M.A. (Clinical Psychology) / Initial romantic attraction is a universal social phenomenon and can broadly be defined as the awareness for the potential of a long-term romantic relationship or the positive regard an individual has for another. In essence, it is the initial feelings an individual has toward a potential mate. Due to the significance of romantic relationships it is a well-researched topic however, most existing studies on the topic are quantitative in nature focusing on testing specific theories or principles. Consequently a qualitative study focusing on the experience of initial romantic attraction would add great value in terms of facilitating a better understanding the phenomenon. Furthermore, no qualitative studies pertaining to initial romantic attraction have been done using South African participants. Initial romantic attraction starts with an awareness of a potential partner. Previous studies have indicated that there are many different factors that influence who an individual may be attracted to once awareness of a partner has been established. The current study hopes to identify the factors leading to initial romantic attraction for white heterosexual South African men. Three white heterosexual South African men were sourced as participants. Openended interviews were conducted with each participant. The interviews were then transcribed verbatim and analysed according to specific descriptive phenomenological steps. The analyses yielded central themes pertaining to initial romantic attraction that could be organised into three broad categories namely, personal characteristics, interpersonal characteristics and external factors. Common personal characteristics leading to initial romantic attraction were physical attractiveness, hair, eyes, petiteness, slim physique, cleanliness and teeth. Common personality traits leading to initial romantic attraction were sense of humour, confidence/independence, mysteriousness, intelligence and good conversation skills and common interpersonal characteristics were reciprocal attraction, similarities, contrasting qualities and eye contact. The only common external factor that led to initial romantic attraction was novelty.It is hoped that the results of the current study will lead to a richer understanding of the factors that lead to initial romantic attraction for white heterosexual South African men.

Despite the increased focus on men in reproductive research, little is known about male involvement in the initial decision/s regarding parenthood (i.e., to become a parent or not) and the subsequent decision-making that may ensue (e.g., choices about timing or spacing of births). In particular, the parenthood decision-making of “White”, heterosexual men from the middle class has been understudied, as indicated in the existing literature. In South Africa, this oversight has been exacerbated by the tendency for researchers to concentrate on “problematic” men, to the exclusion of the “boring, normal case”. I argue that this silence in the literature is a result of the taken for granted nature of parenthood in the “normal” heterosexual life course. In this study, I have turned the spotlight onto the norm of “Whiteness” and heterosexuality by studying those who have previously been overlooked by researchers. I focus on “White” Afrikaans men’s involvement in parenthood decision-making. My aim was to explore how constructions of gender inform male involvement in decision-making, especially within the South African context where social transformation has challenged traditional conceptions of male selfhood giving rise to new and contested masculine identities and new discourses of manhood and fatherhood. In an effort to ensure that women’s voices are not marginalised in the research, as is often the case in studies of men and masculinity, I conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews about male involvement in decision-making with both “White” Afrikaans women and men. There were 23 participants in total, who all identified as heterosexual and middle-class. The participants were divided into two age cohorts (21 – 30 years and >40 years), which were then differentiated according to gender, reproductive status, and relationship status. Treating the interviews as jointly produced narratives, I analysed them by means of a performativity/performance lens. This dual analytic lens focuses on how particular narrative performances are simultaneously shaped by the interview setting and the broader discursive context. The lens was fashioned by synthesising Butler’s theory of performativity with Taylor’s narrative-discursive method. This synthesis (1) allows for Butler’s notion of “performativity” to be supplemented with that of “performance”; (2) provides a concrete analytical strategy in the form of positioning analysis; and (3) draws attention to both the micro politics of the interview conversation and the operation of power on the macro level, including the possibility of making “gender trouble”. The findings of the study suggest that the participants experienced difficulty narrating about male involvement in parenthood decision-making, owing to the taken for granted nature of parenthood for heterosexual adults. This was evident in participants’ sidelining of issues of “deciding” and “planning” and their alternate construal of childbearing as a non-choice, which, significantly served to bolster hetero-patriarchal norms. A central rhetorical tool for accomplishing these purposes was found in the construction of the “sacralised” child. In discursively manoeuvring around the central problematic, the participants ultimately produced a “silence” in the data that repeats the one in the research literature.

This research examines men’s talk around abortion using critical discourse analysis. Current literature indicates a dearth of studies addressing the topic of men and abortion in various domains. An understanding of men’s relationship to abortion, however, is crucial to understanding abortion as a social phenomenon. This study utilises the work of Foucault around discourse and power, as well as Butler’s work on gender to create a theoretical framework to approach data. Data were collected in the form of interview groups made up of men, as well as newspaper articles and on-line forum discussions that featured men as the author. What emerged from theses texts was a ‘Familial Discourse’ which posits the nuclear, heterosexual family as a long term relationship between a mother and father, which forms the ideal site to raise children. Discourses that support the family are a discourse of ‘Equal Partnership’ which establishes the man and the woman as being in a heterosexual relationship where each partner is seen to have equal power, and a discourse of ‘Foetal Personhood’ which constructs the foetus as a child in need of a family. Related to the heterosexual matrix, the formation of a family unit comes to be constructed as ‘natural’. Abortion acts as a disruptor to these discourses. By disrupting the formation of the family unit, abortion negatively affects the individuals involved. A relationship where a formation of a family unit was disrupted cannot survive. If the female partner has an abortion without her partner, it is seen as disrupting the equal partnership between the man and the woman. Men in this case see themselves as ‘powerless’ compared to women. From this point a ‘New Man’ discourse emerges, where men position themselves as loving and responsible in the context of a nuclear, heterosexual family unit. Abortion disrupts ‘Foetal Personhood’ and is constructed as murder. In the case of rape the ‘Familial Discourse’ can be invoked either to justify abortion or resist abortion, based on whether or not a family unit can be formed. These discourses reproduce patriarchy.