By Umeshree Govender
Some time back, while Facebook-crastinating in the lab, as one does, my friend, Stuart MacDonald sent me a link to an article on SlutWalk Toronto. My initial reaction to the Toronto police officer’s remark that “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised” was a rather defiant “Oh no he didn’t!” — complete with the head-shake, finger-click and lip-pout. Then, on a whim, I said to Stuart: “We should totally do one in Cape Town.”
So we did.
SlutWalk Cape Town, perhaps surprisingly, was not organised by an anti-rape organisation or a feminist group, but rather by three unwitting masters students: Umeshree Govender, Stuart MacDonald and Michael Clark, specialising in immunology, maths and law respectively. You probably couldn’t get any more random than that.
At the time of its inception, I could not have anticipated the heated national debate that this event would spark nor did I foresee all the criticisms, misquotes and assumptions about our intentions. And, of course, I definitely didn’t expect that I would have to be making formal statements to the media in response to inappropriate comments made by a certain minister. The three of us are what you would call “activists by accident”.
So, let me, once and for all, deal with the three recurring points of contention that have been raised by the event.
Point one. Is a “scantily-clad” women “asking for it”? If you took a quick glimpse at our Facebook page a week ago, it becomes evident that a startling number of men, and women, seemingly believe that the answer to that question is yes. However, from the hundreds of comments that I’ve had the displeasure of reading, I am yet to find any convincing argument against women declaring their right not to be sexually violated regardless of what they are wearing. “Asking” to be raped is an oxymoron. Nobody, and I mean nobody, asks to be raped. And don’t even get me started on what the exact definition of “dressing like a slut” is, lest I exclude the rapist with a fingertip fetish!
Moving on swiftly (before I further anger myself) to the second point of contention regarding the appropriateness of the name “SlutWalk” (recall “slut” was the exact word used by the now infamous police officer) for this campaign, I think Mvelase Peppetta’s article titled “Calling it Slutwalk has made it the success it is” summarises my stance perfectly. And to our many critics who said “I am anti-rape but I refuse to come and parade as a ‘slut’ ”, perhaps if you read the event description, you would see that we did not in any way enforce a dress code, the whole point was (and still is): what you wear is your prerogative.
The third and final point of contention is: what is the relevance of this Western movement in South Africa? To my dismay, this question was repeatedly asked, so much so that we held a panel discussion on the day preceding the march itself to debate it. But do I really need to ask what relevance a protest against the prevailing culture of victim-blaming has in South Africa? Do I really need to re-hash our president’s rape trial? Do I really have to mention that a woman is raped every 17 seconds in South Africa (that doesn’t even include the rape of men, children and babies)? Do I really need to quote statistics on corrective rape? Or refer to the well-publicised harassment of women who “dare” to wear a mini-skirt in a taxi rank?
Didn’t think so.
On Saturday, among the 2 000 ordinary men and women who showed up in solidarity with our cause, there were many rape survivors. One brave women in particular, who was wearing exactly what she wore the day she was raped, thanked us for “starting the dialogue” that she “prayed would bring about change”.
That brings me to goal one of SlutWalk: to start the dialogue that will hopefully result in a shift from the status quo of victim-blaming to one of rapist-blaming.
Tick.
However, this was not our only goal. The ultimate aim of SlutWalk Cape Town was to give the victims of sexual assault a sense of recapturing their power and to give them a voice.
I wish we had the time (and the word count) to rebut every anti-SlutWalk response that we’ve had but this is my last indulgence with such. For in the time that it took for me to read all the disparaging comments and write this response, I could have finished drafting that letter to the DA to thank the them for their attendance but also ask how we are going to deal with the rape crisis in the Western Cape and ensure that policemen receive rape survivors with support rather than judgment. To all the naysayers, imagine if you rather invested that same energy in sending a letter to our government to express concerns about our country’s alarming rape statistics? Or in discussing how we can solve the root problem, which is ultimately lack of education?
As I’ve said before, we can argue semantics until we’re blue in the face, but as we do so, our women are still being sexually violated and abused until they’re blue in theirs.
SlutWalk Johannesburg is taking place on September 24 2011. Click here for more information on this event.
Umeshree Govender is a full-time student, accidental activist and co-organiser of SlutWalk Cape Town. She does not want to be touched on her studio even if she has a mmm kind of a body.
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