#RUReferenceList: 8 years later

April is weird. 8 years ago, I was having one of the worst experiences of my life. Today, I’m not being terrorised and gaslit by my university’s administration, nor having my faith in justice for sexual violence shattered. I’m in just in bed, resting.

I think there’s a survivor’s guilt in being here, or at least a desire to not abandon 2016-me, 2016-us. I try to let 2016-me know that I won’t abandon her or her cause, while also giving her the life she fought for/was crushed for fighting for.

I’m explaining to both of us that we must enjoy what can be enjoyed and that we don’t have to always return to the wound. The wound will not heal, but it doesn’t have to rule over us forever. Every one of us deserves to move on. Joy is not abandonment.

Mary Oliver advises, “If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be.”

We know the prolonged destruction that was #RhodesWar so intimately, we should get to know joy with equal fluency.

Review: the Female Fear Factory

Originally Published by New Frame

Pumla Dineo Gqola’s new book Female Fear Factory expands on a concept she coined in her award-winning Rape: A South African Nightmare. When Rape was released in 2015, I was an honours student at the university known as Rhodes in Makhanda. Within a year of its launch, I was in the midst of the #FeesMustFall and #RhodesMustFall movements as well as anti-rape protests on my campus. For the rest of that year I consulted the book closely as I tried to make sense of the collision of the anti-rape and anticolonialism movements around me. Its companionship served me well for the years that followed.

Rape laid the groundwork not only for Gqola’s new release, but also for much of the scholarship and thought on gendered violence that has emerged in South Africa in the past few years. The predecessor to Female Fear Factory distilled the interconnected histories of racial discrimination and sexual violence for me and now forms part of the foundation of my research as a feminist sexual violence scholar.

Fear factory

Gqola describes the Female Fear Factory as “a performance of patriarchal policing of and violence towards women and others cast female, who are therefore considered safe to violate”. Those subject to it are trained to fear for their safety and to take steps to protect themselves. But this is a fruitless form of protection based only on the adherence to gender norms. When these norms are transgressed, social punishments – such as shaming – and physical violence ensue. As such, the Female Fear Factory relies on performance. As she explains, the violence that upholds it must be showcased publicly, which not only affects the victim but also instils fear in any witnesses.

For Gqola, the “female” in Female Fear Factory refers to a process of subjugation based on binary gender norms rather than on biology. As she explains, the Female Fear Factory applies to all women, but also to people of other genders. “Women are not automatically female but are made so, in a process that leads to different genders being made female.”

The importance of the Female Fear Factory, both the concept and the book, is that it crystallises a reality with which many are familiar, but which lacked a clear and precise description. The Female Fear Factory is experienced every day, all the time. Its essence is captured in Koleka Putuma’s poem, Memoirs of A Slave & Queer Person from her collection Collective Amnesia, which reads:

I don’t want to die with my
hands up
or
legs open.

Gqola starts off Female Fear Factory by explaining the concept and diving into its components, explaining that she uses the term “factory” because this fear is “manufactured”. She then goes through the fictions that uphold the Female Fear Factory and lays bare the myriad ways it plays out by citing examples taken from countries spanning five continents.

Rethinking xenophobia

In the chapter Foreign Familiars, Gqola shows how xenophobic violence in South Africa is not fully understood. The violence, she contends, is often reduced to criminality or ignorance about the role other African countries played in South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle. But Gqola argues that this violence is predicated on intimacy and proximity rather than on the disconnection presumed to characterise dynamics between “citizen” and “foreigner”.

Drawing on Xoliswa Sithole’s documentary Martine and Thandeka, which is set during an eruption of xenophobic violence in 2008, Gqola uses the testimonies of the two women after whom the film is named to reveal a cross-section of the violence they face. This selection reframes our idea of who becomes a victim of this form of violence by disrupting the image within the public imagination of men attacking other men during xenophobic violence. Gqola also reads the women’s vulnerability as inseparable from their political identities as impoverished, migrant, Black women. In doing this, Gqola builds on the work of several scholars who have studied how citizenship and the state are formed, adding that the violence of nationalism, like other forms, plays out in the sphere of intimacy.

While reading Female Fear Factory, I resonated with Gqola’s line of thinking that positions foreignness as something “made”, rather than a static trait. While having lived in South Africa as a non-citizen for several years has made me familiar with the formal processes of migration, I have found that other people’s perceptions of me as a “foreigner” can be fluid, dependent on where I am, the languages I speak, my accent and an assemblage of other markers that feed into how foreignness is imagined to look.

In Foreign Familiars, Gqola’s analysis of xenophobic violence reveals the depth of the contradictions between citizenship status and vulnerability, as she explains that “the ‘foreigners’ prone to physical attack are very specifically located”. I was reminded of Tariro Ndoro’s poem Black Easter (Reflections) from her collection Agringada: Like a Gringa, Like a Foreigner, in which she addresses how xenophobic violence is sometimes minimised. 

“How bad can it be, really?
my cousin Farai made it his mission
to be the hardest thug on the street
so his neighbours wouldn’t target him
How did that work out?
it didn’t.”

Like Ndoro, what Gqola pinpoints in her work is how quickly one can go from being a neighbour to being rendered a “foreigner”. She also notes that the vulnerability to such violence is only applicable to people who do not carry certain privileges. Those, she writes, who are white, live in middle-class and affluent areas and/or hold North American or European passports are not subject to the treatment meted out against “African immigrants living among poor Black people”.

Crucial to the point Gqola is making here is the impact of proximity. As she writes, referencing Martine and Thandeka’s narratives, “It becomes clear that those who displaced them had specific knowledge about these women’s citizenship. It is intimate knowledge that created risk and enabled both women to be remade as ‘foreigner’ again and again.”

Gqola’s argument that foreignness is continuously and selectively made rather than being linked to citizenship parallels her conceptualisation of a “female” in the Female Fear Factory. “Female” and “foreigner” are significant not for who they are commonly understood to be, but for how they are produced, made and remade in an effort to reproduce the subjugation of particular bodies.

The dangers of intimacy

During the virtual launch of her book, Gqola spoke about the role of intimacy in the Female Fear Factory: “Intimacy is not a level playing field … We don’t think enough – outside feminist thinking – about how intimacy is a minefield of things.” Intimacy in itself does not, she added, collapse the power disparities between people in a relationship. She also observed how the myth of “stranger danger” persists, despite feminists illustrating how intimate spaces and relations – the home, the family and romantic relationships – are in fact the primary sites of violence. 

In one of the most insightful threads in the book, Gqola unearths the ways in which beliefs about romantic love are implicated in maintaining the Female Fear Factory and in furthering oppression. She argues that such beliefs uphold the myth that rapists and other abusers are strangers, when more often than not, intimate partners perpetrate such violence. Over several chapters, she weaves together a picture of how intimacy and violence are interlinked. We are conditioned, she writes, from early on to desire and participate in “patriarchal romance”. Women are taught to “desire domination” in which violence in relationships is distorted as “energising passion”. Gqola then charges patriarchal society with idealising and normalising abuse in heterosexual relationships, wherein it is portrayed as “commitment, real love or ‘going through a rough patch’”.

