Sexual Violence against Women in South Africa

Regular readers would know by now that feminism is somewhat of a whipping boy for me. This is part of why my knee-jerk reaction to the sophistry that rape in South Africa is perpetuated by the usual suspects of patriarchy, men's sexist attitudes and the terrible Protestant capitalist upbringing forced upon us - not to mention that age old scapegoat The Media and its photoshopped princesses - is one of disbelief.

How sexist am I? Apparently somewhere between male and female hostile sexists, but less benevolently sexist than most people who participated in the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory questionnaire.

In the nature-versus-nurture debate, I put more stock in sociobiology than in the products of society theory. Putting the knee-jerk behind me, I decided to suspend judgement and look at the data before I chop off my genitals and become a nun (or a none?). As before, regardless of what most people would have you believe about feminists and their hysteria, and regardless of what most of them rationalise lies behind the serious issues, we do have a serious problem on our hands in South Africa. We need to do something about the fear that women in South Africa live with - a realistic fear of violence and particularly rape.

How do we know that our culture produces rapists?

This statement - widely believed by feminists (their labelling, not mine) - assumes several initial points:

1. South African cultures condone or promote rape.
2. Rapists are mostly socially constructed. That is, a rapist is someone whose actions are instigated and controlled to such an extent by his cultural milieu that committing rape is somewhat of an inevitability.
3. The prevalent attitude of South African men is sexist
4. There is a link between this generally sexist attitude of men and our high incidence of rape.

Unlike what one would expect from a cultural milieu that socially constructs beasts of sexual violence, most men in South Africa are not rapists. This presents a problem to the analysis that we're merely suffering from a patriarchy hangover. Paradoxically, this fact does not fill me with joy because it means solving the problem is far more difficult than handing baby boys Barbie dolls and Cosmopolitan magazines to play with in their formative years.

 

If not for sexism, why do South African women live in fear?

I don't believe that sexism is appreciated or condoned by our culture. Of course, there are so many cultures in South Africa that such a statement - and the statement that our culture produces rapists - is essentially meaningless. I only have anecdotal evidence to go by, but believe me telling a girl to knit you a sweater and make you a sandwich will not win you many friends of either gender in my circles.

However, the high incidence of rape in South Africa is somewhat worsened by culture. In particular, there are some superstitious beliefs that hold having sex with a virgin will cure you from AIDS. There are also cases of corrective rape, designed to cure unfortunate lesbians of their preference for women. Most rapists are likely to be male and between the ages of 20 and 40. Furthermore, alcohol and spousal abuse are factors that make your chances of getting raped more.

 

Is rape a gender issue?

Of course such a statement is anathema to me. There is a difference between sex (broadly male, female and other) and gender. Gender is tied with particular social and cultural roles. Suffice to say I am not familiar with a cultural practice in South Africa that condones rape - bar the mentioned voodoo sangoma witchdoctor cures for AIDS and lesbianism. Also bar the lip service that some establishments like the church pay to condemning rape while their servants get caught in the act of child abuse a little too often to lend much weight to their official dogma.

Culturally, the official dogma is still that rape is something that is frowned upon - to say the least. Plus, many men are raped in prison too. However, for the most part, rape victims are female (of any gender) and rape perpetrators are men (who don't deserve their gender bits). I do not believe that we live in a culture whereby men's attitudes are mostly sexist. Of course such attitudes exist, but not disproportionately to the rest of the world. The rest of the world doesn't have a rape problem of our proportions, which again contrasts to the expected situation if rape were merely a result of anachronistic gender attitudes and bias. Furthermore, I couldn't find a study that measured the gender attitudes of South African men. The only stats I could find refer to rape victims and their terrible ordeals.

Whether you put stock in the whole patriarch equals rapist conjecture or not, the harsh reality is getting raped is not a realistic fear most men have to live with - not even in Cape Town's Pink Triangle. Even worse, most women in South Africa are living with a realistic fear that they could be raped. And yes, it does get worse: When women are raped, they are mostly too afraid and ashamed to report the crime to the authorities.

As ridiculous as most humanities subjects are to those of my Vulcan ilk, the concerns raised do not strike me as being ridiculous or based on hysteria. This judging by the testimony of those working in the field of sexual violence, dealing with rape victims on a daily basis, whether you buy into their ideology or not. 

 

What can we do to remedy the situation?

Even if rape in South Africa did result from our cultural milieu, fixing that requires a generation or two and it's impractical to construct a measure of the change or a measure of the results of such change. We would never know if we're socially constructing the right kinds of rape-free genders. We need something that we can do right now to make women feel safer in our society. While most men are not rapists, statistically, most of us should be familiar with a rapist. We cannot afford that rape is something other men do and we can do nothing about. Furthermore, most rape victims know their rapist fairly well. I think a good place to start is with ensuring that women who were raped are not afraid of reporting the crime and have some faith that they can talk to someone who will be able to help.

Another good place to start is to have a Designated Dave kind of character to help prevent rape. Just like Designated Dave takes care of the driving while you take care of the drinking, this character takes care of your drink when you go to the bathroom and generally ensures that whatever you get up to by means of sharing DNA samples is consensual.

What do you think?

Please feel free to leave me a comment so we can find a working solution. As someone who does not associate with feminism or any ideology except Incertitude, I would like to become familiar with working solutions. For the time being, the only such solution I have found is chemical castration.

Sources

I have linked to sources throughout the text. I did my best to sidestep the ideological landmines, but the best sources on rape I could find deserve another mention:

• Sexual Violence Research Initiative that focuses on the bigger picture of gathering data and the smaller picture of providing assistance to sexual violence victims.

