A feminist school based sexuality education needs to be both gender-focused and critical. In this paper, we investigate the (im)possibilities of feminist sexuality education by exploring instances of its practice in New Zealand. Using a poststructuralist discursive framework, we use the theoretical concepts of ‘doing’ and ‘undoing’ gender to examine how students (aged 13—16) responded to progressive and liberal ideas presented by sexuality educators. Our findings paint a complicated picture. On some occasions, participants used traditional discourses of sexuality to counter educators’ use of progressive notions. At other times liberal and feminist ideas were embraced by participants and resourced awareness of possibilities for positive female sexuality. Our work shows traditional sexuality discourses are a continuing limitation to incorporating a discourse of pleasure in sexuality education even in the presence of feminist content. Nevertheless feminist discourses were present and enabled students to think about female sexuality in new and encouraging ways.
Abel, G. and Fitzgerald, L. ( 2006) ‘"When You Come to it You Feel Like a Dork Asking a Guy to Put a Condom On": Is Sex Education Addressing Young People’s Understandings of Risk?’, Sex Education6(2): 105-19.
2.
Alldred, P. and David, M. ( 2007) Get Real about Sex. The Politics and Practice of Sex Education . Maidenhead: Open University Press .
3.
Allen, L. ( 2004) ‘Beyond the Birds and the Bees: Constituting a Discourse of Erotics in Sexuality Education’, Gender and Education , 16(2): 151-67.
4.
Allen, L. ( 2007) Sexual Subjects. Young People, Sexuality and Education . Basingstoke: Palgrave.
5.
Bragg, S. ( 2006) ‘Young Women, the Media, and Sex Education’ , Feminist Media Studies6(4): 546-51.
6.
Braun, V. and Clarke, V. ( 2006) ‘Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology’, Qualitative Research in Psychology3(2): 77-101.
7.
Brickell, C. ( 2007) ‘Sex Education, Homosexuality, and Social Contestation in 1970s New Zealand’, Sex Education7(4): 387-406.
8.
Buckingham, D. and Bragg, S. ( 2004). Young People, Sex and the Media: the Facts of Life?Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
9.
Burns, A. and Torre, M. ( 2005) ‘Revolutionary Sexualities’, Feminism & Psychology15: 21-6.
10.
Butler, J. ( 2004) Undoing Gender. New York: Routledge.
Diamond, L. ( 2005) ‘From the Heart or the Gut? Sexual-minority Women’s Experiences of Desire for Same-sex and Other-sex Partners’, Feminism & Psychology15(1): 10-14.
13.
Epstein, D. ( 2000) ‘Sexualities and Education: Catch 28’, Sexualities3: 387-94.
14.
Epstein, D. and Johnson, R. ( 1998) Schooling Sexualities. Buckingham: Open University Press.
15.
Fine, M. ( 1988) ‘Sexuality, Schooling, and Adolescent Females: The Missing Discourse of Desire’, Harvard Educational Review58: 29-53.
16.
Fine, M. ( 2005) ‘Desire: The Morning (and 15 years) After’ , Feminism & Psychology15(1): 54-60.
17.
Fine, M. and McClelland, S. ( 2006) ‘Sexuality Education and Desire: Still Missing After All These Years’, Harvard Educational Review76(3): 297-340.
18.
Foucault, M. ( 1984) History of Sexuality: An Introduction. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
19.
Gavey, N. ( 1992) ‘Technologies and Effects of Heterosexual Coercion’ , Feminism and Psychology2: 325-51.
20.
Gavey, N. and McPhillips, K. ( 1999) ‘Subject to Romance. Heterosexual Passivity as an Obstacle to Women Initiating Condom Use’, Psychology of Women Quarterly23: 349- 67.
21.
Gill, R. ( 2007) ‘Postfeminist Media Culture: Elements of Sensibility’ , European Journal of Cultural Studies10(2): 147-66.
22.
Griffin, C. ( 2000). ‘Absences that Matter: Constructions of Sexuality in Studies of Young Women’s Friendships’. Feminism & Psychology10: 227-45.
23.
Griffin, C. ( 2004a) ‘Good Girls, Bad Girls: Anglocentricism and Diversity in the Constitution of Contemporary Girlhood’, in A. Harris (ed.) All About the Girl. Culture, Power and Identity, pp. 29-43London: Routledge.
24.
Griffin, C. ( 2004b). ‘Impossible Spaces? Femininity as an Empty Category’ . ESRC Research Seminar Series: New Femininities , accessed 12 March 2005. Available: www.lse.ac.uk/collections/newFemininities
25.
Harris, A. ( 2004) Future Girl: Young Women in the 21st Century. London: Routledge.
26.
Holland, J., Ramazanoglu, C., Sharpe, S. and Thomson, R. ( 1998) The Male in the Head: Young People, Heterosexuality and Power. London: Tufnell Press.
27.
Hollway, W. ( 1984) ‘Gender Difference and the Production of Subjectivity’ , in J. Henriques, W. Hollway, C. Urwin, C. Venn and V. Walkerdine , (eds) Changing the Subject, pp. 227- 63. London : Routledge.
28.
Ingham, R. ( 2005) ‘"We Didn’t Cover that at School": Education Against Pleasure or Education for Pleasure?’, Sex Education5(4): 375-88.
29.
Irvine, J. ( 2002) Talk about Sex. The Battles over Sex Education in the United States. Berkeley: University of California Press.
30.
Jackson, S. ( 2005) ‘"I’m 15 and Desperate for Sex": Doing and Undoing Desire in Letters to a Teenage Magazine’, Feminism & Psychology15(3): 295-313.
31.