To keep themselves safe, women are expected to live by a set of rules. But Gqola’s insight makes it clear these rules don’t work. One of them is that as soon as violent men make us uncomfortable or abuse us, we must leave. Such a rule simplifies the context within which we live by failing to acknowledge how, because of the conditioning that sometimes renders romance indistinguishable from domination, abuse is not “always immediately recognised as such”. As women focus on changing their behaviour in pursuit of safety, the Female Fear Factory is upheld and continues to “exhaust and kill us”. 

Gqola’s focus on intimacy and power also speaks to my own research on consent and sexual violence. In Rape, she writes that the threat of rape is “aneffective way to remind women that they are not safe” and “leads to women curtailing their movement in a physical and psychological manner”. When I conducted my master’s research on sexual consent in 2017, I wanted to examine these constraints to understand how they affect Black women’s sexual, intimate relationships.

One of the insights I remember from my fieldwork interviews came from speaking to a woman about unwanted sex. She told me about a situation in which she had consented to having sex with a man not because she wanted to but because she thought refusing might compromise her ability to get home safely. When I asked her – although I already knew – what she was afraid would happen if she refused, she recounted stories of friends who had been chased or left in precarious situations by men with whom they had refused to have sex. So, on that particular night, having been mugged a few weeks prior, she did not want to walk home alone at night. As we both knew, because of what Gqola describes as our “fluency” in the Female Fear Factory, her options were limited by the ever-looming threat of harm.

As we continued our conversation, we also spoke about romantic relationships and what consent looked like within them. She spoke to me about how being in a romantic relationship came with spoken and unspoken pressures to have sex with one’s partner. Of her own relationship, she spoke of the “burden” of this, which was tied to a fear of losing the relationship or being cheated on. Even when it is not centred on physical harm, fear can govern our intimate lives.

The interviews I conducted as part of my research affirmed my intuition about the promotion of sexual consent within anti-rape advocacy. As an activist, sexual consent was the go-to response to fighting sexual violence. But my experiences began to show that it was not the panacea it was made out to be. Through my research, I was able to articulate why: the framing of sexual consent tended to reduce the complexity of intimacy to a matter of being able to say “yes” or “no” to sex. But this did not take into account the power inequalities in the environment in which these decisions were made.

Gqola’s argument about inequality within intimacy shows, as I found, that the popular framing of sexual consent was inadequate as long as it did not take into account structural factors such as the economic marginalisation of women or social incentives, including the affirmation of one’s womanhood through securing romantic love. In Female Fear Factory, intimacy is a stage upon which contestations of power play out.

On masculinity

In Female Fear Factory, Gqola disputes the claim that the type of toxic masculinity displayed in xenophobic violence in South Africa is the opposite of “celebrated postapartheid masculinities”. Rather, she argues that such masculinities are the apex of aspirational nationalism, forming what she calls “aspirational masculinity”. In the postapartheid nation, the aspirational subject is a corporate figure “who sees Africa as an untapped market ready for his development, mining and exploration”. This aspirational masculinity feeds into the larger trend of South Africa positioning itself as “exceptional” and superior to the rest of the continent. The masculinism of xenophobic violence is not an anomaly. Rather, Gqola argues that “the young violent men who are the face of xenophobic South Africa are performing with their bodies what South African business and the South African state routinely performs through money and visa requirements”.

This line of thought is reminiscent of another of Gqola’s arguments. In Rape, she made clear the link between the history of colonialism and apartheid and the phenomenon of rape in the present. She references Ania Loomba’s research, explaining how European colonialism replicated itself through rape. Loomba writes, “The coloniser was represented as rapist and the ‘discovered/conquered’ land as a naked woman.” Gqola adds that, through this, “we see that the empire imagines itself as rapist of land and people”. The parallel here is between how South African corporate capital frames the rest of the continent and how perpetrators of physical xenophobic violence imagine those they render foreign. In this way, Gqola’s body of work captures how the logic of colonialism makes itself manifest through patriarchy, capitalism and xenophobia. In each case, the dominant party construes the oppressed party as inferior and then enacts violence against the latter to maintain domination.

Masculinities scholar Gcobani Qambela’s recent research also teases out specific masculinities in South Africa. Drawing on his case study of Peddie, a small town in the Eastern Cape, Qambela writes back to conceptions of Xhosa masculinity that figure initiation as the primary route to affirming one’s manhood. Instead, taking into consideration unemployment and other socioeconomic problems facing men in Peddie, Qambela shows that men who had not undergone initiation could obtain social status through their economic class “in ways that sometimes superseded men who had undergone initiation”. The value of dynamic approaches to understanding gender, which conceive of masculinities as fluid and heterogeneous, is reiterated in this rich analysis.

Qambela and Gqola’s work both demonstrate that while toxic masculinities are understood to be at the root of patriarchal violence, to understand its complex workings, we have to critique how gender and other axes of power such as class and nationality operate and shift. Such an analysis can still highlight the specific forms of masculinity that contribute to gendered violence. In Female Fear Factory, Gqola references a campaign in India that carried the message “Protect your daughter” as a response to gender-based violence. Gqola criticises this kind of message as “legitimising a protectionist, infantilising masculinity”, which echoes responses to advocacy against gender-based violence that appeals to men by urging them to protect “their” women. Messages like these, Gqola notes, only reinforce the Female Fear Factory as they fail to address violence at its source.

A seasoned cultural critic, Gqola honours multiple mediums of knowledge in Female Fear Factory, drawing from documentaries, fiction, media reports, essays and academic texts. In the preface and at the end of the book, where she is more reflective than in other parts, Gqola is optimistic about the possibilities of unmaking patriarchy’s brutality and “refusing the prison of fear”.

Throughout the book, she carries feminist hope and remains instructive about the need to explode the mechanisms of female fear. In this she is unshakeable, and through Gqola’s personal reflections on the Female Fear Factory, the reader sees its roots in her decades of anti-rape advocacy work.

Overall, Female Fear Factory is able to stand on its own merit. What Gqola is able to achieve with it is a demonstration of the nature of patriarchal violence and some of its ramifications. The result is an invitation for engagement. Female Fear Factory has plenty for others to build on and reconceptualise, the fruits of which I look forward to seeing in the years to come.

We were innocent all along: #RUReferenceList & #Chapter212 6 years later

6 years ago, the lives of me and those of a lot of the people – strangers and kin alike – changed. When I think of everything that has happened since that day, what really stands out is how I can see myself for who I was, with the distance that a bit of age has provided. I see myself and all of us who were involved, as being so very young, something that I appreciate because these days, I enjoy the fruits of how I have matured. With that concept of youth, I also see my naivety, courage, desperation, agency and powerlessness. As I process these thoughts out loud, a most beloved friend helps me notice how my perceptions of/ thoughts on age resurface constantly in how I see and speak about the past and the present. It is striking. 

