It’s Sunday. I go to a mall to get some art supplies. It’s an ordinary mall, outdated even, with strange linoleum flooring and an assortment of second-hand stores and haberdasheries. It’s the type of mall your gran goes to for wool, or other assorted items needed when growing older. So imagine my surprise when I […]
Gender violence
Posted inEquality, Gender violence
Independent women
When I found out that I was pregnant I felt sorely close to falling into the trenches of a “black stereotype”. I already had no man and no job, all I needed was a Standard 8 qualification, a monthly government social grant, a mkhukhu (RDP house still pending), and I would have been well on […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence
Beyond the noise: Acting against rape
I am a panellist on SABC2’s Big Debate. The subject is violence against women and the discussions dense with the mismatch of ideas. A sample: Satanism stalks our schools. We live in a demoncrazy — not a democracy. Women who wear 3cm skirts abuse men. Patriarchy is deeply rooted in our lives and thinking. The […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence
On sexuality and freedom
“It is not enough to inquire into how women might become more fully represented in language and politics. Feminist critique ought also to understand how the category of ‘women’, the subject of feminism, is produced and restrained by the very structures of power through which emancipation is sought.” Judith Butler: Gender Trouble. At first read, […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence
Consent is king KK
NUMBER 1 — Transactional sex is not only really uncool, it is also really dangerous Kenny Kunene went on Noeleen last week with five of his 15 girlfriends (who he only likes to be under the age of 24). Multiple concurrent partners are, as we all should know by now (yet a certain Simply Red […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, News/Politics
Porn bad for the brain, bad for women
Jacques Rousseau’s article in the Mail & Guardian (March 22-27 2013) titled “The naked truth about porn on television” cannot go unchallenged. Rousseau is the chairperson of the Free Society Institute and defends the viewing of pornography on television. His intervention in the recent debate about whether we should allow pornography on television is clearly […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, News/Politics
Behind the shock and awe, the violence is ‘normal’
The murders of miners at Marikana by brutal state apparatus, the rape and murder of Anene Booysen by a group of men, and the killing of Reeva Steenkamp by her male lover have common threads. All three reflect a confluence of systems of violence that span centuries. Each is a product of past and prevailing […]
Posted inGender violence, News/Politics
A correct police response to domestic violence could save lives
Every eight hours in South Africa, a woman is murdered by her intimate partner. Three a day. At least. The Preamble of the Domestic Violence Act (DVA) states that victims of domestic violence are among the most vulnerable members of society. The DVA describes a variety of behaviours that can be classified as domestic violence […]
Posted inGender violence
Never tired enough to stop
I am tired of rape in South Africa. I am tired of thinking about it, reading about it, hearing about it. I am tired of the fact that last year more than 60 000 women (enough to fill the Greenpoint Stadium) reported a rape to the police, and hundreds of thousands more women were raped but […]
Posted inGender violence
Should we forgive Chris Brown?
On social media this week there has been some outrage at Chris Brown holding a concert in South Africa. In particular the outrage is that this event is taking place during the 16 Days of Activism to end violence against women[i], and that Chris Brown is a confessed perpetrator of domestic violence against pop artist, […]
Posted inBusiness, Gender violence
Banking on sexism
Earlier this year I told Standard Bank that they could stick their dishwasher where the sun doesn’t shine. The reason? It replicated 1950s sexism assuming that men in the family are breadwinners, sit around watching TV all day, and that the women in the family do all the cleaning. Accordingly men were given the opportunity […]
Posted inGender violence, News/Politics
How many sexual offence cases go to trial?
The annual crime stats present us with figures of how many people reported their crimes in the previous year. These can be incredibly hard to comprehend. It’s hard for me to imagine what 100 people look like, never mind thousands of people. So trying to imagine the 64 514 people who reported a sexual offence between […]