epstein 2010; Ringrose and Renold 2011; Saltmarsh, Robinson, and Davies 2012).

The Incident of Mayhem

The subsequent narrative is a summary of a lengthier account of these events, presented as a doctoral thesis (Bantjes 2011) and elsewhere described from a group analytic perspective (Bantjes and Nieuwoudt 2011).

Shortly after midnight, on the final day of school, approximately eighty grade 12 boys came onto the campus in small groups. This was in direct contravention of a curfew imposed by the Principal prohibiting boys from being on campus after 10 p.m. during the last weeks of school. When confronted by members of staff, the boys refused to leave the campus. Many of them had been drinking and some were intoxicated. Some boys discharged firecrackers, while others broke flower pots, destroyed property, put benches in trees, threw furniture in the swimming pool, and moved other objects (such as cricket sight screens and boundary ropes) out of position. Teachers and security guards tried to apprehend some of the boys but they ran away; this gave rise to a chase which ended with one boy being physically tackled to the ground by a teacher.

Areas of the school were bombed with eggs and flour. Explicit pornographic images (some homosexual in nature) were put up on notice boards. Boys vandalized doors by filling the locks with sand to make it impossible for teachers to gain access to their classrooms. One boy attempted to flood an area of the school by turning on the taps in the bathroom and blocking the drains.

Other groups of boys tagged walls, windows, and lawn with obscene graffiti. Some boys gained access to the school chapel and concealed alarm clocks among the pews. The alarm clocks were decorated with pornographic images and were set to go off during the chapel service that day, thus disrupting morning worship.

Neighboring residents mistook the loud fireworks on campus for gunshots and alerted the police. The police came onto campus to investigate the noise, apprehended some of the grade 12s, searched them, and found one to be in possession of cannabis. The boy was arrested and detained at the police station.

It is customary for announcements to be distributed on a pink piece of paper (called the “pink notice”) which is produced daily and is displayed on notice boards. A group of grade 12 boys produced a “white notice” (a spoof of the pink notice) which contained personal attacks on individual teachers. The derogatory content of the white notice made reference to issues such as sexual orientation, gender roles, religious fanaticism, and the inferior status of women in the school.

The school community was shocked by the incident. In time the Principal took decisive action to identify and punish the boys involved. The management of the school then set about trying to understand why Mayhem had occurred.

The Teachers’ Explanations of Mayhem

In an effort to offer an explanation for Mayhem, many teachers said that destructive and aggressive behavior (as evidenced during Mayhem) is a common feature in the landscape of boys’ schools. Some went further to say that “such an incident was unlikely to occur in a co-ed school” and was “unheard of in girls’ schools.” These perceptions imply that destructive behavior is an inevitable side effect of gathering large groups of males together—a situation described by some staff as “unnatural.” Some teachers went on to suggest that this incident illuminated dynamics within the school which, although not always public, are ever present:

This behaviour is not new. It has been happening for some time. It is what happens in a boys’ school. What is new is the extent of it and the fact that it was so public.

If you consider what we already see in the school with regard to vandalism and graffiti, it is only a matter of a few steps up from there to what happened in Mayhem. It is just a matter of degree and Mayhem was just a more concentrated form of what happens all the time.

I am sure that every woman on the staff here can tell a story about having experienced that sort of male aggression—both from their male colleagues and from the boys. It is very daunting even if you are a woman who can hold your own.

The teachers seemed to be proposing three ideas: (1) that there was a dominant mode of masculinity within the school which entailed assertions of power, aggression, and sexism; (2) that this dominant mode of masculinity precipitated Mayhem; and (3) that Mayhem is indicative of how masculinity is performed in the school. This prompts the question, “What evidence is there to support these perceptions?” We attempt to answer this question in the discussion that follows.

Mayhem as a Performance of Gender

By staging Mayhem, the boys publicly demonstrated their capacity to assume control and assert autonomy, take risks and face danger, subjugate women, and affirm heterosexuality. These actions (which are markers of some forms of masculinity) seem to share in common the theme of asserting power, strength, and potency. It is easy to cite examples illustrating how the dominant mode of masculinity in the school is performed through displays of power and heterosexual potency. This seems to support the idea proposed by teachers that Mayhem was both a consequence of and indicative of the masculine culture of the institution. There are, however, other more subtle ways to interpret these performances and other examples of practices within the institution which challenge the idea that Mayhem is simply a reflection of the dominant mode of masculinity in the school.

