They hold their hands in their laps, those wearing skirts hold the fabric and/or their hands
to conceal groins. Girls also sit with touching knees bent up close to the chest, feet flat on
the floor and chin resting on knees. They wrap their arms around their bent legs, either
over the shin or between the calf and the thigh. Again, girls wearing skirts hold the fabric
and/or their hands to conceal groins. Where space will allow, girls sit with legs close
together and outstretched, leaning the upper body either forward over the legs or
backward resting on a straight arm with hand flat to the floor. Boys also sit with legs
crossed, bent up or outstretched. Bent knees are rarely touching, pulled up close to the
chest, or hugged. Outstretched legs lie apart. Boys also sit with one leg bent up and one
lying on the floor, outstretched if space will allow. Bent knees are used to rest forearms or
elbows. Boys often lean backwards and prop themselves up with braced arms. Boys at
the back of the hall recline further, leaning on one forearm flat to the floor with
outstretched legs crossed.
(fieldnotes)
This scene illustrates how the most mundane bodily practice - sitting - is constitutive of
multiple identities. That teachers stand or sit in chairs while students sit on the floor in
rows is a ritualised practice of bodily differentiation through which hierarchical
teacher/student, adult/child binaries are cited and inscribed (Butler 1997a and 1997b,
Derrida 1988). It is an occasion for the observation, classification and judgment of bodies
(Foucault 1991). While there is some overlap between the ways in which boys and girls
sit in this scene, it nevertheless demonstrates how this simple bodily activity cites and
inscribes multiple discourses of the sexed body. Overall, the girls sit in ways that
minimise the space taken up by their bodies. Their postures cite and inscribe a
discursively constituted heterosexual femininity in which the feminine body is small,
tidy, restrained, and deferential. A common feature of the girls’ varied ways of sitting is
the concealment of genitals. This is both a literal and a symbolic concealment: while girls
wearing short skirts „need’ to hold the fabric and carefully position their hands in order to
obscure a view of the underwear covering their genitals, the bodies of girls wearing long
skirts and trousers assume similar positions. Yet these acts of concealment, by signaling
the need for concealment, are also acts of symbolic display. This genital
concealment/display highlights a contradiction within the discursive constitution of
heterosexual femininity. That is, it cites and inscribes the requirement for the female-
feminine body to deny its desire, to take responsibility for the control and constraint of
the body in general and sex in particular. Simultaneously, however, it cites and inscribes
the requirement for the feminine body to display sexuality, to be the repository for the
body, sex, and desire. This is a double bind that is underscored by, cites, and inscribes the
dichotomy of the virgin/whore central to now secularized discourses of feminine
(hetero-)sexuality that can be traced back to Eve’s Fall (Brant & Purkiss, 1992). This
genital concealment also highlights a contradiction between heterosexual femininity and
student identity. The literal challenge is to be a student (child), that is, sit in a row on the