I arrive at Fugard Annex 1 cradling a tumbler of red wine and find an empty seat on the second last row at the back. On stage is the host, Ferial Haffajee (editor of City Press), with her guest Maria Phalime, to talk about her memoir: Postmortem, The Doctor Who Walked Away. The room is […]
gender violence
Posted inGender violence, News/Politics
When the system betrays our children
This was supposed to be a weary and fairly snide thinkpiece lamenting the ridiculousness of having a Women’s Day, a Women’s Month, that is completely associated with pink and flowers and whatever other qualities are deemed appropriately womanly. (Apparently, this includes wearing a doek.) Instead, I was reminded once again that I live in a […]
Posted inGender violence, News/Politics
Budget votes revealing of state’s agenda
The annual budget speeches delivered by the finance minister provoke a bonanza of commentary and coverage — then the chatter falls silent. The budget speech is really an entrée that sketches the year ahead but does not provide the detail wherein the devil lurks. Flushing him out means paying attention to the departmental budget votes […]
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 You can take it further and combine a history of male shame, violence as a means to end oppression, and outdated notions of masculinity and the results are pretty scary: you end up with a nation of angry men […]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 inGender violence
The Cape Flats’ gangster women
By Dariusz Dziewanski Gangsterism on the Cape Flats is typically thought of a man’s game. But women have always played an important role in gangs — in the Western Cape and elsewhere in the world. Victimisation surveys estimate that 60% to 70% of serious violent crime on the Cape Peninsula may be gang-related. Authorities approximate […]
Posted inGender violence, News/Politics
The uncomfortable truth about white masculinity
Africa Check has published an article intimating that white women are more likely to die at the hands of their husbands, boyfriends and partners. This, and other research, directly challenges the notion of a “white genocide” carried out by “unknown black men”. Lisa Vetten, the researcher behind the article, along with journalist Nechama Brodie, Professor […]
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 inGender violence, News/Politics
The SAPS crime statistics – measuring what exactly?
It’s time for the Great Annual Bad Maths and Funny Logic Debate — you know, the one we have every year in which the SAPS tells us what a great job they’re doing combating crime and we all pick holes in their arguments in response. At one level there’s need of this, at another level […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, News/Politics
Why are (black) men silent on the war on queer bodies?
By Gcobani Qambela and Thoko Sipungu Toni Morrison says “evil has a blockbuster audience, goodness lurks backstage. Evil has vivid speech, goodness bites its tongue”. It is not difficult to remember these words when looking at the peculiar silence from heterosexual black men when it comes to issues of LGBTI and queer individuals. Writing for […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, News/Politics
We must treat women as equals: Response to Jessie Duarte on Vavi
Life is complex and therefore consciousness about life is caused by a myriad of issues internal and external to each person and society at a particular time. In this instance cause and effect do not sit in rigid anti-thesis one from the other. Therefore, presentation of things in a one-sided manner as Jessie Duarte did, […]
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 […]