The backlash...quapissssssssssssh

I’ve made a mistake. How silly of me. Women’s abuse isn’t important. How naive of me — democracy is about equality, about sharing the rights granted in the Constitution. So of course women’s rights are no longer something to consider — I mean they’re already achieved in some pretty paper in some high office in Pretoria. What’s important now is men.

Do you know why women’s abuse isn’t important? Do you know why we should ignore startling statistics, women’s lived experiences, and the general situation of women in South Africa? Well, if you’re not sure, why not read a lovely blog that can help you to remember why! It’s because men are abused too. Shew — who knew?!?

If you can’t already hear it, I’ll tell you what to listen for. It is the long whipping sound of the backlash. Quaaaapissssssssssh. It’s a big old slap in the face to feminists and an attempt to tell them that their issues are no longer important, because men have them too. Oldest trick in the book, and one that we’re not going to fall for that easily.

Women are not weaker, more inferior or less powerful than men and are certainly no case for babying or patronising. Women are powerful incredible beings who carry the worlds on their shoulders and keep on going. This is exactly why feminism exists.

Talking about women in feminist terms is not an attempt to belittle them or present them as people who are unable to act on their own account. It is an attempt to encourage participation amongst all people to achieving lived equality of all groups.

If one group is held back by lived circumstances, so are all groups. Nobody thinks that a person who rips their ex off in a divorce is a shining example of what women should stand up to. Is it right to destroy a family — never. But just remember that the family destruction occurred before the divorce or there would not have been a cause for one. Furthermore, both parents/spouses are equally responsible for how they manage things afterwards — this is by no means a one-way street.

The backlash is not new. Yes, men in South Africa do suffer from abuse, particularly if they are poor. The bottom line is that I am a woman and my interests lie in achieving a lived condition for women that allows them to feel safe and to be safe. If men are worried about particular things, let them talk about them.

BUT, men’s issues are different from women’s issues. To say that they are the same is to completely ignore the specific position of women and is to reinforce their silence by leaving them with no place to speak, except from behind a man.

This is why I talk about women’s issues, and if you’re not man enough to deal with that then you need to ask yourself why.