On a Thursday evening not so long ago I decided to stop by Woolies on the way home. I got off the train earlier, got some groceries, and undertook the walk from Claremont to my house in Harfield. I had underestimated the weather. It was howling with wind and I spent most of the journey […]
violence against women
Posted inNews/Politics
Let’s face it, we’re a nation of hypocrites
When we wear the right colour T-shirt and then forget to wear our activist hat when the girl on the street gets harassed. When we’ve been following the news with bated breath because we care about violence against women, but we really want to see if pretty boy goes to lock-up or goes home, or […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Reeva, Oscar and the media lens
It was on my daily two-hour commute to work, tweeting my regular #TaxiTales, that I came to learn of Reeva Steenkamp’s killing on Thursday morning. Still shell-shocked from the gruesome rape and murder of 17-year-old Anene Booysen just the week before, and only just starting to unpack the prevailing culture of rape and other forms […]
Posted inNews/Politics
One Billion Rising — South Africa
(Scroll through to hear the voices of women as they call for an end to violence against the feminine.) “In my mind we need to transcend the Cartesian mind/body dualism and bring back the pantheistic experience of the body with its sexuality and intellect indivisibly united — in a celebration that dances wildly in the […]
Posted inGeneral
Reclaiming the term ‘rape survivor’
There are times when silence is more eloquent and expressive than shouts of protest, or words spoken in the face of ignorance. The Silent Protest seeks to embody this silence in solidarity with rape survivors who, for whatever reason, are not able to speak out about the violence exerted on them and their bodies. The […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, News/Politics
Durex cocks it up on the eve of 16 Days
I received a forwarded horrific tweet moments ago. The tweet in question came from Durex SA, and went as follows: @DurexSA: Why did God give men penises? So they’d have at least one way to shut a woman up. #DurexJoke When I pointed out to them that this endorsed violence against women, their response was: […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, News/Politics
Metro police would rather police women’s sexuality than men’s violence
According to their Facebook Page “V-Girls is a global movement of girl activists inspired by I Am an Emotional Creature” — Eve Ensler’s latest collection of monologues for and about girls. The aim of the book, and of the movement is to inspire girls to take agency over their lives, and to encourage them to […]