As I reflect on the past 6 years and beyond, a sentence floats in and out of my head. It is one I heard in a interview series I like watching: “She was innocent all along”. The speaker says these words to describe her mother, as she reflects on the difficulty of their relationship. It is a contemplation that seems, like much of mine, enabled by age. 

We were innocent all along. 

With Yolanda Dyantyi’s court cases being the most prominent of the repercussions of #RUReferenceList, I think about how she has been criminalized by Rhodes. And due to the intimacy I know a lot of us have with #RUReferenceList as an event, as she fought the university, I have often seen her as a representation of all of us. I have read a lot of the statements Rhodes has written about her and her case and thought about how strongly they ephasise criminality, their most recent conjuring being something about the need to protect society from “the reign of the law of the jungle” (???! Bathong !???). In their narrative, Yolanda, and by extension, all of us who were in solidarity in those fateful moments, are never innocent. 

To be innocent in the eyes of the university/any colonial institution – to be worthy of being spared of the kind of cruel retribution the expelled students faced – is not possible for us. It is not possible precisely because the roots of colonialism in that and many other institutions are strong and in such places, the definition of innocence is distorted for the sake of holding onto power. 

We – angry, hurting, black, queer, fallist, woman, non-binary, femme – could never have been innocent in a place like that. We stood against rape, which, as Prof. Pumla Gqola has outlined, is a founding element of colonial conquest and colonial order. But even outside of what we stood against, the presence of our bodies was always a stain against the backdrop of what institutions like universities were originally set out to be. That we were there had never meant that we were accepted. We knew or would come to know that our presence was merely tolerated. We were there because of concessions made, concessions of power forced through decades of resistance that eventually made it impossible to claim legitimacy in the political order without letting us in. 

#RUReferenceList is one of the most messy things I have ever witnessed. There are no easy answers to anything. And yet, today I reclaim our innocence as ours, as valid and as everpresent. 

When I say we were innocent , I mean it not in the sense that everything that happened was permissible and justified and unquestionable. Rather, I mean that, those of us who have been scrutinized for our actions, faced the weight of accusations of criminality and causing harm, had our lives upended radically or have been changed by witnessing all of this happen to those we care for, never deserved this. 

We are innocent in that we never deserved to have to grapple with the questions we’ve had to grapple with. To have to fight the things we fought against. To have had to fight for the things we fought for. To have lost sleep over any of this (losing sleep being maybe the most miniscule of what was lost).  

We never should have been violated. And then had to fight for our violations to be recognized as such. And then been dismissed and invalidated and retaliated against. All of that never should have happened. And within that, the people who drove much of this cruelty, those who in comparison had very little to lose, have not had their ‘innocence’ and their neutrality and their intent questioned enough. The press releases, disciplinary hearings and other manners of inquiry into our innocence/blameworthiness should have rather been turned inward by the custodians of the place we questioned. They should have been (and should still be) asked, until they answer and account, why what happened happened. They should bear the brunt of the heaviest questions and questioning that came out of #Chapter212 and #RUReferenceList.

We were innocent all along.  

The limits of sexual consent

based on a presentation for Unsettling Knowledges about Gendered and Sexual Violence Symposium, University of Cape Town, 10 November 2021

In this paper, I will be discussing consent as a concept and its implications on sexual violence research. In my presentation, I will be drawing on what I learned from my Master’s research project, which focused on Black women’s experiences of sexual consent, sex and sexual violence. In my fieldwork, I interviewed eight Black women, aged between 19 and 36 at Wits University. In addition to sex and sexual violence, the interviews covered issues such as gender, sexuality and romantic relationships. This presentation is based on the literature review and methodology sections of my thesis (see references).

Motivation

My focus on sexual consent was inspired by a constructive disagreement I had with something Professor Pumla Gqola said. In 2016, I attended a talk she gave about rape culture, where she said,

“We need to stop talking of ‘consensual sex’. It has to be agreed to and wanted in order to be sex….’Consensual sex’ suggests that there are two types of sex: consensual and non-consensual.” (5 August 2016) 

When I conducted my literature review for my research, I came to understand where this line of thinking came from. One of the important political moves feminists have made in sexual violence research and activism is to challenge  the idea that rape is a form of sex. This emphasis of a separation between sex and sexual violence occurs in a context where experiences of sexual violence are often mischaracterized as undesirable but still permissible experiences of “inappropriate” sex (Gqola, 2015, p.144). The idea that rape is a form of sex is used to invalidate people’s experiences of rape and contributes to victim blaming. 

Despite understanding this, my discomfort remained. I didn’t believe there distinction between sex and rape could be so easily made.  In my research, I found scholar Lynn Phillips (2000), best articulated the reasons behind my discomfort, writing, 

“Very often, those who advocate for women’s sexual safety and equality are required to defend sharp lines and make unambiguous arguments—such as “No means no” and “Rape isn’t about sex, it’s about violence”—in order to debunk victim blaming myths and defend women’s rights and safety. “(p. 14) 

Phillips writes that whilst these types of clear-cut statements are important in discussions about violence, women’s experience tend to “defy the very straightforward arguments many feminists have worked so hard to promote” (2000, p.14). 

In her research, where she analyses young women’s hetero-sexual relationships, Phillips found that for many of her research participants, “rape is about sex, as well as about violence” (emphasis hers) (2000, p.14). Given this, I found, in order to understand people’s experiences of sexual violence, it could be useful to let go of the distinction often made between sex and sexual violence. 

Consent – distinguishing between sex and sexual violence 

There are several ways in which consent features in sexual violence research. In one prominent school of thought, consent is the distinguishing factor between, sex and sexual violence. This extends to how we define sexual offences within the law. 

Problems with the consent concept 

The difficulty I found in my literature review is that consent, as a concept, presents several problems if adopted in within research and the law. The main problem is that while many scholars rely on consent to distinguish between sex and sexual violence, there is no consensus on how to define consent. 

In the most comprehensive account of this, Humphreys et al (2016) identified 3 ways of defining consent:

• The first is as an internal state of willingness. 
• The second is as an act of explicit agreement to something
• The third defines consent as behaviour that someone else interprets as willingness (Humphreys et al, 2016,  p. 462). 

With each of these, the researchers identified shortcomings. With the first definition, for instance, a huge problem is that “others’ internal states are private and unknowable”(Humphreys et al, 2016). This definition would complicate attempts to create legislation around sexual offences, because as the authors note, legislation needs to “be framed around behaviour” (2016, p. 462). In the second definition of consent, a key limitation is that many people prefer to use nonverbal cues during sexual interactions and further, what counts as “explicit agreement” can be debated (Beres, 2014; Humphreys et al, 2016: Obioha & Sunday, 2016). With the third definition, the obvious problem and danger which emerges is that interpretation can be extremely unreliable (Humphreys et al., 2016, p. 463). 