• Understanding Prejudice, a site dedicated to the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory. This is a questionnaire (survey to you Merkins) designed to determine how much you hate sex. I mean, gender.
• Violence against women, a World Health Organisation study of 2011. Yes, not something from the Middle Ages I'm afraid.

Stop violence against women in South Africa

It is no secret that I have a pet hate for feminists. A bunch of women could have no equals in mastering hysteria. Some sources of my amusement for feminists are rooted in their irrational actions.

Learning your As, Bs and Cs

Feminists trashed bras to protest against beauty pageants. They saw brassieres as symbols of oppression. These 'instruments of torture' were interpreted as symbols of enforced femininity. This is irrational because the modern brassiere was invented, developed and patented by a woman. Mary Phelps Jacob, the mother of the melons, registered a patent for the first open back brassiere in 1910.


The first brassiere as we know it. You did this to yourselves, ladies!

Ida Rosenthal (with the reluctant help of her husband – yeah right, about as reluctant as Hugh Heffner to find a new Playmate) noticed that not all lumps of love where equal. Funny that no man is an island yet each person is as deep as the ocean and just as unequal. Ida devised a way for this instrument of torture to hug and cuddle each breast with the endearment it deserved by inventing a standard for different cup sizes.

Before Ida, men and women had a largely androgynous look. Strange how androgyny always comes about when we are about to embark on one of Toffler's ages. Ida is responsible for turning women from Boyishform Flappers into Maidenhood stunners who caused as many cases of blindness by poking as they did horse cart accidents.

Even the name bra was coined by women, for women. Mary registered the name, although the word brassiere is a French word which refers to military armour designed to protect the arms. I can fathom how a set of double Ds can protect your arms in combat – not just a fancy double barrel slingshot. I can also understand how waging a full scale carpet bombing invasion could be equated with the brave deed of motherhood. I wonder if you would then be permitted to call a French soldier without a bra unarmed? No wonder they couldn't take Russia.

Burning bras to rebel against enforced femininity is as rational as burning stav churches to protest against enforced Christianity. Besides, what would a male who had been circumcised right after birth burn or trash to protest against enforced masculinity? I have news for you, bra burning tomboys: you can trash a brassiere but foreskin does NOT grow back and no amount of calamari rings is going to replace that skullcap.

But I digress, as I often do when I start thinking about voluptuous breasts. This post is actually serious. I have no problem with admitting that I am a male chauvinist pig, but I also happen to have a streak of justice in me, so I had to get this off my chest.

Getting abreast of the topic

In a recent thoughtleader entry, Charlene Smith did a post entitled I've had it with men in this country. My reaction was: "Oh, here we go. Another day, another bra burnt". After reading the article – coupled with some forum discussions on the Zapiro cartoon and how serious portrayals of rape are – I was shocked.

The way I was raised implied that a real man was a tough guy who could battle the crocodiles on the muddy banks of the Limpopo river in order to procure leather for home made undies. Sure, this is a very traditional view of masculinity, but it is not only conquering. It is also very nurturing, because bravery and valour imply honour.

An honourable Rambo or Chuck Norris would never in his life even think about forcing a women into the position of Lady Justice as depicted in the recent Zapiro cartoon. Even if she does have a mullet. This is precisely why I was shocked to learn about the dishonourable attitudes and actions of the majority of South African men.

You should read Charlene's post for her take on things, but I did some research and found some more shocking statistics on the People Opposing Women Abuse (POWA) site:

• Every 26 seconds, a woman is raped in South Africa. Guys who treat women like masturbation aids should be kicked in the nuts, by guys bigger and tougher than them.


• 85% of South African rapes are gang rapes. Dude, not even animals do that. This is beyond bloody disgusting. That is someone's mother, someone's daughter, someone's sister! It could be YOURS!


• For every 4 women, 1 is in an abusive relationship. We're not talking emotional abuse here, we're talking wearing shades and telling your friends you fell over the dog kind of abuse. That's a quarter of our ladies. This has to stop.


• Less than 2% of reported rapes are false alarms, yet out of the reported 400 rapes in 2007, only 17 (?!?!?!?!?!?!) even made it to court. Of that 17, only 1 perpetrator was convicted.
  
  That means, of the 400 reported rapes, if 98% were legitimate, 1 out of 392 perpetrators was convicted. That's only 0,25%. And we wonder why most rapes don't get reported! Percentage wise, girls get more calories in rice cakes than the proportion of rape perpetrators getting convicted.


• In 1998, only 7% of the reported rapists were prosecuted. This, coupled with the recent rape case in which Jacob Zuma was acquitted, has seriously damaged the faith our ladies have in the system.

Not having faith in the system is alarming enough when you consider that the government is systematically disarming our citizenry and that political big shots are conveniently unlikely to get a fair trial. It is a much more grave scenario when women are left without the ability to defend themselves and the system which is in place in lieu of weapons is also inadequate.

Most rapes occur thanks to the aid of a knife. Now, to use a rock, paper, scissors analogy, knives are like paper and guns are like scissors. Knives are like rocks and guns are like paper. You could take out an 8 armed rock, paper, scissors champion and rapist with a gun.

While I know some girls who could drink me under the table and who could knock out Mike Tyson (I'd actually like to introduce Mike to them), let's face it: as far as averages go, women are the weaker sex. It is our responsibility as knuckle-dragging, beer guzzling, farting, sniffing, rugby watching Neanderthals to take care of women.

Chivalry does not get old. Don't let it die.

External links of shame

• Act against abuse, one of our government's better ideas.


• One in nine, showing solidarity with women who speak out.


• Women's Net, using technology to empower women.