Durban - Many parts of the world have erupted in protest against the
murder by police of black people.
In our country, another type of mass murder - of young, mostly of colour, women - just goes on and grows.
About a decade ago, I was in a queue to collect accreditation for an event with a young, black colleague. There were two queues (I can’t remember why), but while I waited in mine, she stood in another.
I noticed three or four young men approach her like they were long-lost friends. Big smiles and clutching her hand, really in her space. She was polite, but not effusive. I thought they could be fellow reporters whom I did not know. I thought they were really friendly.
When we rejoined each other and left the venue, I commented, saying she seemed to know many colleagues.
No, she told me. She didn’t know them, had never met them before, and they had all been hitting on her.
It infuriated me and I was impressed at how she had handled them with grace and dignity.
The conversation really opened my eyes, and went some way to explaining her aplomb: she did it every day, several times a day.
As just one indication of the continuous sexual threat, harassment and lack of respect women face in our country, all you have to do is study hooting on our streets and where it’s directed.
It happens everywhere; in suburbs and busy business districts. Look at a “hooter” and notice the surroundings and who is in the public space. Nine times out of 10, the hoots, followed by catcalls and shouted suggestions, are directed at women who are walking on the pavement, crossing a street, waiting to cross at a traffic light.
The hooters are men in delivery vehicles, buses, cars, taxis - they are everywhere. Women pedestrians and those on public transport are accosted by entitled men while going about their business. These women always have to have their guard up to try to stop it escalating to rape, violence and death. Many face the same dangerous challenge in their own homes and in relationships.
These men’s sense of entitlement and “right of ownership” of women is staggering and should outrage decent people, and it does, occasionally.
When pregnant 28-year-old Tshegofatso Pule was found stabbed and hanging in Gauteng.
When 19-year-old student Uyinene Mrwetyana was raped and murdered in the Western Cape by a post office worker.
When MUT student Zolile Khumalo was shot bead by her ex-boyfriend.
When Susan Rohde was murdered at the elite Spier Wine Estate by her husband Jason, who tried to make it look like a suicide.
When Reeva Steenkamp was murdered by Oscar Pistorius.
These and other high-profile cases briefly bring to public light the GBV issue. But there are too many that go unknown.
A decade ago, I learnt a bit about the extent of the disrespect, on a tiny, basic, level. GBV has been the subject of campaigns, “days”, political statements and panels, but a decade later, it goes on and on. It remains to be seen whether President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Wednesday night acknowledgement that GBV is a pandemic will have any effect.
#AllMenAreTrash is inaccurate. In spite of the onslaught against women, it is not all men. But all the good men must join the conversation and teach the hooters, the killers and rapists that Women’s Lives Matter.
- Slogrove is the news editor