Enthusiastic consent

One development within this discourse has been to advocate for enthusiastic consent – a  version of consent where only an enthusiastic yes counts as consent. This was intended to broaden the discussion on rape beyond the slogan “No means no and in doing so, to take emphasis away from whether or how rape victims may have resisted. Such a model of consent is important in that it goes against the idea that a legitimate “rape victim is one who puts up the utmost resistance.” (Mills, 2010). It takes into consideration agreement made under the influence of pressure or coercion. 

Although this model has enriched the literature, it also has definitional issues: for instance, it is unclear how much coercion or duress is “required to render consent” illegitimate (Humphreys et al, 2016). This complicates the potential for enthusiastic consent to be used in legislation because some forms of sexual coercion can be extremely subtle. 

Social norms vs Legal definitions 

Another finding in previous research was that legal definitions differed from how people understood their experiences. So while people might understand consent as “a minimum standard for acceptable or non-criminal sex”, they tend to have a much more complex understanding about how willingness to have sex is expressed and communicated (Beres, 2014, p. 382). In addition, experiences of sexual coercion by intimate partners are often normalized and not viewed as criminal, whilst coercion by strangers or non-intimate partners is “more likely to be considered rape” (Buikema et al, 2016, p. 142). This may mean that legal definitions defining sexual offences may not necessarily be socially agreed upon or reflect how individuals interpret consent (Buikema et al 2016, p. 146). Thus, while legal definitions of sexual violence are powerful, they are still these limited. 

The conflation of desire and consent

As I read further, I came to another problem with consent as a concept: the assumption that consent – which will for the rest of the discussion be defined as agreement to sex – always correlates neatly with desire for sex. This revealed a binary view, where sex is seen “as either wanted or unwanted” (Humphreys et al. 2016, p. 463). As Humphreys et al argued, a binary view of sex is flawed in that it does not leave room for ambivalence, or for situation where consent is “dependent/contingent on something” ( 2016, p. 464). Going deeper into this issue, researchers Muehlenhard and Peterson suggest that it is useful to separate desire/wanting a sex act from consenting to that act (2007, p. 73). In this, they highlight that using the binary view of consent and sex limits our research. ‘

From these authors, I learned that within what they call the “wanting-consenting conflation, the assumption is that all consensual sex is presumed to be desired, eliminating the possibility that sex which is agreed to/consented to, could be unwanted. It also leaves out the possibility of nonconsensual sex being wanted, which researchers have found to be congruent with some people’s experiences. These ideas open up the possibility of reframing how we understand people’s experiences of sex and sexual violence. Such scholarship spoke to my initial discomfort with Gqola’s argument that consensual sex or ‘sex’, by definition, is always wanted/desired.

Unwanted, consensual sex or in Gavey’s theory, unjust sex

I focused on undoing this assumption/argument through my research design. In my interviews, I asked participants the question “Have you ever consented to sex you did not want?”

This framing borrowed from other researchers, such as the authors mentioned above as well as Nicola Gavey, Ann Cahill and Robin West. Gavey, for instance, had done prior research where she interviewed women about unwanted, consensual sex, and coined such experiences “unjust sex”. For Gavey, unjust sex could contain a range of experiences, including:

“situations in which a man applied pressure that fell short of actual or threatened physical force, but which the woman felt unable to resist, as well as encounters where a man was rough and brutish, and the woman described letting sex happen because she felt unable to stop it. They also include stories of situations where a male partner was not directly coercive at all, but where the woman nevertheless found herself going along with sex that was neither desired nor enjoyed because she did not feel it was her right to stop it or because she did not know how to refuse.” (Gavey, 2005, p. 136 in Cahill, 2014). 

Following Gavey’s research findings, what emerged from my research interviews pointed to a spectrum of experiences, all of which were unwanted, consensual (agreed to) sex. In my participant’s words, they described these experiences differently, some of them referring to the experiences as sex, coerced sex, and on fewer occasions, sexual assault and rape. Framing my questions the way I did took into account that focusing only on the labels “rape” or “sexual assault” may lead to the exclusion of some experiences which had harmed the women I spoke to. Using the concept of ‘unwanted sex’ was useful in that it could be used to describe both consensual and nonconsensual experiences.

Consistent with the theories I read about ‘the wanted-consenting’ conflation, my research interviews revealed that there are multiple elements of desire at play when it comes to sex, and sometimes those desires are incongruent or varying (Muehlenhard and Peterson, 2007, p. 73). (For more on this, refer to the section of my research report titled ‘Catching Feels’). Given this, my research supported scholars who insisted that consent/agreement and desire for sex should be theorized “as distinct concepts that sometimes correspond to each other but sometimes do not” (Humphreys et al. 2016, p. 463). 

In addition, part of my methodology was to avoid seeking out to label my research participants’ experiences, as has been done by other researchers. Several of the sources I consulted in my research process noted how researchers had imposed the term ‘unacknowledged rape victims’ onto research participants. This term is used to refer to anyone who describes having experienced rape according to legal definitions, but does not describe the experience using that phrase. In ‘unacknowledged rape victim’ narratives within rape research, women who do not label their experience as rape have been perceived as victim blaming themselves or not understanding rape definitions (Harris, 2011). This approach has been criticised for being condescending, and privileging the perspective of the researcher over the people who were interviewed (Johnstone, 2016, p.276). Thus, in allowing participants to define their own experiences, and sitting with the discomfort that may exist when someone describes having experienced unwanted sex, my research led me to understand better how people make sense of their own experiences. 

Conclusion

Consent models can account for some harmful sexual experiences, but due to the way consent models conflate desire for sex and agreement to sex, there are some experiences which are consensual but unwanted, which go under the radar in our discussions of sex and sexual violence. Thus, continuing to rely on consent models to understand sexual violence will likely only reinforce the conflation of harmless sexual interactions with consensual sexual experiences.

Overall, this moving away from the idea that consensual sex is always wanted made room for ambiguous experiences – those falling in the in-between space of what is considered rape and what is considered sex – to be documented. It allowed me to turn to instances of confusion and ambiguity as sites of knowledge, rather than relying on binary ideas s of sex and sexual violence. 

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See my references below. Feel free to contact me if you’d like access to the journal articles.

Beres, M., 2014. Rethinking the concept of consent for anti-sexual violence activism and education. Feminism and Psychology, 24(3), pp. 373-389.

Buikema, R., Cooper, D. & Stern, E., 2016. South African women’s conceptualizations of and responses to sexual coercion in relation to hegemonic masculinities. Global public health, 11(1), pp. 135-152.

