Legislation offers little protection against people who stalk and harass women online
abuse
Posted inGeneral
Does anybody deserve an eternity in hell?
Katlego Maboe is the latest addition to the newest ‘untouchables’: celebrities who have gone from hero to zero in an instant. But how long should their banishment last, and is there space for redemption, asks Koos Kombuis
Posted inGender violence
Department of Women should support, not criticise women
Today a tweet was sent by the Department of Women. The question it asked was: ‘What should be done with women who press charges then later withdraw them?’ This very short blog post will unpack why that language is problematic, and does not, as the department later suggested, promote debate. It also provides some answers […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, General, News/Politics
Should we ban boys-only schools?
I’m often accused of making sweeping statements in my writing; as if one were always required to produce a table full of numbers and statistics to underpin one’s thoughts. On the contrary, theory is grounded in thinking – not just numbers and balance sheets and calculations. However, there is often an interesting intersection between what […]
Posted inGender violence
Relationships of violence: Why abuse counts
If you combine anger and power in a petri dish you often get violence and abuse. You can take it further and combine a history of male shame, violence as a means to end oppression, and outdated notions of masculinity and the results are pretty scary: you end up with a nation of angry men […]
Posted inGeneral
Maya Angelou’s death reminds us old people are not ‘a waste of space’
You can upgrade your phone, your television, your car and even your vagina (see: vaginoplasty). It is all about the “up-to-date”, the next best thing. We have become a world that needs it young, fresh and new. The passing of poet, activist and Maya Angelou brought to the forefront of people’s minds the wealth of […]
Posted inGender violence
Jay-Z has 100 problems and physical abuse is now one
The standing joke is that Jay-Z has 100 problems and Solange Knowles is definitely one. If you don’t know the story, the first family of music ended up in a southern-style brawl in an elevator at a prestigious event. Jay-Z caught a kicking and punching from his sister-in-law, Knowles the sister of queen bee, aka […]
Posted inGender violence, Media
I’ve had enough of Bullard. And so should you
In 2008, proud racist David Bullard was fired from the Sunday Times for a column wherein he denigrated black South Africans. In seems that, after the failure of his many legal matters against the Sunday Times and its owning company Avusa, Bullard found a new hobby. And that hobby is harassing and bullying rape survivors – and I get the special honour of being his target of choice.
Posted inGender violence, News/Politics
Fire on the mountain
To shout fire is an act of alarm demanding that everything we are doing at this moment is dropped and postponed because there is a real emergency that overrides all other considerations. The fire threatening us all is the failure of our African masculinity to answer so many of the questions that are being asked […]
Posted inGeneral
I abused my daughter
By Nina Mahlangu* I first took my daughter to counselling when she was five years old, I was 29. Before that I had been abusive towards her since she was six months old. At the time I was unemployed. The father didn’t want anything to do with his daughter since the pregnancy. My baby and […]