Prior to Mayhem, the Principal had issued a threat that any misconduct in the last weeks of school could result in disciplinary actions. In spite of this, the boys demonstrated a fearless disregard for the consequences of their behavior (the kind of cool nonchalance that characterizes some performances of masculinity) and asserted their autonomy. In this context, it is significant that Mayhem was perpetrated by a group of senior boys, as they were about to take leave of the school, surrender their role as school boys, and claim a place as young men in society. This is a significant period in the trajectory of masculinities and marks a time in which some young men seem to feel a powerful pull to assert their growing independence in order to claim recognition as adults (Shefer 2007).

Teachers noted that, for some, Mayhem was an elaborate game; an exhilarating way to demonstrate bravery, take risks, and have fun. Most boys involved did not engage in seriously destructive behavior and enjoyed the thrill of being chased by security guards, outsmarting teachers, and (in one case) being tackled by a Housemaster:

The majority of the boys got involved because it was fun. It was excitement. It kind of climaxed their Grade 12 year. For some of them it was the most exhilarating night of their lives—being chased by Security Guards and coming onto campus in the middle of the night. It was pure excitement and fun for most of them.

I spoke to some of the boys who were involved and they said it was like a game; a game of cops and robbers in the dark. You go this way. I’ll go that way. Keystone Cops. Who’s going to get me? Who’s going to stop us from doing what we want to do?

In the weeks preceding Mayhem, rumors circulated (sometimes fuelled by Housemasters) that security guards on campus would be armed with paintball guns to “tag” boys that broke curfew, so that they could be identified and dealt with. To some boys, this may have sounded like a grand and exciting game of “paintball” which may have been interpreted as a challenge. Some teachers believe that the school was complicit in precipitating Mayhem by taunting the boys. The talk of curfews and increased security raised the stakes and may have been perceived as throwing down the gauntlet:

It was almost as if we challenged the boys to do something with all our harsh threats. I wonder if they felt that they had to rise to the challenge. They answered the challenge and thought they would get away with it.

Beyond simply being a display of masculine bravery and risk taking, Mayhem can be understood as an assertion of power which provided the boys with an opportunity to resist being controlled. The boys expressly ignored the Principal’s curfew, refused to leave the campus when instructed, and destroyed property in a flagrant disregard for the school rules. This behavior stands in stark contrast to the normal orderly and disciplined school environment; generally, these are compliant boys who are highly regulated by a predominantly male staff who themselves perform acts of masculinity through the way they control the pupils. Teachers commented that Mayhem may have been the boys’ way of reacting to and resisting domination and might thus be seen as a form of protest. This suggests that rather than enacting the schools’ dominant masculinity, the boys may have been performing an act of resistance against it. The performance of Mayhem seems to be at the same time a conformist reproduction of masculine culture and an antiestablishment protest against it.

We are so structured here. You have other schools, where they have a more relaxed approach…We have such a male way of doing things here…I often think we don’t have an outlet for the boys to let off steam. The boys need an opportunity to let off steam and have their say so that it does not build up to a critical level and then it all comes out on the last day.

Maybe it happened because for so long we had been trying to control these boys. We’d been trying to contain these boys and now at long last they had a chance to get back at us, to get back at the staff, to get back at individuals who treated them harshly.

The sexual content of Mayhem can in part be understood as an affirmation of heterosexuality, an act of homophobia, and an assertion of power. The pornographic images which boys put on notice boards, the content of the white notice, and the graffiti were all explicitly sexual, affirmed heterosexuality, and poked fun at homosexuals and effeminate men. The use of pornography during Mayhem is significant, given that in the preceding months the Housemasters had made a concerted effort to ensure that boys removed all erotic pictures from public view. Prior to this, it was commonplace for boys to display screen savers of semi-naked women in erotic poses on their laptop computers. Similar “pinup” pictures had been frequently displayed on the walls in grade 12 common rooms. It would seem that during Mayhem the boys may have employed erotic pictures of women as props to challenge the male teachers’ attempts to regulate their displays of heterosexuality. There are other examples of practices within the school that illustrate how boys sometimes make use of women as props to aid in performances of defiance and assert heterosexuality. For example, the graffiti used to vandalize desks in the school is characterized by lecherous images of women and statements expressing heterosexual desire.