Chengeta, G., 2018. An exploration of black women students’ sexual experiences (Master’s dissertation). https://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/26500

Cahill, A. J., 2014. Recognition, Desire, and Unjust Sex. Hypatia, 29(2), pp. 303-320.

Cahill, A.J., 2016. Unjust Sex vs Rape. Hypatia, 31 (4), pp.746-761.

Gavey, N., 1999. I wasn’t raped, but….. In: S. Lamb, ed. New Versions of Victims: Feminist Struggle with the Concept. New York: NYU Press, pp. 57-81.

Gavey, N., 2005. Just sex?: The cultural scaffolding of rape. 1 ed. Brighton: Routledge.

Gqola, P., 2015. Rape: A South African Nightmare. 1 ed. Johannesburg: MF Books.

Gqola, P., 2016. Rape is violence, not a form of sex. Grahamstown: #WeBelieveYou campaign, Rhodes University.

Harris, K. L., 2011. The Next Problem With No Name: The Politics and Pragmatics of the Word Rape. Women’s Studies in Communication, 34(1), pp. 42-63.

Humphreys, T. P., Jozkowski, K. N., Muelenhard, C. L. & Peterson, Z. D., 2016. The complexities of sexual consent among college students: a conceptual and empirical review. The journal of sex research, 53(4-5), pp. 457-487.

Johnstone, D. J., 2016. A listening guide analysis of women’s experiencs of uncknowledged rape. Psychology of women quarterly, 40(2), pp. 275-289.

Mills, S., 2010. Consent and Coercion in the Law of Rape in South Africa. Canadian Woman Studies, 28(1), pp. 81-89.

Muehlenhard, C. & Peterson, Z., 2007. Conceptualizing the“Wantedness” of Women’s Consensual and Nonconsensual Sexual Experiences: Implications for How Women Label Their Experiences With Rape. Journal of Sex Research, 44(1), pp. 72-88.

Obioha, E. E & Sunday, E. A. , 2016. Partner communication and decision-making regarding sexual issues among students in a South African University. Corvinus Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 7(2), pp. 103-124.

Phillips, L., 2000. Flirting with Danger: Young women’s reflections on sexuality. 1 ed. New York : New York University Press.

West, R., 2002. The Harms Of Consensual Sex. In: The Philosophy of Sex: Contemporary Readings. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, pp. 317-322.

#JusticeForZinedine reveals how Botswana institutions fail victims of sexual violence

TW: Sexual violence, rape, date rape, victim-blaming, police

Just seven days into 2019, Zinedine Gioia sparked a social media wildfire, when she went public about being drugged and raped by a former friend. Gioia reported the rape to the police the next day, but said nothing had come of it, even five months later. In a change.org petition, she lobbied for the Botswana government to take her case against the accused man – who she named on social media – to trial. Prominent figures such as Sasa Klaas and Emma Wareus were quick to show their support to Gioia, and within hours, the petition had garnered thousands of signatures.

https://twitter.com/Emma_Wareus/status/1082432665800900613

Feminists on Twitter were especially active in pushing the hashtag #JusticeForZinedine, as they decried the widespread silence and complicity around rape culture in Botswana. As an offshoot of the campaign, several women detailed their own experiences with the accused (hence the hashtag #JusticeForThemAll), whilst many others disclosed their experiences of sexual violence perpetrated by men recognized in Gaborone’s social circles.

Reporting for Justice: The necessity of writing against the grain of rape culture

Since Zinedine’s petition was created, the #JusticeForZinedine campaign has been covered by several media outlets. Some have used the campaign’s momentum positively, opening up discussions on rape culture in Botswana, highlighting the usefulness of social media advocacy, and questioning why men rape. Other coverage, however, exemplified how media institutions fail to do justice to victims of sexual violence.

In The Midweek Sun, I was initially pleased to see coverage of an incident where a woman was raped by another woman. This, I thought, would start to push the conversation forward: bringing to light that women can also perpetrate sexual harm. Whilst this article itself seemed progressive, I was quickly led to question the editorial team’s commitment to countering rape culture, when I read a section of the paper called “Under the sun”. Here, an unknown author was given license to recklessly undo a lot of the important messaging that had surfaced during the #JusticeForZinedine campaign. In a gossipy tone, the author referred to the broad impact of Zinedine’s disclosure, reverting back to all the harmful stereotypes in the book: that men should be fearful, that women “cry rape”, that claiming to have been raped was “fashionable”, and that many who claimed to have been raped were merely regretful about consensual sex or seeking revenge after being rejected. The fact that, in the year 2019, the editor of a national newspaper approved and published this is nothing short of deplorable. It would not even qualify as edgy commentary, if that was the aim, because all of those victim-blaming stereotypes are played out. To publish such toxicity suggests to me that the people at the helm of our publications either do not understand the power of their platforms or do not take their responsibility (or their readers) seriously.

Me, reading the paper like:

Generally, the language used by some journalists/columnists left much to be desired. For one, there was Sunday Standard’s headline, “Wave of Rape Cases Has Batswana Women’s Knickers In A Twist”, which betrayed an otherwise appropriately written article. The phrase getting your “knickers in a twist” means to be upset but is usually used mockingly, to imply the aggrieved party is unreasonable. This use of language here is especially harmful given the subject matter, as women’s reports of rape are often dismissed as overreactions or framed as hysterical misunderstandings on the victim’s part.

I also recall another article, which was in support of Gioia, where the author said Zinedine took to social media to detail “the violence and injustice she believes herself to have suffered” (emphasis mine). This use of passive language was disappointing; framing the “violence and injustice” as Zinedine’s belief, rather than as her reality. It may seem pedantic to point out such a small part of an article, but we have to remember that in our social climate, believing rape survivors is a vital part of supporting them. In that process, the language we use is part of the action we take. Language matters, so the media need to be clear and bold with their words. Editors and sub-editors, in particular, need to be more critical when it comes to this kind of reporting. In both of the examples I’ve given, quick, sharp editorial intervention could have helped to communicate a firm stance in support of the victim.

For victims who consider naming and shaming/is law enforcement enuf?

A second issue highlighted through Gioia’s case is the failure of law enforcement, which translates to a scarcity of justice in cases of sexual violence. According to Gioia, when she reported the rape to the police, she was told that, because she “was drugged and had no clear story… it was unlikely he would be charged”. On top of this, Gioia says that the forensic evidence collected when she laid her complaint went missing.

The failure of law enforcement is central to understanding the necessity of Zinedine’s decision to name and shame the accused. When rape victims are believed, which sometimes happens when certain kinds of sexual violence cases make the headlines, society seems to acknowledge that rape is a scourge, and that the rates of sexual violence are too high. Unfortunately, society struggles to keep that same energy when a woman publicly names and shames her perpetrator/abuser. In such situations, a loud chorus of “the law must take its course” emerges, followed by spirited campaigns to “protect the rights” of the accused all.