Jackson, S. ( 2006) ‘"Street Girl": "New" Sexual Subjectivity in a New Zealand Soap Drama?’, Feminist Media Studies6(4): 469-86.
32.
Jackson, S. and Cram, F. ( 2003) ‘Disrupting the Sexual Double Standard: Young Women’s Talk about Heterosexuality’, British Journal of Social Psychology42(1): 113-128.
33.
Jackson, S. and Scott, S. ( 2004) ‘Sexual Antinomies in Late Modernity’, Sexualities7: 233-48.
34.
Jefferson, G. ( 1985) ‘An Exercise in the Transcription and Analysis of Laughter’, in T.A. van Dijk (ed.) Handbook of Discourse Analysis, Volume 3, pp. 25-34. London: Academic Press.
35.
Kehily, M. ( 2004) Sexuality, Gender and Schooling. Shifting Agendas in Social Learning. London: Routledge.
36.
Kehily, M.J.and Nayak, A. ( 2000) ‘Schoolgirl Frictions: Young Women, Sex Education and Social Experiences’, Gender and Sexualities in Educational Ethnography3: 141- 59.
37.
Kidger, J. ( 2005) ‘Stories of Redemption? Teenage Mothers as the New Sex Educators’, Sexualities8(4): 481-96.
38.
Kitzinger, J. ( 1995) ‘"I’m Sexually Attractive but I’m Powerful". Young Women Negotiating Sexual Reputation’, Women’s Studies International Forum18: 187-96.
39.
Lensky, H. ( 1990) ‘Beyond Plumbing and Prevention: Feminist Approaches to Sex Education’, Gender and Education2(2): 217-30.
40.
Lewis, J. and Knijn, T. ( 2003) ‘Sex Education Materials in the Netherlands and in England and Wales: A Comparison of Content, Use and Teaching Practice’ , Oxford Review of Education29(1): 113-32.
41.
Mac an Ghaill, M. ( 1994) The Making of Men: Masculinities, Sexualities and Schooling . Buckingham: Open University Press .
42.
McClelland, S. and Fine, M. ( 2008) ‘Embedded Science: Critical Analysis of Abtinence-Only Evaluation Research’, Cultural Studies-Critical Methodologies8(1): 50-81.
43.
McPhillips, K., Braun, V. and Gavey, N. ( 2001) ‘Defining Heterosex: How Imperative is the "Coital Imperative"?’, Women’s Studies International Forum24(2): 229-40.
44.
McRobbie, A. ( 2004) ‘Notes on Postfeminism and Popular Culture: Bridget Jones and the New Gender Regime’, in Anita Harris (ed.) All About the Girl. Culture, Power and Identity, pp.3-14. London: Routledge .
45.
Ministry of Education (1999) Health and Physical Education in the New Zealand Curriculum. Wellington: Learning Media.
46.
Ministry of Health (2008) ‘Human Papillomavirus Immuinsation’, accessed 14 January 2009 . Available: www.moh.govt.nz.
47.
Monk, D. ( 2001) ‘New Guidance/Old Problems: Recent Developments in Sex Education’, The Journal of Social Welfare & Family Law23(3): 271-91.
48.
Paechter, C. ( 2006) ‘Reconceptualising the Gendered Body: Learning and Constructing Masculinities in School’, Gender and Education18(2): 121-35.
49.
Smyth, H. ( 2000) Rocking the Cradle. Contraception, Sex and Politics in New Zealand. Wellington: Steele Roberts Ltd.
50.
Spencer, G., Maxwell, C. and Aggleton, P. ( 2008) ‘What Does Empowerment Mean in School-based Sex and Relationships Education?’, Sex Education8(3): 345-56.
51.
Stenner, P. ( 1993) ‘Discoursing Jealousy’, in E. Burman and I. Parker (eds), Discourse Analytic Research: Repertoires and Readings of Texts in Action, pp. 94-132. London: Routledge.
52.
Thompson, S. ( 1990) ‘Putting a Big Thing into a Little Hole: Teenage Girls’ Accounts of Sexual Initiation’, Journal of Sex Research23(3): 341-61.
53.
Thorogood, N. ( 2000) ‘Sex Education as Disciplinary Technique: Policy and Practice in England, and Wales’, Sexualities3(4): 425-38.
Tolman, D. ( 2005) ‘Found(ing) Discourses of Desire: Unfettering Female Adolescent Sexuality’, Feminism & Psychology15(1): 5-9.
56.
Tolman, D., Striepe, M. and Harmon, T. ( 2003) ‘Gender Matters: Constructing a Model of Adolescent Sexual Health’, The Journal of Sex Research40(1): 4-12.
57.
Ussher, J. ( 2005) ‘The Meaning of Sexual Desire: Experiences of Heterosexual and Lesbian Girls’, Feminism & Psychology15(1): 27-32.
58.
Vance, C.S. ( 1992) ‘Introduction’, in C.S. Vance (ed.) Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality (2nd edition), pp. xvi-xxxiv. London: Pandora.
59.
Walkerdine, V. ( 1990) Schoolgirl Fictions. London: Verso.
60.
Walkerdine, V. ( 2004) ‘Neoliberalism, Femininity and Choice’. ESRC Research Seminar Series: New Femininities, accessed 12 January 2006. Available: www.lse.ac.uk/collections/newFemininities
61.
Walton, M. and Weatherall, A. ( 1999) ‘The Metaphorical Construction of Sexual Experience in a Speech Community of New Zealand University Students’, British Journal of Social Psychology38: 479-98.
62.
Weedon, C. ( 1987) Feminist and Poststructuralist Theory. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
63.
Wilson, J. ( 2003) ‘Can Sex Education be Practical?’, Sex Education3(1): 23-32.
