Violence against women won’t be stopped with hollow political statements as if it is a passing phase, writes Tinyiko Maluleke.
If there was a World-Cup tournament for beating, stabbing, raping and murdering women – especially (ex)wives, (ex)girlfriends and women from one’s hood – South African men would qualify for the finals.
Admittedly, male violence is a global phenomenon. That is to say, most men are complicit, many are implicated and a huge number participate wilfully in the not-so-silent war against women.
Violence against women has been allowed to become so prevalent that we are variously tempted and actively groomed to consider it an inevitable and permanent “situation hopeless, but not serious” with due apologies to the makers of the ’60s comedy film of the same title.
The very language we use to describe the phenomenon betrays these debilitating tendencies. A fresh and recent example At its recent scheduled meeting, the ANC NEC added to its set agenda a “special presentation… on gender based violence with a particular focus on intimate partner femicide”.
Subsequently, in its official postNEC statement, the party expressed “grave concern at the recent spate of brutal killings of women and children”. Aren’t we all trying to outdo one another in expressions of “grave concern” these days?
While the NEC duly noted that “condemnation of such behaviour by society alone will not solve this problem”, it nevertheless went ahead and issued a hollow condemnatory statement. Worse still, the NEC seems to have bought into the spurious idea there is a “recent spate of brutal killings of women and children”.
How can an old and long-standing lowintensity war against women be portrayed by the ruling party nogal, as a “recent spate” – as if it was a random outbreak of some natural epidemic? Why is an evil practice with deep economic, political, historical and cultural roots be described as if it came out of the blue?
Have ANC NEC members forgotten about Anene Booysen who was raped, murdered and disembowelled by Johannes Kana? Have they forgotten Reeva Steenkamp killed by Oscar Pistorius, Rachel Tshabalala killed by her boyfriend Donald Sebolai, Nosipho Mandeleni shambokked to death by former ANCYL leader Patrick Wisani? Have they forgotten about Louisa Wynand who laid charges of sexual assault against Marius Fransman, Nomangezi Matokazi who laid charges of rape against Makhaya Ntini? Have they forgotten Noluvo Swelindawo who, in the dead of night, was dragged out of her home by more than 10 men and killed in cold blood, simply because she was a lesbian? Have they forgotten? Have they forgotten Khwezi?
The NEC statement also contains bizarre admonitions against the adoption of “the language of ‘weakness’ ‘vulnerability’ ‘protection’ and ‘women and children’” when referring to women. But the same statement is riddled with the same terminology and reeking with the very same sentiments. Makes you wonder whether this matter was central to the deliberations or merely a useful decoy.
Among other things, the “recent-spate-narrative” is a form of denialism that seeks to portray violence against women as an aberration that is rare, unusual, small-scale and recent. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Violence against women is a national crisis. The “recent-spate-narrative” is a patriarchal trope designed to trivialise and minimise so as to ensure the political, economic and cultural enablers of violence against women may proceed unimpeded. In fact, the “recent-spatenarrative” serves to keep patriarchy intact and to keep women “in their place” (of fear). Something else is remarkably unremarkable about this section of the NEC statement. It conveniently adopts the passive tense throughout.
Reference is made to “femicide, rape and child molestation”, but the statement does not pronounce, in any shape or form, as to who commits these atrocities.
The NEC statement says “our families must stop negotiating sexual cases and women themselves must stop withdrawing sexual cases” and women should “not seek economic refuge in abusive relationships”.
Lots of advice for women there! But not once does the statement address itself to men and not once does it provide any counsel to men. The statement waxes lyrical about a South Africa in which “a young woman in the middle of the night, can walk alone without the fear of assault, attack or rape, going back home from wherever she comes from”. Now, let us guess. Who is responsible for the assaulting, the attacking and the raping?
Notice how the NEC statement leaves the perpetrators of “assault, attack or rape” unmentioned and unidentified. Maybe the young women are frequently attacked by “persons of no particular identity and origins” because they are “weak”, love money and do not dress properly! Or is it because South African men are so hypersexed they cannot withstand the sight of beautiful young women walking alone at night? On the basis of this NEC statement you would think women and children manufacture, partake in and suffer gender-based violence completely and entirely by themselves.
Or maybe the violence they suffer is a random natural disaster. This is precisely why Pumla Dineo Gqola argues that: “Although we have massive evidence rape is a national sport, rapists themselves are often invisible in public discourse on how to end rape”.
After reading this NEC statement, one may be pardoned for thinking that violence against women is one more opportunity for a mega project for which a lucrative call for tenders may soon go out. What is to stop an ANC branch from spurning tenderable projects out of the seven or so tasks identified in the statement, for further exploration and implementation by branches?
The ongoing killings of women will end only once men begin to probe, not merely acknowledge, the extent of their complicity and participation – explicitly and implicitly, covertly and overtly, consciously and unconsciously. In all manner of ways, men have stubbornly refused to let go of their “benefits” of patriarchy and their need to ensure that harassment, rape and murder remain clear and present dangers for all women.
For this reason, men have ensured both the #MenAreTrash and #NotInMyName do not become crucial national conversations about the conduct of men. Instead many men have found a convenient albeit transparent refuge in the “not-all-men-aretrash” argument.
But if women daily observe and experience men behaving like trash, why should they not say so? Why should men behaving like trash or enabling trashy male behaviour be shielded from the anger of women? Would we rather have women killed than men shamed?
It has been argued by some that the #MenAreTrash campaign should be replaced by a more positively premised campaign aimed at both males and females. Positively premised campaign my foot! How many men have been raped, maimed and killed by the #MenAreTrash campaign?
Contrast that with millions of women who have been raped, maimed, killed, disembowelled and burnt. If you are a man like me, you should see yourself personally implicated in the statement that says, men are trash. Face up to your complicity and deal with the “benefits” that have accrued to you from the “dividends” allocated to you by patriarchy since birth. There is no better place to start, than with that man, who looks at you daily, from behind the framed mirror on your bedroom wall.
* Maluleke is a professor at the University of Pretoria and an extraordinary professor at the University of South Africa. He writes in his personal capacity. Twitter handle – @ProfTinyiko.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.