Our collective trust in the failing/failed justice system means that victims of sexual violence are often expected to have reported their cases to the police before they can be believed. The frequent calls for victims to report rape completely ignore that there are valid reasons not to do so. Not only are rape cases difficult to prosecute, but victims are too often treated insensitively by the police. As The Botswana Gazette reported, even when successful, the whole process of seeking legal recourse can take years. For some, the cost of being re-traumatized is too high a price to pay.

Before we can insist that people report rape, we need to ensure that the police are adequately trained to handle such reports. At the moment, evidence suggests this is not the case. Recently, the Botswana Police Service noted an alarming increase in cases of rape, particularly date rape, after recording 109 cases in a matter of weeks. In a Mmegi newspaper report, the Botswana Police Service’s public relations officer, superintendent Jayson Chabota was quoted saying, “Women should know that being in the company of a stranger at night or walking alone at night puts them in danger as they are vulnerable.” What makes this sort of victim-blaming advice even more bizarre is that in the same interview, Chabota acknowledges that in cases of date rape, perpetrators are “often casual friends or an individual that victims are familiar with.”  Despite this, Chabota still calls on women “to take precautions on how they entertain themselves”.

Make it make sense

Chabota, it appears, is not alone in espousing such views.  According to another Mmegi report, following the arrest of several men who publicly sexually assaulted a woman at the Gaborone Bus Rank in 2017, Borakanelo Police station commander, superintendent Mothusi Phadi “called on women to consider wearing clothes that will appear appropriate in other people’s eyes, despite having the right to wear what they want” in order to help curb instances of sexual violence. If such views are widely held within the police service, it is unsurprising that Zinedine was told that nothing could be done about her case. These utterances suggest that the Botswana Police are not adequately prepared to assist victims who are assaulted whilst intoxicated/drugged, or scantily dressed, given that they place so much emphasis on the behaviour of victims, rather than the actions of perpetrators.

It must be understood that it was in this context that Zinedine, as a last resort, outed the accused. While it remains a controversial tactic, when a victim/survivor publicly names a perpetrator, it could provide some protection to others who may encounter that individual. Perpetrators who have powerful families, wealth, social capital, or other forms of privilege, are easily able to wield their power to silence their victims. In some cases, they may use tools supposedly created to ensure justice – such as defamation law and interdicts – in order to clear their names.

I don’t know how this will help or what it will change, but I pray that this will protect someone in the ways I wasn’t.— TheRealZinedine (@ZinedineGioia) January 7, 2019

In of itself, naming and shaming cannot prevent sexual violence. However, it may create a dent in the perpetrator’s reputation, taking away some of the social power which allows them to harm others without facing consequences. As Annalise Keating (the lead character in How To Get Away With Murder), says,

“When a woman says she was raped, the law rarely takes our side…so we take other actions, protect ourselves in a way we know the system never will.”

Words like these: reflections on writing & thinking about sexual violence

TW: sexual violence

I write about sexual violence a lot. This is a post about the experience of dedicating so many words to rape and other forms of violation. This is a home for the unfinished/unfinishable thoughts I have between writing.

A dark cloud of words
The first and heaviest difficulty of writing about sexual violence is that it hurts people. My words can be reminders of things people don’t want to remember. I understand why. I’m sorry.
Writing/Willfulness
For some, my words are an inconvenience. Press release upon press release. Lawyers and PR machines. They use all the words they have to cling to their power. I use mine as memorials for the resistances I’ve known.
My silence has never protected me. My words are vulnerable too. I’m reminded of this whenever I use the word ‘allegedly’ to describe something I know to be true.
Wordless feelings
I’ve been interviewing women about sex and consent for my Master’s research. A lot of this has been hard because, while rape and sex are not the same thing, many of our introductions to sexuality involve violation. It’s a really confusing space to work in, conceptually, because there’s a myriad of ways to be violated and so many of those do not immediately lead us to the words: #MeToo. Sometimes, all we have is confusion or shame or feeling like everything is out of control. Some things are difficult to name. Some feelings have no words. Labels like ‘rape’, ‘abuse’ and ‘sexual assault’ get stuck at the back of our throats.
Or words that don’t feel quite right
Another challenge I’ve faced when writing about sexual violence is figuring how to write about people who’ve been violated in a way which doesn’t reproduce the ‘spectacle’ narrative. Part of the stigma of sexual violence is the idea that something about your identity is changed and that you’re damaged forever. The labels ‘survivor’ and ‘victim’ reproduce this. The word ‘survivor’ has so much pressure of being resilient attached to it – it’s like saying you were supposed to be destroyed by this thing but you overcame it. ‘Victim’ on the other hand, has connotation of weakness – you are allowing this thing to destroy you or this thing destroyed you and now you’re not as valuable. I respect everyone’s choice to identify as one or the other, but what happens when you don’t want to identify as either? There should be a space for that somewhere. Why should we have to define ourselves based on someone else’s actions anyway? Writing about victims, survivors, victim-survivors and victims/survivors feels like reducing a person to that experience. I’m still looking for words that don’t have this effect.
Words coming up short
Sometimes it feels like one’s value for speaking out about experiencing sexual violence is based on the strength projected onto them. When people speak about horrible things they’ve experienced, and others respond commending their strength, it feels shallow: like a non-engagement with the reality of the person’s experience. It feels like people can just post “Wow, you’re so strong” and go – but speaking up about a violation doesn’t mean the pain is over, or that you no longer need support.
A lot of times, to get to the admirable strength stage, there have been many weeks/months of terror, anxiety, shame, self-blame where you weren’t strong and there was no support. It would be so radical if we could create cultures where people who are violated struggle to blame themselves, rather than being so ashamed they are terrified to speak honestly about the pain. People shouldn’t only be recognized when they post a status, especially when the grieving stage of violation is so everyday. A commitment to supporting each other offline is super important. We need to be prepared to be the first person someone opens up to. We need to be a culture that is a safe landing space for people with unfathomable pain.
On Rage
“I have tried to learn my anger’s usefulness to me as well as its limitations” – Audre Lorde
In my writing, I have learned to negotiate with my anger, especially so that the people whose stories I am trying to amplify aren’t drowned out by my feelings. This is usually hard, because there’s a lot of rage, because there’s a lot of injustice. Ultimately, the responsibility of the writing weighs more than the rage.
Sometimes, seeing people angry about sexual violence has been affirming. Other times, it’s felt disempowering – especially when it seems like the violation become a spectacle. It is sometimes tiring to hear the chorus: “How could this happen?”. When do we stop asking how, and answering the question? What do we do with all of this rage?

Esther Ramani responds to “In conversation with Bettie, a ‘victorious’ rape survivor”

Esther Ramani's response to a piece written by Luzuko Jacobs, UCKAR's Communications director. Luzuko's piece appeared in UCKAR's Toplist and also in Grocott's Mail and was titled  “In conversation with Bettie, a ‘victorious’ rape survivor” (Grocott’s Mail, September 29, 2017, page 11 & available online here). I've reproduced Ramani's response here as it was previously unpublished:

Do the scare quotes around the word ‘victorious’ in the title of Luzuko Jacob’s story about Bettie make it more palatable? It does show that the writer is sensitive to the irony of calling any rape survivor ‘victorious.’ But is this enough?