A more dramatic illustration of how boys in the school use women as props to garner status occurred when a grade 8 boy used his cell phone during a lesson to take lewd pictures up the dress of a female teacher. The photographs, within moments of being taken, were distributed via Bluetooth to other boys. This intrusive antisocial act (the second of its type to happen to the teacher) left her feeling vulnerable, exposed, humiliated, and enraged. The school’s administration and many colleagues expressed outrage at the incident and were openly supportive of the victimized teacher. Some male and female teachers nonetheless articulated a sexist attitude by commenting that the targeted teacher had been complicit in this incident because she was dressed in a way which invited sexual attention.

Examples can be found of how boys in the school sometimes make use of sex as a way of asserting power. The subsequent sentence, for example, was authored by a grade 12 boy using the words of fridge-magnet poetry, and intentionally left on the whiteboard where he could be sure it would be seen by his female teacher:

I only like head and driving my enormous smooth meat apparatus into my friend’s mother’s bare void and shooting some milk juice near her hair.

I had the opportunity to interview the author of this sentence. I was curious about his motive since it was obvious that the female teacher would see and respond to it; he had made no effort to hide the fact that this was his doing. The boy is an intelligent, physically well built, first XV rugby player who held a significant leadership position in the school; a boy who within the culture of the school would have been considered a fine example of masculinity for his displays of bravery and strength on the rugby field. He explained to me how difficult he had found it to be in the company of this particular teacher because she was so openly feminist and although new to the school, she was critical of some of the traditional practices and sporting ethos of the school. My interpretation was that this young man (in spite of his physical, intellectual, and sporting prowess) was uncomfortable with his teacher’s feminist attitudes and her critique of the school’s masculine culture. It was as if he left these words on her whiteboard because he wanted to perturb, offend, intimidate, and wound her in an effort to silence her. I drew his attention to the overtly sexual nature of his words and noted that others might find it crude and offensive. His response was that I was out of touch with how boys talk and that this kind of expression was commonplace in private conversations among boys in the school. I could not tell if he was being serious about the prevalence of this kind of speak or if this was just his “everyone is doing it” defense.

Boys in the school sometimes assert themselves against other boys through acts of sexual domination and homophobic bullying which seems to point to a belief in the culture of the school that the use of sex is a legitimate way to assert power. One example of this is an incident in which a group of grade 9 boarders held a peer down and inserted bubble gum into his rectum. When asked to explain this brutal and sexual act, the perpetrators said that they had found the victim’s behavior irritating and they wanted to make him stop annoying them. The homoerotic form that the domination took is reminiscent of another more common practice in the school, called “humping.” Humping is a form of bullying in which the perpetrator takes hold of his victim from behind by putting his arms around him, pinning the victim’s arms to his side and holding him tightly so that he cannot get away. Holding the victim in this position, the perpetrator then simulates having sex with the victim by moving his pelvis back and forth, rubbing his penis against the victim’s buttocks. Humping happens publicly, so that it is witnessed by other boys. This form of domination has a homoerotic quality to it (with the perpetrator putting himself in the role of a homosexual), but it is understood within the culture of the school that the perpetrator has performed an act of domination and it is the victim who is left feeling embarrassed and weak while the perpetrator feels powerful and superior. Similarly, there have been times in the boarding houses of the school when boys have masturbated and ejaculated on the pillow of a peer to intimidate and harass him.

It is possible to dismiss all of the examples given previously as extreme illustrations of individual adolescent boys’ misguided behavior and to deny that they are indicative of endemic gendered attitudes in the school. Some teachers noted that adolescence is a time of sexual expression and as such these practices are as much a developmental phenomenon as they are a reflection of a sexist institution. It is certainly true that many boys do not exhibit overtly sexist attitudes toward women and many are deeply respectful of females. Most boys do not produce work that sexually objectifies women and do not take sexual photographs of their female teachers. Furthermore, there are boys who do not have erotic pictures of women on their laptops. It is possible to cite many examples of boys who are not homophobic and even to describe situations in which boys in the school have come out and identified themselves as gay. There are several openly gay members of staff. These examples seem to suggest that even within the overly heterosexual culture of the school there is space for the expression of other sexualities. This complicates and challenges the notion of a single hegemonic masculinity in the school and makes it difficult to argue that Mayhem is simply a consequence of institutionalized masculinity.

