IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0299190.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Blesser relationships among orphaned adolescent girls in contexts of poverty and gender inequality in South African townships

Author

Listed:
  • Ndumiso Daluxolo Ngidi
  • Xolani Ntinga
  • Ayanda Tshazi
  • Relebohile Moletsane

Abstract

The term blesser has become part of South Africa’s contemporary lexicon, replacing the older terminology of ‘sugar daddy.’ While much recent literature has focused on the blesser phenomenon, the voices of orphaned adolescent girls on their entanglement in blesser relationships have had insufficient attention. Using the theory of gender and power as an analytical lens, this qualitative study analyses the visual and textual data generated by orphaned adolescent girls on their relationships with blessers. To generate data, the participants used photovoice to represent their relationships with older male sexual partners in their resource-poor South African township neighbourhoods. Our analysis reveals a set of factors that render orphaned adolescent girls vulnerable to age-disparate relationships, such as the structural dimensions of their lives, including their status as orphaned girls, heteropatriarchy, age-based hierarchies, and poverty in their households and communities. On the other hand, our analysis explores the less understood area of the relative agency, intentionality, and proactive approach that orphaned girls take to initiating and negotiating blesser relationships. The findings have implications for further research that will expand our understanding of girls’ agency—and the structural limits to that agency—in adverse socio-cultural circumstances. Such research holds potential for interventions that might enable orphaned girls to better advocate for themselves in the context of unequal power relations.