Is there even such a thing as victory for someone who has been violently abused? I imagine that the trigger warning accompanying this story recognizes the power of a single act of dehumanization to relentlessly haunt you down the dark tunnels of your mind. To call any rape survivor ‘victorious’ is the worst kind of ‘rape porn,’ designed to lull you into a feeling of safety that if you only report your rape, all will be well and you can get on with your life!

But what irks me, is that this story, written in the most cliched and lurid prose, does not address the issue of why rape occurs at all. It makes it seem that the perpetrator has a character flaw that made him unable to control his sexual urges and spiked her drink, and that the survivor is a woman with trust and faith in a system that will never fail her, if she only reports her rape to the correct authorities!

It makes Bettie into a revengeful young woman who was bent on getting ‘the little bugger.’ By the way, which rape survivor would call her rapist ‘the little bugger’?

The problem with this article is that it assumes, and deludes readers into assuming, that UCKAR has all the systems in place to deal with rape; that the disciplinary processes at UCKAR are clear and transparently implemented, that all rapists will be caught and convicted. What is preventing rapists from being convicted, the article tells us, is the silence of the victims/survivors! If only they would report their rapes, identify their rapists, be prepared to confront the perpetrator in a university disciplinary process, then justice will be done! It seems to me that this story is more about the victory of UCKAR than about Bettie! It does nothing to address the issue of why women do not report rape and sexual abuse.

Bettie’s advice to potential rape victims/survivors is three-fold: Trust that the university is behind you; don’t be naive and finally, look after yourself!

Even if UCKAR had all the necessary systems in place, the approach to rape as a private/individual matter between two people, fails to take into account the systemic forces at play that make rape a crime of power and not one of just desire and sexuality. It fails to address the entrenchment of patriarchy in our societies, of social and economic injustices that deny people their humanity, it fails to reflect on what institutions like UCKAR can do to foreground rape culture as a context in which people with power feel entitled to abuse people less powerful than they.

What forms of gendered everyday practices make rape happen? What social activities and leisure time engagements create and foster a rape culture? What kinds of conversations need to happen to target rape culture? In what spaces? What views of masculinity encourage more humane relations between people?

These and other pressing issues have been raised time and time again by various groups of academics and students at UCKAR. As a result largely of the RU Reference list protests in 2016, the University supported the setting up of a Sexual Violence Task Team, (SVTT) which involved voluntary weekly meetings between almost 50 staff and students, and resulted in a report which was presented to UCKAR management in December 2016. The approach of the report was underpinned by ideas of social justice, restorative and reparative justice and the recommendations, drawing also from the Sexual Harassment Policies of other institutions, are far-ranging and far-reaching. It includes curriculum changes that might address gender and power, the establishment of a Sexual Harassment Office under a more general Harassment Office, overseen by the Vice Chancellor. To this date, nine months down the line, there is no information from Senior management about whether the SVTT report will be taken seriously, when and how it will be implemented!

In the meantime, three women who were part of the RU reference list 2016 protest continue under the force of an interdict, sexual abuse continues to happen, and an alleged rapist has taken UCKAR to court for his exclusion from the university. It seems that Bettie’s peace of mind, and UCKAR’s, may be very short-lived indeed.

Esther Ramani

Esther Ramani is a Professor of Language Studies, multilingualism activist, feminist activist & gardener.

How ‘Khwezi’s activism shaped a generation

In 2005, Fezekile Kuzwayo accused Jacob Zuma, then Deputy President of the ruling party, of rape.  During Zuma’s rape trial in 2006, the One in Nine campaign organized a national day of solidarity with “Khwezi” (the pseudonym adopted to protect Kuzwayo’s identity). At Rhodes University in Grahamstown, a group of activists marched to the High Court in solidarity with the One in Nine campaign (the group of feminists who first believed Kuzwayo and kept believing her). A year later, members of the organization hosted the first annual Silent Protest against sexual violence at Rhodes. When I took part in the protest for the first time in 2012, the protest had grown to be the biggest of its kind in the country, boasting over 1000 participants.

In the years I attended, the Silent Protest was somber yet significant occasion. Like clockwork, the clouds would gather together above as we marched to the Main Admin building. During the day, most participants wore black tape across their mouths to symbolize the silencing effect of rape. In the evening, reverberations of Kuzwayo’s courage were felt in the Cathedral vigil, as one by one, those who wore “Rape Survivor” t-shirts entrusted the crowd with their stories. What moved me about the protest was that it provided a space to de-stigmatize the experience of rape: a platform for those who had experienced sexual violence to speak out openly.

In April 2016, four years after I first participated in the Silent Protest, Rhodes University exploded in an anti-rape protest of a different kind. Following the publication of the #RUReferenceList – a list of alleged perpetrators of sexual violence  – on social media, students shut down the campus, demanding the suspension of the listed students.

As the hashtag #RUReferenceList went viral on social media, feminist rage spread ferociously. Soon, our cry for justice was echoed by students from other campuses, who expressed their solidarity by mobilizing under the hashtags #Iam1in3, #UCTSpeaksBack and #EndRapeCulture.

Perhaps for outsiders who were familiar with Rhodes University’s legacy of hosting the Silent Protest, that rape culture still persisted at Rhodes may have come as a surprise. However, for those of us who had over the years learned of the violations of our peers, which occurred often at the hands of other students, the image of our university as a safe space had long faded.

The #RUReferenceList protests highlighted that symbolizing silence was no longer an adequate strategy for ending rape. As activist/author Pumla Gqola had said, rather than symbolic solidarity, there needed to be a social cost for raping. At a time where our faith in our institution’s preparedness to combat sexual violence had dwindled, the Reference List was the megaphone we needed to break the silence.

Months later, shortly before commemorations of Women’s day had begun, four women staged a silent protest as Jacob Zuma delivered a post-election speech in Pretoria. Amanda Mavuso, Naledi Chirwa, Simamkele Dlakavu and Lebogang Shikwambane stood in front of the president, holding up posters which read “#I am 1 in 3”, “Khanga”, “10 years later” and “#RememberKhwezi”. Although they were quickly removed from the venue, their reminder echoed across airwaves and online spaces thereafter. As the name “Khwezi” regained prominence, the nation had to meditate on the sore fact that the victim-blaming beliefs that drove Kuzwayo into exile a decade ago still plague us today.

