Cape Town - Misogyny should be treated and viewed as a form of violence perpetrated against women, said feminist activist and Women’s Legal Centre director, Sehaam Samaai.
Samaai, was one of the panellists in the webinar “Confronting misogyny: Revealing prejudice against women in communities and institutions” hosted by Al-Ikhlaas Academia Library and Resource Centre on Saturday.
Misogyny can be described as the “hatred of, aversion to, or prejudice against women”.
Panellists unpacked how misogyny presented itself and touched on personal accounts of witnessing or being at the receiving end of misogynistic behaviour.
Samaai said: “Misogynistic hate speech is a form of violence and we need to be able to situate it in that particular context. Misogyny seeks to reinforce patriarchal control of women in different ways, which is instilling fear or even insecurity, threatening (women) or a form of degradation.”
“Very often, men are not aware that they’re acting in a misogynistic way and that religion was a major contributor to misogynistic behaviour,” she said.
“Women have been disproportionately discriminated against on a range of platforms and misogyny is one of those subtle knives that keeps patriarchy on its axis.”
Independent researcher Nwabisa Nadia Sigaba linked the roots of misogyny to white supremacy and racism.
She said that misogyny not only affected women at a personal level but intellectual and human resource capacity level.
Community activist and motivational speaker, Khadija Patel-Allie said misogyny has become such a norm within communities that it is overlooked.
“Even those (men) who see themselves as socially educated around women and women’s position; have not woken up to the reality of those nuances that touch women of all spheres of our community.”
Moderator Fatima Essop said despite South Africa having a highly progressive constitution that guarantees gender equality, the lived experiences of women in the country are vastly different.
Cape Argus