The behavior during Mayhem was nonetheless overtly sexist; there were a number of pointed “attacks” on women; women were maligned in the white notice for being assertive (demanding and domineering), being unfriendly (bitchy), and for occupying positions of low status. The obscene graffiti included powerful assertions of masculine potency in the form of phallic icons (male genitalia and an ejaculating penis) and a vagina being penetrated by an erect penis. When asked about the symbolic content of the graffiti, some teachers expressed opinions that it reflected sexist and gendered attitudes within the school:

The reality of sexism in our school may not have caused Mayhem but when you look at some of the content of Mayhem you cannot avoid that it highlights the sexist attitudes that exist in our school.

The sexist and homophobic content is something that has been with us for a while. It’s not new but perhaps it was just more visible this time.… But in a sense it is natural that these elements would be there because our boys are sexist and they are homophobic.

This view is supported by some teachers who describe the school as a sexist environment in which women are marginalized and undervalued:

Sexism? That is this school!

I have been here a long time and when I first arrived here things were a lot more black and white. There were definitely people and boys who made it clear that as a woman you were not welcome. We have moved away from that in terms of in-your-face, overt sexism, but I still think (and I am not the burning bra type) that it’s there, like a sleeping dragon, it’s just there and it breathes its fire. You are not even sure where it is coming from but it is there.

A number of women on the staff have described their experience of being ignored by some of the senior male members of staff who in the normal course of the day fail to make eye contact with them or greet them. They experience this as dismissive and ascribe it to the fact that as women they are seen by some men as “second rate citizens” or not fully worthy of being on the staff. While this is not the shared experience of all women, it is significant in that it points to some teachers’ perception that their gender renders them less than their male colleagues.

One way that women in the school are marginalized and subjugated is through the use of language and the way men and boys in the school talk:

I have heard boys repeat derogatory comments, that they have heard from male members of staff. Men who have said, “Oh, don’t worry about her, she is just a woman!” or, “Don’t worry about her she is probably having her period.” We don’t need things like that to be said in a predominantly male environment.… Comments like this should not be put out there in this environment by our male colleagues. It just perpetuates sexism.

A lot of the teachers are sexist and the boys learn from the staff.… You just have to look at the way the staff here talk.… There are male teachers out there who say things about women that they should just not say in front of boys.… Some teachers here like to be the boys’ buddies and will sell out the women teachers to achieve that.

My feeling is that there is division among the staff in some form. The extent to which that impacted on what happened in Mayhem I am not sure but I have certainly heard male staff belittle and undermine other female and gay members of staff. There is definitely a sexist and gay division among the staff.

There are other illustrations of the use of gendered language to assert masculinity and power in the school. The word rape, for example, is used in the vocabulary of the popular boy culture to denote a victory or triumph (as in when a boy speaks of winning a rugby fixture by saying, “We raped the opposition this weekend”). Similarly, the word bitch is used by some boys to denote someone in an inferior position of power (as in when a boy speaks of gaining control or domination over another boy by saying, “I made him my bitch”). The word gay is used as a pejorative term to refer to anything that is undesirable or unmanly (as in when a boy says, “That is so gay!” in reference to something he finds objectionable). The word fag is used as an insult to stigmatize an effeminate boy or someone who is suspected of being homosexual. Boys speak of growing a pair (shorthand for grow a pair of testicles) or man up when someone fails to conform to the hegemonic gender stereotype of masculine assertiveness, toughness, or bravery. A boy might, for example, say to a peer man up or grow a pair if his peer displays vulnerability, fear, hesitation, or indecisiveness.

A stark illustration of how language was used to subjugate women occurred when the school restructured its management hierarchy, in the year prior to Mayhem. This restructuring saw the creation of the new post of Headmaster and the renaming of three Deputy Headmaster posts (formally these had been Vice Principal posts). The overtly gendered language used to name these posts created the distinct impression that the four most senior positions in the school are reserved for men. Even if it was not the conscious intention of the architects of these new posts to reserve them for men, their naming points to insensitivity toward gender politics. It seems unlikely that the decision to name these posts with such gendered language would have been taken had women been party to the discussions about the restructuring, but their voices were absent from the decision-making process.