*

On the October Sunday that we learned of Fezekile Kuzwayo’s death, we experienced a deep heartbreak; a spiritual laceration. Waves of grief and disbelief washed over us, leaving us worn. At Rhodes University, later that week, when we held a vigil to celebrate Fezekile’s life, even the most outspoken amongst us had no words to articulate the weight of the loss. After all, in mourning Fezekile, we were mourning one of our greatest feminist teachers. In remembering her, we would inherit the responsibility of fighting to create the society she deserved.

*

In paying tribute to Kuzwayo’s legacy – her courage and her intellect – we must pledge to remain cognizant of the violences that queer people, women, non-binary trans people, and HIV-positive people face every day. Our life’s work is to reclaim justice as our birthright, even when we tremble with fear. It is our task to institute a real freedom and put to shame the farcical institutions that fail us time and again. The enormity of patriarchal violence, fused with our own traumas, may discourage us, but we must remember that Fezekile also treaded this path. We must prepare to carry this baton as far as we can run. As our race heats up, may Fezekile Kuzwayo rest in peace and in power.

 

Why I don’t believe in monsters

CN: sexual violence, perpetrators, violence

Motho ke motho ka batho. I am because we are. The promise is that we are only able to exist through other people, that we should value each other despite our differences, treat each other with compassion and coexist. It’s nice, isn’t it?  🙂

I have a concern…As far as I can tell, we’re not applying the principle of ubuntu consistently. We call on it to unify our nations and uphold it as a virtue. Ubuntu is our slogan in the good times.But where does ubuntu go when things go wrong?

I’m from a country where the death penalty is legal. A hanging in Botswana is not usually the biggest controversy. By 2013, Botswana had hung 47 people since independence in 1966. This year, they added another name to the list.

Growing up in Botswana, I thought the death penalty was just one of the things that happened mo life-eng: I didn’t question it. The justification was that the death penalty served as a deterrent to crime. Although South Africa doesnt employ the death penalty, given the ‘high’ crime rate, I suspect that some may view the death penalty in the same way I did, as the ‘necessary’ response to the problem of crime.

The media reports on crime often and each headline seems more scary than the next, each crime more brutal and shocking. We fear for our safety. Those who believe in the police, want them to do more. To patrol. To catch the criminals and put them behind bars. ‘We’ want the people who threaten us to be locked away. What happens to ‘them’ when they’re locked away is not our concern. It hardly seems to worry us that prisoners could be harmed in jail. In fact, the idea of prison rape has snuck into the fabric of everyday humour. Somehow when someone has committed a crime, it’s easier to pardon the same crime being enacted against them.

Justice being served means locking  ‘them’ up. Justice is castrating the rapists (because they’re always presumed to be (cis) men) and making sure murderers get what they deserve. It’s an eye-for-an-eye.’They’ don’t belong in our society. Because of their actions, ‘they’ are not part of us.

This is where something just doesn’t feel right…

Why is it that when someone commits a crime, botho does not apply? If I am because we are, then surely I am because we all are? How can I be selective about who counts as “us”? It’s easy to say ubuntu when things are good, but why do we abandon taking responsibility for others when they are harmful? Doing this dehumanizes them – as if they have no history, no possibilities and no future. It paints their harmful choices as a part of their nature, as if only some people have the potential to harm others.

I’ve often thought about this in connection to sexual violence in our societies. Perpetrators of sexual crimes are often labelled ‘monsters’ because their actions dehumanize and hurt. One of the most prevalent misconceptions about perpetrators of sexual crimes is that they exist on the fringes of society. The reality contradicts this belief; rapists walk amongst us every day. They get groceries at the same places we do. Some of them are our friends. As we fear the strangers who lurk  in the shadows, the ‘danger’ is often closer to home than we’d like to think. And it’s too uncomfortable to confront that we could have the same capability within us, that this capability might betray our intentions.

I think that sexual crimes are the worst violations out there, but I can’t bring myself to forget that rapists are people too. I can’t say that they’re monsters, although I can acknowledge that their actions are monstrous. I do not believe anyone is born a rapist. Nor do I think that someone who rapes another can never change and make different choices. There are circumstances which lead to rapists making the choice to rape: whether we want to admit it or not, they are products of our societies. In addition, if we say that someone can never change, then we’re saying that violence is just a part of who we are and that there’s no way of doing better.

I’m struggling with it, but I’d like to believe that we are capable of a galaxy of things. That my perpetrator can be your best friend, and that the pain he causes me doesn’t make the love he shows you invalid (or vice versa). I’d like to believe that we can confront each other and love each other and create systems which allow both possibilities to flourish. Humanity is complicated battle for survival and love. Motho ke motho ka batho means, to me, that we’re connected to each other at all times. I think the connection still has the potential to help us heal, somewhere down the line.

 

*I originally drafted this post in December 2014 and did not publish/finish it until now. I have revised some things but most of it was written back then.

Chapter 2.12: the campaign against rape culture

By Mishka Wazar, for Activate, 13 April 2016

On 11th April 2016 an awareness campaign consisting of posters relating to rape culture was launched. The posters are meant to raise awareness of the policies regarding sexual assault and rape on campus, and the prevailing attitudes of management towards rape and sexual assault victims. Campus Protection Unit (CPU) removed the posters the morning after they were put up but the SRC succeeded in reposting them around the Library and Kaif area.

The statements on the posters are from Rhodes students, management and prosecutors. The SRC-endorsed posters form the first chapter in the Unashamed movement also currently occurring at Stellenbosch University. Stellenbosch began a poster campaign the previous night but the posters were removed and no other university appears to be taking part in the movement so far.

Members of the movement state that management is accountable for perpetuating rape culture at Rhodes, and these discriminatory and victim-shaming policies must change. Dr Mabizela, along with the Director of the Library Ujala Satgoor, spent the morning discussing the posters and the movement and had a largely positive reaction to the movement itself. The quotes by Rhodes management will also be investigated.

Dr Colleen Vassiliou stated that the Director of Student Affairs office is offering support and advocating for this work. There will also be a warden’s discussion to discuss these policies. Rhodes University management has also had various meetings with student bodies to discuss this.

The reactions of the student body to the posters have ranged from curious to outraged and an impact has been made on social media with the hashtag #Chapter212. Quotes like “management is more offended by our posters violating the rules than rapists violating our bodies” and “We’re tired of people only paying lip service to rape culture while perpetuating it” were among some of the responses given by those present.

 #Chapter212 which refers to the South African Constitution chapter regarding safety and dignity of the student body.

Freedom and security of the person

12. (1) Everyone has the right to freedom and security of the person, which includes the right—

(a) not to be deprived of freedom arbitrarily or without just cause;
(b) not to be detained without trial;
(c) to be free from all forms of violence from either public or private sources;
(d) not to be tortured in any way;
and (e) not to be treated or punished in a cruel, inhuman or degrading way.

(2) Everyone has the right to bodily and psychological integrity, which includes the right—
(a) to make decisions concerning reproduction;
(b) to security in and control over their body; and
(c) not to be subjected to medical or scientific experiments without their informed consent.