We will never deal with ugly social truths if we take legal standards as the only standards by which to judge situations, writes Eusebius McKaiser.
No one is legally guilty until a court of law has declared them to be guilty. So of course DJ Euphonik isn’t guilty of domestic violence against his former partner, Bonang Matheba, well-known radio host and television presenter.
But toxic public ignorance surfaced over the past few days as this couple’s past relationship woes were in the news again. Matheba had claimed that Euphonik had hit her and laid charges a few years ago. She later decided to withdraw the charges. What should we make of a woman who withdraws charges? This ignorant question was tweeted by the Department of Women.
It seems like some people refuse to think through the obvious ways in which our society disincentivises women to speak out when abused and to stay with the legal processes.
First, conviction rates in cases of violence against women are low. Criminal-law standards are rightly burdensome because if we are going to declare someone a criminal and lock them up, then we had better be sure beyond reasonable doubt that they committed the alleged crime. I’m glad it’s hard to prove.
But then we must be sensible enough to accept that the effect of this legal hurdle is that many women won’t rush to police stations to lay charges when they’re abused. The odds are against them. The criminal justice system isn’t friendly to women.
Second, even if a woman has the courage to press charges, the nature of our legal system results in further trauma. Your sexual history gets dragged out in public, and in adversarial cross-examination, your memory, motive and credibility get doubted and tested.
Again, it’s good that the legal system has such robust mechanisms for assessing the truthfulness of a witness. But the effect is obvious: this becomes an additional reason to withdraw from a case, knowing that the whole world are about to become voyeurs peering into the most intimate parts of your life. Why would you want to go through that when at any rate the chances of a conviction are low?
Of course, we’ve only listed two legal disincentives to stick it out in a domestic violence case. There are also social disincentives. No one wants to be known as a victim of abuse. The tag sticks even if you win the case. While support from many people helps, you now also have to go out into the world knowing that many people see you differently. You become “that woman”.
And powerful women like Matheba aren’t spared these horrors just because they’re not poor or uneducated. Abusers don’t discriminate on the basis of class or education. In fact I know of a number of “powerful women” who’ve put up with abuse because they’re ashamed to look weak in the eyes of everyone who has come to know them as a tough, successful woman slaying it in a sexist world. So all women – from the poor black lesbian in the township to a white corporate executive in Sandton – can be victims at the hands of us men.
Which brings us to what happened when Marie Claire decided to use Euphonik in its campaign that highlights the struggles of women. It was a stupid choice. Not because Euphonik is guilty. He is not.
Marie Claire, edited by a woman, ought to know the structural reasons that explain why cases are withdrawn. By saying you will bar someone from a campaign only if they’re found guilty in a court of law, you show callous disregard for the social context within which cases are withdrawn. It took public pressure before the magazine regretted its choice of featuring Euphonik. We will never deal with ugly social truths if we take legal standards as the only standards by which to judge situations.
I have sympathy for Euphonik feeling aggrieved that some people think he’s an abuser when the case was withdrawn. But I fully support all of the women who lambasted Marie Claire for reducing women to high-heel shoes and for showing no sensitivity to the structural nature of domestic violence that women endure daily.
And don’t get me started on the class insensitivity: the plight of poor women is clearly off their radar with a focus on male allies wearing stilettos. But let’s take baby steps: All men trolling Matheba for withdrawing the case should sit down. It would be more useful if we men spent social media time on a different question: “Why do we hate women so much?”
* Eusebius McKaiser is the best-selling author of A Bantu In My Bathroom and Could I Vote DA? A Voter’s Dilemma.
** The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of Independent Media.
The Star