You will have this kind of trouble (Mayhem) when you have a hierarchical structure like we do, which is so clearly white, heterosexual, and male.… And so for example the gendered language that was used at the start of this year with the restructuring when we made the Vice Principals into Deputy Headmasters—it is just stupid. You can’t do that. You are saying to the women, “We are going to keep you in the pile.” Again I don’t think they thought it was conscious, I don’t think they thought that if they use the word “Headmaster” we mean only men, but that is the message they send to the staff and the boys. Because up here there are men and down there, there are “not men.” And the homophobic thing becomes the men and the “not men.” And this is where the school has a role to play because we set up the men versus the not-men in all sorts of ways.

There are other illustrations of the use of gendered language to name promotion posts in the school. The title “Housemasters,” for example, is used to denote a senior member of staff tasked with the responsibility of running a house (rather than a more gender neutral term like “Head of House” or “House Director”). Likewise, the titles “master in charge of rugby,” “master in charge of cricket,” and so on, to denote the member of staff responsible for the administration of a particular sport in the school, imply that in order to be in charge of something, it is prerequisite to be a man.

The school’s approach to diversity management can be cited as a further example of the desire to retain the patriarchy and preserve the dominant modes of masculinity. In recent years, the school has embarked on a deliberate effort to bring about racial transformation and address issues of racial diversity. At the time of Mayhem, however, it had not yet attended to issues of gender:

I will tell you where some of this (the trouble we had during Mayhem) started in the school. It started with the concept of diversity being race. If you are going to make diversity equivalent to race and you are going to ignore or restrict all your other forms of diversity then you are going to have people thinking it is ok to target women, Christians, gays—you target anything else that is different. Were there any racial slurs in Mayhem? No. Because we have targeted race as an area for diversity but not any of the other things. That is why there were sexist attacks, homophobic attacks and attacks on the church.

The schools’ response to Mayhem, however, challenges the portrayal of the school as an overtly sexist and misogynistic environment. The management of the school quickly moved beyond simply punishing the boys involved in Mayhem and instead attempted to understand their role in this incident; by reflecting on the culture of the school, they became aware of gender dynamics which needed attention. In the months that followed Mayhem, space and time was created for staff to gather together in small groups to talk about their experiences and explore gender politics within the school. The management commissioned a report on gender dynamics, and suggestions were sought on strategies to address healthy practices. This raised the level of consciousness of gender issues and promoted conversations about gender politics, although no immediate concrete changes were made. Two years after Mayhem, the names of some promotion posts were made gender neutral and a woman was promoted to a senior management position. The incident of disruptive behavior provided an opportunity for institutional interventions which acknowledged that the behavior of pupils in schools is a function of (among other things) the culture of the school and the performance of gender but also illustrated the institutions capacity to be self-reflexive and adapt (behaviors not typically associated with the performance of masculinity).

Framing Mayhem simply as indicative of the school’s masculine culture, denies the reality that the school exists within a broader sociopolitical, economic, and historic context. It does seem relevant that the incident was perpetrated largely by wealthy white young men at a time in the country’s history where affirmative action was the order of the day. It is possible that some of the boys involved in Mayhem might, in spite of their privileged position, have felt that they were being marginalized by political and economic transformation in SA. As such, their behavior could be as much a function of broader sociopolitical and economic factors rather than simply a public reenactment of the schools culture.

Conclusion

It is possible to selectively cite examples of institutional practices and present a one-dimensional picture of a gendered school in which there is a dominant mode of masculinity characterized by assertions of power, heterosexuality, and misogyny. A reductionist argument can then be offered, suggesting a direct link between hegemonic masculinity in the school and the incident of Mayhem. Such an account would, however, ignore the contradictions and obscure the more subtle dimensions of how gender is performed in the school. Reducing Mayhem to a reenactment of some kind of institutional hegemonic masculinity would also deny that the performance of Mayhem stands, at least partly, in contrast to and as a reaction against the dominant masculine culture of the school and occurred within a larger sociopolitical context. The analysis we offer challenges the idea of a dominant coherent hegemonic masculinity within the school and suggests that gender relations are better understood as a complex and sometimes incoherent set of practices that are better accounted for as a “gender regime.” A careful analysis of the schools’ gender regime can nonetheless highlight unhealthy practices which require reform.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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