Suggested Citation

  • Ndumiso Daluxolo Ngidi & Xolani Ntinga & Ayanda Tshazi & Relebohile Moletsane, 2024. "Blesser relationships among orphaned adolescent girls in contexts of poverty and gender inequality in South African townships," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 19(10), pages 1-18, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0299190
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0299190
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0299190
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0299190&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0299190?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Deevia Bhana & Rob Pattman, 2009. "Researching South African Youth, Gender and Sexuality Within the Context of HIV/AIDS," Development, Palgrave Macmillan;Society for International Deveopment, vol. 52(1), pages 68-74, March.
    2. Sylvia Shangani & Don Operario & Becky Genberg & Kipruto Kirwa & Miriam Midoun & Lukoye Atwoli & David Ayuku & Omar Galárraga & Paula Braitstein, 2017. "Unconditional government cash transfers in support of orphaned and vulnerable adolescents in western Kenya: Is there an association with psychological wellbeing?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(5), pages 1-15, May.
    3. Dorrit Posel & Michael Rogan, 2012. "Gendered trends in poverty in the post-apartheid period, 1997--2006," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(1), pages 97-113, March.
    4. Stoebenau, Kirsten & Dunkle, Kristin & Willan, Samantha & Shai, Nwabisa & Gibbs, Andrew, 2023. "Assessing risk factors and health impacts across different forms of exchange sex among young women in informal settlements in South Africa: A cross-sectional study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 318(C).
    5. Beth Kangwana & Karen Austrian & Erica Soler-Hampejsek & Nicole Maddox & Rachel J Sapire & Yohannes Dibaba Wado & Benta Abuya & Eva Muluve & Faith Mbushi & Joy Koech & John A Maluccio, 2022. "Impacts of multisectoral cash plus programs after four years in an urban informal settlement: Adolescent Girls Initiative-Kenya (AGI-K) randomized trial," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(2), pages 1-25, February.
    6. Jewkes, R. & Morrell, R., 2012. "Sexuality and the limits of agency among South African teenage women: Theorising femininities and their connections to HIV risk practises," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(11), pages 1729-1737.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gavin George & Leena Maqsood & Courtenay Sprague, 2024. "Balancing risk and reward: exploring women’s transactional sexual relationships with Blessers in South Africa," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-9, December.
    2. Stoebenau, Kirsten & Dunkle, Kristin & Willan, Samantha & Shai, Nwabisa & Gibbs, Andrew, 2023. "Assessing risk factors and health impacts across different forms of exchange sex among young women in informal settlements in South Africa: A cross-sectional study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 318(C).
    3. Camila Bonfim & Flávia Alves & Érika Fialho & John A Naslund & Maurício L Barreto & Vikram Patel & Daiane Borges Machado, 2024. "Conditional cash transfers and mortality in people hospitalised with psychiatric disorders: A cohort study of the Brazilian Bolsa Família Programme," PLOS Medicine, Public Library of Science, vol. 21(12), pages 1-20, December.
    4. Flatø, Martin & Muttarak, Raya & Pelser, André, 2017. "Women, Weather, and Woes: The Triangular Dynamics of Female-Headed Households, Economic Vulnerability, and Climate Variability in South Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 41-62.
    5. Neetu A. John & Kirsten Stoebenau & Samantha Ritter & Jeffrey Edmeades & Nikola Balvin & UNICEF Office of Research - Innocenti, 2017. "Gender Socialization during Adolescence in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Conceptualization, influences and outcomes," Papers indipa885, Innocenti Discussion Papers.
    6. Annamaria Milazzo & Dominique Walle, 2017. "Women Left Behind? Poverty and Headship in Africa," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(3), pages 1119-1145, June.
    7. Zack Zimbalist, 2017. "Breaking down rural and urban bias and interrogating spatial inequality, evidence from South Africa," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 35, pages 246-269, October.
    8. Derek Yu, 2013. "Poverty and inequality estimates of National Income Dynamics Study revisited," Working Papers 05/2013, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    9. Lauren Graham & Memory Mphaphuli, 2018. "“A Guy ‘Does’ and You Don’t, They Do You Instead†: Young People’s Narratives of Gender and Sexuality in a Low-Income Context of South Africa," SAGE Open, , vol. 8(4), pages 21582440188, December.
    10. Bhana, Deevia & Janak, Raksha & Pillay, Daisy & Ramrathan, Labby, 2021. "Masculinity and violence: Gender, poverty and culture in a rural primary school in South Africa," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    11. Willan, Samantha & Gibbs, Andrew & Shai, Nwabisa & Ntini, Nolwazi & Petersen, Inge & Jewkes, Rachel, 2020. "Did young women in South African informal settlements display increased agency after participating in the Stepping Stones and Creating Futures intervention? A qualitative evaluation," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 265(C).
    12. Chigbu, Uchendu Eugene, 2019. "Anatomy of women’s landlessness in the patrilineal customary land tenure systems of sub-Saharan Africa and a policy pathway," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 126-135.
    13. Stoebenau, Kirsten & Heise, Lori & Wamoyi, Joyce & Bobrova, Natalia, 2016. "Revisiting the understanding of “transactional sex” in sub-Saharan Africa: A review and synthesis of the literature," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 186-197.
    14. Kirsten, Johann F., 2012. "The Political Economy of Food Price Policy in South Africa," Working Papers 206514, University of Pretoria, Department of Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development.
    15. Tina Fransman & Derek Yu, 2018. "Multidimensional poverty in South Africa in 2001-2016," Working Papers 07/2018, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    16. Posel, Dorrit & Oyenubi, Adeola, 2023. "Heterogeneous gender gaps in mental wellbeing: Do women with low economic status face the biggest gender gaps?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 332(C).
    17. Johannes N. Mampane, 2018. "Exploring the “Blesser and Blessee†Phenomenon: Young Women, Transactional Sex, and HIV in Rural South Africa," SAGE Open, , vol. 8(4), pages 21582440188, October.
    18. Mary Cobbett, 2014. "Beyond ‘victims’ and ‘heroines’: Constructing ‘girlhood’ in international development," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 14(4), pages 309-320, October.
    19. Jinghong Liu, 2019. "What Does In-Work Poverty Mean for Women: Comparing the Gender Employment Segregation in Belgium and China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(20), pages 1-25, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0299190. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.